Ways to increase traffic using social media
At the height of our technological age, social media has been fundamental in the development and continued expansion of various industries by bringing communities together. Primarily used as a communicative device, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram allow users to connect universally. Some of the largest enterprises have created their own accounts on varying sites in an effort to increase their following. These sites allow companies to enhance their presence, both nationally and globally.
Media platforms like Facebook, provide companies with advertisement space to boost their online existence and increase traffic to the company’s page. Social media also allows businesses to interact with customers and gauge interest in their product by analyzing likes, responses, and comments on their posts. Social networking has also become a medium for companies to update and inform their followers on the latest available products.
To have a successful presence on any of these sites, it’s imperative that businesses know and are familiar with their social audience. Creating content that resonates with its users allows relationships to develop between the company and its followers. Relevant mater can also help to capture the attention of other users who are not yet familiar with the brand, but do connect with its content.
Features like hashtags can help to increase brand recognition and establish a network of dedicated followers. The key to a good hashtag is to not place them arbitrarily. Hashtags with a purpose tell a story and promote communication and user generated content. According to Broadview Networks, if a hashtag is being used to promote an event, it’s best to start posting 2-4 weeks beforehand and to post every other day leading up to the event. Not only will this method boost awareness but it will also help to create some buzz prior to your event. A hashtag is successful when it has thousands of people using it and more importantly, when those same people begin to develop a true and loyal interest in the brand.
Social media drives traffic in a myriad of ways, one of the most important being: your SEO score. If you aren’t familiar with an SEO score, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This involves the use of keywords and phrases to ensure your site can be found in a search engine and is relevant to what the site offers. An SEO score relates to your rank on the list of results that pop up in response to the relevant keywords searched. Social media accounts do in fact impact an SEO score which in turn will affect site traffic.
For B2C interactions (business to customer) it’s been noted that image heavy posts generate more engagement than regular posts. According to Buffer, Facebook and Twitter posts including visual elements generate 53% more likes, 104% more comments, and 84% more click-through(s) on links. Receiving feedback on such posts gives businesses all the information needed to adjust and reframe their marketing strategies to appeal to more consumers, thus increasing loyalty and customer retention rates.
Social media is one of the best tools for marketing and advertising today. It has a wide reach, is user friendly, and in a lot of cases, is also free! In 2015, The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) predicted that the worldwide population of internet users would be around 3.2 billion people. According to The Statistics Portal 2.34 billion people used social networks globally in 2016, with Facebook as the leading platform in terms of revenue. These statistics prove how unifying social media has become and how universally accessible it is as well. The reach it has and the opportunities available for marketing and advertising through social media platforms will continue to provide businesses with more ways to increase online traffic and inevitably, gain more customers.
