There’s no doubt that the use of social networks is one of the most effective ways businesses can speak to an audience. However, with all the different businesses out there employing social networking in order to reach out to potential consumers how can you ensure that your message is heard? You’ll need to get creative when it comes to staying one step ahead of your competition and to increasing social traffic to your website.
Fortunately, there are many different ways to accomplish this and here are five that you can do starting today.
1. Spread your traffic out to more social networks – Everyone is aware of the four most prominent: Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn and it’s safe to say most businesses use these. There are, however, a few platforms out there not many businesses use but are just as crucial to help with brand awareness.
Some of these smaller sites include:
· Pinterest – A visual based social system.
· Instagram – A photo sharing social platform.
· FourSquare – A location based system.
· Digg – A social news network.
If you can apply these mentioned networks, you’re able to gain a competitive edge by targeting your message at what may be a smaller, yet more focused market.
2. Make sure you have a business blog – Blogging is a terrific way to connect to your audience and it provides you with extra content indexed via search engines so that people will have a bigger chance of finding you. Social networks undoubtedly come in handy here as you can post an update to your audience whenever new content has been created. If you update regularly, viewership to your site increases. Be sure to share your blog URL on all social media profiles, pay particular attention to the networks your audience ‘plays in’.
3. Use keywords and backlinks – There was a time when anyone could create websites and throw in keywords left, right and center, but those days are no more. Google has clamped down on websites that are low quality and full of keyword ‘stuffing’. This doesn’t mean that you can’t use keywords at all, it just means that you want them to appear naturally within high quality website content. Use high quality, low competition long-tailed keywords to make your website rank well. When it comes to backlinks, get listed on business directories. The Google algorithm likes backlinks, and this will certainly help your website to increase its rank in search engines. It’s worth noting that the more people that read and enjoy your blog, natural backlinks you are likely to generate.
4. Read other blogs and comment on them – Getting involved with the social media community is a powerful way to attract attention to your business. Commenting on other people’s blogs shows that you are interested in others and if you can leave insightful and thoughtful comments with a link back to your own blog, it can truly pique other people’s interests about you. This is particularly effective if you pick blogs that cover niches close to your own area of business.
5. Put video content onto YouTube – Not just for people posting silly videos of their cat or dog anymore, YouTube is a valuable resource for businesses to communicate with people. Get creative, understand your target audience and you could pick up a lot of viewership. YouTube is owned by Google and, therefore, all content is indexed by Google. Make sure you include a keyword in your title and make full use of tags. Although YouTube is extremely popular, not all businesses are using it.
Your turn. What social media networks have you used to increase business?