Today, competition for online/digital traffic is fierce.
Daily new bloggers join the flow of information competing to be found. Even if you have the advantage of already enjoying lots of visitors and page views, it is a brave web site owner that assumes that the success of yesterday will be automatically replayed forward into tomorrow. Audiences are keener and demand new, exciting insightful content in return for their attention.
Since the ultimate goal is to secure their loyalty and habit, a single visit can never be enough. To get a real return on your online investment in traffic generation you need to see increased sales or at the very least, lower bounce rates and a higher percentage of repeat visitors.
Fortunately, social media unlike SEO offers the versatility you need to keep your engagement fresh and alluring. However, it is important not to fall into the trap of believing that having a presence on social media is all that is required.
To effectively use social media to drive traffic to your website it is important to consider the following:
- Comments
If you have an online presence that includes a website it is important that it provides a facility for capturing your visitors’/users’ experiences.
You will be amazed to notice how many websites I come across that do not include the facility to leave comments. Perhaps the site owners are alarmed of what might be said. Apart from the fact that you can moderate comments before they appear, even controversial comments are helpful as they will encourage others to leave their own opinions. It will depict that the site owner has an open mind and is ready for feedback that will ultimately help them improve.
If you are using WordPress, you can use the available plugins that allow you to send an email notification to people registering on your site on leaving comments; this encourages them to come back. You can optimise this by using plugins that show additional content on your site below comments so that your visitors can explore more of your website, stay longer and get to know you better.
- Expand your reach
Whereas it is important to be clear about which social media networks you have a presence on and why, you should also ensure that you do not unnecessarily limit your engagement to Facebook and Twitter. There are hundreds of social media networks leaving aside the big five (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Google+). If your audience is online, expanding your footprint to include more social media networks means that you can use your community to amplify your reach.
However many social media platforms you decide to use, to get optimum traffic benefits they should be linked together. That is, your community should be able to share your content between social media networks without leaving the platform they are on.
- Be active and engaged
The operative word in the term “social media” is social. If you want to get people interested in you enough to visit your main online real estate, i.e. your website, you have to be first interested in them!
The one thing that most business owners using social media don’t do is listen. When you listen you get insights into what your community’s concerns and needs are. You understand their problems better, which means you can be extremely accurate when it comes to providing the sort of information that will engage them and build strong lasting relationships.
Remember, you don’t want a quick trip to your website and then out. You want long lasting interactions so that your community becomes your voice in the places where they are and you are not. They are amplifying your message and will bring new followers back to your lair to share the experience.
According to a study of 12,000 consumers conducted in 2012 by Marketforce:
- 80% of users claim that “because of social media, I am more likely to try new things based on friends’ suggestions.”
- In addition to trying new things, 72% are also more prone to switching sides and making recommendations to encourage their own friends to try new products
Earned media is the key to unlocking the power of social for your brand
- Make influential links
In the same way building solid relationships with your community members turns them into raving fans; building good mutually beneficial relationships with influential people helps convert them into your advocates.
Everyone likes to be admired and complimented on their good work. Often we make the assumption that this is either not true of more influential, high profile people or that they hear it so often that they are unlikely to be interested in any feedback from you. In my experience this is not the case. Therefore identify a list of key influential people in your industry and engage with them.
Once you have built a relationship don’t be afraid to ask them to share your content with their community. They are unlikely to refuse if you have built genuine bonds and extra exposure will have a significant impact on your traffic.
- Social media tools
There are a plethora of social media tools designed to make the job or spreading your content, connecting to the right people and driving traffic to your website easier.
I want to mention RSS feed because it is often overlooked. RSS is a “set it and forget it way” to keep your community informed.
Given that you have to be reasonably active online to sign up for a RSS feed, providing this facility on your website and using your social media to encourage your community to subscribe to it means that you can drive your more active users to your website whenever you have new information. Your more active community members are more likely to share your content.
Social media is a two way street. Traffic will only come to you if you first provide something of incredible value to your audience. Therefore create great content that has the viral effect and gets shared.
Be creative and have a mixture of images/videos/podcasts/blogs etc. so that you appeal to a wider spectrum of tastes. Evidence shows that if you provide information that is useful, creates value and share your knowledge/expertise your audience are more likely to connect with you.
Conclusion
You understand that successful social media initiatives start with an alignment to the social media marketing “phase” the brand is in. You have mastered an understanding of the powerful ways in which you can use social media to grow your brand and drive real business results. You have thought through engagement strategies. And you have even ushered in buying activity from your fans that are part of your trustworthy community.
This three-phase framework is cyclical. Continued engagement with users enables actions, stories, and messages to spread through fans’ networks and attract friends of fans to the brand page (generating earned media), helping to lead into growth initiatives again. Follow this framework and key stakeholders within your business will recognize the value and ROI delivered throughout each step of this virtuous cycle.
However, above all be yourself and be likable and that way people will be attracted to you like a magnet.
Subramaniam Krishnan
Sybyl Consultiere 
Very insightful.