How to use social media to generate more traffic on the website?

The website of a company is now much more than just a digital business card. But without traffic, even the best website does not achieve its objective. Social media can help generate traffic - these five tips tell you how.

Digital business card, acquisition tool or even communication with your own community - websites are real hubs, with the help of which the entire customer contact is directed via all possible channels, both online and offline. Equally high is the effort involved in managing them, from programming to filling with content and maintaining customer contact. 

Social media is not only a great way to interact with your own audience, it also has a positive impact on organic discovery. The costs are manageable and with the right moves a snowball effect is created, which pushes not only the website but also the brand forward. But how can social media best be used to generate more traffic on the website?

1. Be represented on the channels of your target audience

Deciding on which channels a company wants to be present poses a challenge to many marketers. The ever-growing landscape of online channels makes it difficult for them to explore exactly those channels that are really relevant. 

But the solution is almost obvious: namely, where the target group is active. With skillful monitoring, the channels can be monitored to discuss the brand, a new product or even an entire industry. From these findings, specific decisions can be deduced to be present on exactly these channels and to become part of the conversation. In this case: quality instead of quality.

2. Publish useful content on your channels

Content with real added value does not only captivate readers, but also lets visitors return to the website again and again. Content Marketing is one of the most important pillars of a holistic marketing strategy. 

Content not only ensures organic discoverability, but also the perception of being an authentic expert in the field. Good content thus offers the opportunity to spread it over its own channels. In particular, well-placed call-to-action prompts increase the likelihood that visitors will spend longer on the site and more frequently click through content. 

For example, website visitors should be motivated to share content in their own network. Exciting articles that refer to current trends or discussions can be spread well across the various channels. UTM coding can then be used to measure how many people have clicked on the site from social contributions.

3. Use visual content and promote interaction

It is no longer a secret that social media is subject to different, constantly changing algorithms. Every brand is anxious to reach as many people as possible. But the project does not always fall on fertile algorithms ground. 

However, one thing is certain: Relevant content always performs better and can be spread much better. Interaction is also important here because messages with lots of platform interaction are marked as successful. The top priority is also answering all incoming responses, and holding the conversation. 

Visual content is 60,000 times faster recorded as textual content and rated much better in social media. But also with other types of posts positive attention can increase. Photos of new employees or corporate events provide exciting insights behind the scenes.

4. Plan your postings

Social media contributions should be pre-planned as much as possible. In the meantime, professional social media management tools have already been established that offer the possibility to organize messages via a content calendar. 

This keeps the differences between different topics, contributions and channels transparent and easy to understand. With such a plan, the visibility also increases, because the regular recording of topics is ensured. But how many posts have to be to be present but not over present? Because that too has an impact on the frequency of the website. Policies vary, but in general, we expect a maximum of two posts on Facebook per day, one on LinkedIn, and a maximum of four tweets per day.

5. Monitor your social media activities

Of course, to measure the ROI of a social media investment, it is important to analyze this activity. Above all, statistics that offer the platforms for corporate accounts or a monitoring tool with extensive evaluation options are helpful. 

Which contributions were successful? Where is the need of your target group? What do competitors do? And which topics live in and around their market? 

The differences are individual to each organization, but these insights are of great value to their own social media strategy. Since sharing UTM content on your own website is recommended, Google Analytics also makes it clear what posts contributed to site traffic.