|
Social Media Marketing to Increase Website Traffic
|
Dear Marketers,
I'm sure you are, like me, very tired of hearing about the "latest social media" stuff for marketing and how you need to be on Facebook and Twitter. We know this. And if you have been living under a rock for the past 5 years and need to learn how to setup a Twitter or Facebook account then by all means go learn how to do it. (You can read our blog post "Creating a Facebook Fan Page: Step-by-Step Tutorial").
There are plenty of seminars, presentations, online tutorials, and articles out there that focus on social media marketing. The advantages of social media are that it is free and can give your business a lot of exposure if executed properly. Keep in mind that it is not the end all solution to marketing your company. Social media should be a way of complimenting your existing marketing efforts, not replacing it.
How can you use social media with your marketing efforts?
Tweet your latest news that is on your website. Have you just added a new blog post? Calendar entry? News story? Guestbook comment? These are all great items that you can tweet about. Even better, post links to this on your Facebook fan page status. The goal is to get people to click through to your website to learn more by offering interesting information about things they really do want to know.
What Not to Do
Overposting. People will ignore or un-friend you. And those pesky Facebook applications that post stuff to your wall and your friends walls? Don't do it. Nothing is more irritating then seeing 10 posts in your newsfeed about so-and-so's horoscope or quiz results.
Friending people you don't know. It's always a good idea to friend people who you have a mutual friend or connection with. Twitter is a little different, you don't need to know someone to follow them, but since Facebook is much more personal you should keep it that way. It's all about reaching out to the people you know and then the people that they know.
Typos, Mispellings, or foul language. Keep it professional. You can use casual language but keep in mind that you are representing yourself and your business.
See What the Pros Are Doing
An example of great marketing using social media and the Internet is top producing real estate agent O'Kheir. His facebook posts include anything from photos of Daytona Beach to helpful articles for home buyers or people looking for condos. O'Kheir's information is ideally what someone who is interested in buying real estate in Daytona Beach would want to see. These posts are informative and do not sound like sales pitches.
ReMax Broker Ian Anderson from The Dream Homes Team offers great information on local events and the latest news about laws or tax information that affects home buyers. His posts are also very interesting and help generate traffic to his website and position him as an expert in his industry. Keep in MindSocial media marketing that does not link back to your website is essentially like going to a Chamber networking event without business cards. Sure, you may make new friends and meet new people but no one will be able to contact you later for more information. An important thing to keep in mind when using social media is your overall end goal: converting a prospect to a satisfied customer. This doesn't mean that all of your tweets or posts need to link to your website, but a good portion of them should.
Marketers tend to get caught up with how may friends or followers they have instead of the quality of the information they are sending to their followers and friends. Using social media for the sake of using social media it is a waste of your time. Be sure that you are reaching out to people who are really interested in you or your company and making solid connections and real relationships. There is no point in following or "friending" people who are spammers or just blatantly there to push a sales pitch. Send out great information and you'll be surprised at the traffic you'll get to your website. Good luck!
- Morgan Seedarnee
|
|
|
