Smart Increases in Social Media Traffic

Social Media Picture by Mentionablehonor at Wikimedia Commons

Smart increases in social media traffic can point your small business toward greater and greater profits. Attracting followers and building relationships with these members from your company’s target audience can also be time consuming, easily chewing up several hours of your time each day. That’s why you have to go after smart online traffic.

Go Where Smart Increases in Social Media Traffic Are

Even if you use automated posting tools like HootSuite, Social Oomph, Buffer or Book Buzzr, keeping up with a handful or more of social media networks can still be time consuming. Do yourself a favor and consider incorporating a few of the following shortcuts and return on investment (ROI) practices into your online marketing and promoting plans, the first step driving the others.

• Get clear about which social media networks drive the most traffic to your website. Every social media network won’t pull in the same results for your company.  Use analytics to measure your ROI at social networks, because, again, staying active on a handful of networks takes time. If you want to be active on five or more social networks, consider hiring someone to face off to network members for you.
• Pinterest – Include intriguing and eye catching pictures with articles and blog posts. The greatest content in the world won’t get your small business much traffic on Pinterest if your content isn’t accompanied by awesome pictures, because it’s pictures — not cleverly written content — that the Pinterest crowd is interested in. Upload your small business articles and blog posts, being sure to click on the best pictures that accompany your content. It’s these pictures you want to PIN to pull visitors back to your business.
• Facebook – Add updates to your standard and fan Facebook pages. Also consider creating Groups to expand your exposure and beef up the number of times you connect with your target audience. Providing several updates a week to Facebook fan pages can really help generate increased social media traffic.
• Twitter – Consider using tools like TweetChat to host live interviews, focused discussions, chats, etc. Twitter can also be used to host weekly giveaways, coupon announcements, etc. Create hashtags (e.g. #offtheshelf) to alert followers to updated discussions during interviews, special announcements, chats, etc.
• LinkedIn – Join professional Groups that pull in lots of members from your target audience. Aim for groups that not only have hundreds or thousands of members, also aim to join LinkedIn social media groups that have active conversations. Ask and answer questions while participating in LinkedIn groups. After all, the reason you got involved with social media was to build and enrich relationships.
• YouTube – Upload and share videos. Also subscribe to channels that interest you, channels highlighting short videos that teach you more ways to gain increased social media traffic.
• MySpace – If you market with video (and who doesn’t these days) post videos on MySpace. Although it’s certainly not as large as it once was, there’s still a sizable population at the social network.
• Floost – They’re in the beta phase. If you have a blog, consider posting blog content at Floost, a place where cleverly written content is Queen.
• Google Plus – Like Twitter, Google Plus has started posting topics that are trending at their media social network. Add catchy pictures to your content when posting on Google Plus. Also be sure to add your small business website URL, bio, etc. to your profile. Believe it or not, people do click on profiles.
• LiveJournal – Free to sign up. Post comments and pictures. Create a journal of content and build followers to share content with.
• Orkut – Operated by Google. Include your company website, blog, etc. in your profile. Post pictures, comments, etc. relevant to your business products and services. Also share videos to engage other users.
• Digg – Post company blog posts, interesting articles written by other authors, etc. Build a following to increase traffic received by your company articles and blog posts. Comment on other posts to enrich connections.
• GoodReads – Designed for authors, book clubs and avid book readers. Consider using GoodReads’ self-advertising service to attract an increased number of readers to your book titles. Also (as with LinkedIn) join groups you’re sincerely interested in participating in.
• Stage32 – If you’re an artist, especially someone passionate about theatre and movies, you might want to check out Stage32. It’s a new social media network that launched a few months ago.
• RedRoom – This is an online social network for writers, authors, editors and book lovers.  Link your blog and Twitter account to your profile to keep your content updated and fresh.
• Ning accounts – There are a plethora of Ning social media sites you can join. Membership at some Ning sites is free (e.g. Book Lovers Haven Network); at others you may have to pay a fee. When joining Ning social networks link your small business blog to your profile, again to keep your content updated and fresh.

Also consider joining smaller, niche social media networks as these may drive more traffic to your small business than some larger networks. To get smart increases in social media traffic, make sure you (or the contractor or employee you hire to maintain your social media accounts) truly engages members, again by asking and answering thoughtful questions and commenting on other member’s statements, posts, etc. Build-build-build relationships. Make yourself unforgettable in the most thoughtful and appealing ways. Post often, staying active at networks. And, of course, measure your ROI so you spend more time on social media networks that pay off most for you.

Click the “Subscribe” button at the side or bottom of this post so you can always be the very first person to receive our updates!

Get Your Copy of Spiral at https://www.ebookit.com/books/0000000841/Spiral.html