How to Increase Traffic on Your Website through Social Media Marketing
Translated from “Gde Trafic?”
Social media marketing seems like what is actually in vogue; there should be some reasons why it is trending, right? The use of social media marketing has created brands for businesses and brought about an increase in the number of individuals who not only visit business websites but actually purchase the services or the products available.
So knowing how to effectively use this marketing tool is important for growth in our business. Without delay, let’s dive right in.
What does Social Media Mean?
Social media is an online platform through which individuals interact; creating, sharing and exchanging of information and ideas. Social media fosters communication by making it easier to reach each other in good time; we can arrive at the conclusion that social media is efficient and effective.
Forms and Types of Social Media
There are different forms and types of social media; it totally goes beyond popular applications such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Briefly, we will get to know more about the types and forms of social media.
Social Networking
Social networking is the most popular form of social media; it is seen as a more casual form of social media when compared to others. Some examples of this form of social media include; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, SnapChat and LinkedIn. This form of social media helps individuals keep in touch with themselves, make new friends, even enemies; basically socializing. Compared to the others, LinkedIn is used professionally to connect with people; it could be people who engage in the same business or different businesses.
Forums
Forums are developed specifically for discussions and asking questions based on things you might need clarity on.
This form of social media is used to share thoughts and ideas. I know your thought might go to social networking examples like Facebook. However, this is different because it isn’t used to share pictures and make new friends. The forums are developed specifically for discussions and asking questions based on things you might need clarity on. Some examples include; Nairaland, Quora, Reddit among others.
Blogs
This form allows individuals to express their thoughts and connect with readers. In reality, not everyone will have a personal blog to share their thoughts. Therefore, platforms such as Tumblr and Medium exists to help individuals share these thoughts.
Other forms of social media include; video sites (YouTube), image sharing sites (SnapChat and Instagram), and social review sites (Yelp, TripAdvisor).
Social Media Marketing
Traditionally, individuals have engaged in marketing through; fliers, banners, media (television, radio, newspapers, and magazine), bricks (shops) among others. In recent times, however, this kind of marketing has been seen as limiting. With the traditional form of marketing, business owners have limited access to customers and potential customers; this is in relation to time and location.
Business owners have found a way to improve sales through social media marketing.
Social media marketing is an online platform which individuals use to advertise their product and services. Recently, what is trending is the use of Instagram and Facebook among others to let people know about their businesses. This form of marketing reaches a greater number of people thereby creating almost limitless access to customers and potential customers.
However, the introduction of social media marketing does not disregard the usefulness of the traditional form of marketing as they are still important to date.
How to Effectively Use Social Media to Market your Business
We all start a business for one reason or the other but one thing is paramount; it is that we all want to experience growth in our businesses. Lately, individuals delved into the use of social media to advertise their businesses. This is not to downplay other advertising mediums business owners engage in. It, however, is an important way to reach people and turn them from a potential customer to a customer!.
The following are ways to effectively use social media marketing as an effective tool to grow your business.
Start with a plan
This is the first step every social media marketer should engage in before putting his/her business out there. Definitely, we have heard a lot about planning; the reason why it is involved in almost everything we do is that it is crucial. Planning has to do with writing out steps to take in order to achieve your goal.
It is important for every business owner to define and know the steps to take to achieve their goal. However, without a defined goal and a plan, it is impossible to know how to get your target. There will be no way to measure if you have reached your target or not.
The following are ways you can get out a good plan; define your social media goals and objectives, research on the platform that is suitable for your business and research on competition. Also, you can get inspired while carrying out your research.
Get the right social content
In the point above one of the steps mentioned was research on competitions; this will help here. You should know that creating great content doesn’t necessarily mean creating the right content. When creating social content, you need to know the right information to give your audience. To know the right social content you have to know the following; who is my audience and what exactly are they searching for. Social contents include; images, videos, info-graphics, and guides among others.
Consistency
We should know that consistency in whatever we engage in brings about results.
In social media marketing, you should have a calendar for the posting of contents. For example, picking out certain days of the week to post contents. We should know that consistency in whatever we engage in brings about results. Therefore being consistent with the days picked will give your business result or should I say rewards! Your audience becomes involved with your business and looks forward to seeing your posts.
Promotions
To get results you have to put in the work; in this case, social media platform puts in the work and all you have to do is pay. Don’t get scared, these promotions are made affordable for every business owner.
So how does this work? Through your previously created content, you select which one you will like to use. This could also be your page. This content is displayed for a particular period on the time you want and shown to as many people as you want too. There is also promotion done through repost by social media “celebrities”.
Analytics
Most times, it is not enough to think that your business is doing well. Knowing that it is growing and having a return on investment is needed. There is a need to measure how well you are actually doing; the means to do that has been made available. Some of these means include; Google analytics and Facebook analytics
Conclusion
In as much as the use of social media marketing seems enticing; following the steps above is what will bring a return on investment (ROI). Yes, I know it might seem like too much work; to get results, there is a need to invest our time, energy and resource.
One important thing to do is to add the link to your website on your social media page. This helps people access your website easily and it helps increase the number of people who visit your website. Basically, it’s a win-win strategy on both ends.
Thankfully there are social media marketers made available to us! they make things easier and we still get our desired results. Also, it is important to note that the use of social media as a marketing tool is not only profitable for startup businesses but also established businesses.
