When it comes to using social media to drive traffic to your website there are a couple of things you need to be aware of.
I want to create a scene for you. It might sound familiar and you may have seen this actually happen. Let us know if you have?
Let’s talk about Michael. Let’s call him Mike for this exercise. He is a Dad with two kids and doesn’t mind talking about them.
Mike is attending his friends birthday party with 20 other parents. When he arrives in the front door he begins talking about his kids, how good is my Lucy she got an A+ in Maths, oh and the boy Dylan he just broke the 100m school record. Mike grabs a beer moves around the room sidling up to other parents, and without listening to the actual conversation he starts to go on about his kids again. This process of Mike moving around the circle of friends goes on all night until no one wants to listen to Mike prattle on about his kids.
Suddenly Mike starts to notice that people are starting to avoid him. What do you think has just happened?
So what has happened, Mike has just started to socially alienate himself. Why? He is just wanting to talk about himself and his kids. Mike is not listening and looking for social clues on how to engage in the conversation, he might not be asking questions and looking for feedback to provide reflection and suitable responses.
What we see in Mikes behaviour happens more often in the social media environment with business who are wanting to engage with their audiences, but are tending to shout about their business. So Audiences and people who have liked them, will unfollow and start to ghost the business.
This whole scenario is a classic case of detracting the users as opposed to attracting users. The goal of social media marketing for your website is to attract visitors.
So what can we do as a business owner to be more attractive in the social media channels (besides showing our bum cracks and more skin)? Well here are some rules that we can recommend which will make you more attractive, and better engaged. Plus, will organically grow your audience over time.
Four Key Elements to make social media work for you.
- Make your customers feel engaged
- Create Conversations online with your customers
- Share relevant things that represent your brand
- Create captivating and compelling content for your audience
This list can go on but if you can focus on creating and developing a combination of these four areas you are well on your way to winning the social media game.
Create, Share and Engage to improve your social media standings.
Which Social Media Channel should we be using?
Now picking the right Social Media channel for your business can be tricky for some, as they feel they need to have their toes in all channels to maximise their potential. My thoughts are just to pick one to two channels and do them well.
Key Social media channels suitable for marketing
- Youtube
When it comes to picking the right social media channel, you also want to be sure about the channels align with your target audience. There are plenty of online resources available to find the right social media channel for your market if you are not sure. I recommend checking out the social media examiner as a starting point.
Should you be paying for advertising on Social Media to drive traffic.
If you have a budget available and you understand your business key metrics, go for it. advertising on social media channels like Facebook can be a great way to increase overall engagement and business to your website.
However, there are some things you need to be aware of in the case of Facebook advertising you don’t want to boost cause Facebook tells you to do so. What you want to do is set up a properly well-executed campaign. To set up a campaign There are many tactics and ways to drive business to your website, which we will cover off at a later stage.
If there is one thing you should be doing any campaign work is when you have your website built or are planning on doing a campaign in the months to come. Is to get the tracking pixels for the social media channels installed on your website, this is going to help to target and finding you the correct audience to target. As well as you can then use the data for doing retargeting campaigns later on.
If you are not sure how to set up the tracking pixels on your website, these guides should help you out.
Set up Facebook tracking pixel on WordPress website
Easy way to set up pixels on your website
No budget for social media advertising
Well, your next best thing is to create some pretty good compelling content that will attract your users and engage them to learn more and click through to your website. However, remember the four points. Make sure you engaging and having a conversation along the way. You don’t want to be the mike in the room.
Speaking of Mike, what do you think mikes’ position would be like if he actually walked into the room and changed the conversation approach to how he talked about his kids and listened before engaging. I reckon Mike would have been able to talk about the kids and the other parents would have asked Mike questions, which would have opened up more cohesive engaged environment. Mike would have walked away feeling good, and the parents would have walked away probably willing to share with other parents Mikes news about his kid’s achievements.
So next time you are about to post or distribute on social media, try to ask the questions and listen to your audience. Is your content going to be helpful to your customers and audience, will they get value from the content you are sharing.
If you have any thoughts or questions about your own approach to social media and the ways you use to drive traffic to your website I would love to hear them. Drop us a question or comment below. Better still strike up a conversation on our own social media channels, we look forward to chatting.
Photo Credits by Afta Putta Gunawan from Pexels
