Using social media to drive traffic back to your website

If you are using social media for business you need to be clear about what you are trying to achieve and just like any other communication channel, you should have a strategy. 

Often we spend vast amounts of time adding 'like' buttons and twitter icons to our website in a bid to increase the number of users and 'friends' on our social media sites. Although this is certainly a valid way to spend some of your time, it should not be the focus.

Social media exists to allow you to engage and start a dialogue with your key audiences, however, it is also enables you to guide further traffic to your website. You should be looking at ways to drive traffic back to your website, where potential clients will be able to further their knowledge about your organisation and the services or products that your business has to offer.

This is often easier said than done, so here are a few tips on driving traffic back to your website from your social media hubs;

1) Embed your YouTube videos on your website; using YouTube will generate more views. Don't forget to place your website address in the content section as well!

2)When posting about competitions or exciting information on your twitter or facebook page, do not give away all of the information in the post. Make 'viewers' go to your website! For example, “Want to be in with a chance of winning 2 free event tickets? Enter our competition here (link to competition details on your website)”. Give people a reason to go to your website!

3) Do you have a blog? If you do then it is certainly worth embedding your blog within your website and then linking to articles on your blog through other social media platforms. If you do not have a blog then it may be worth evaluating whether you need one. Blogs can allow a great opportunity to show expertise and gain the status as a credible source for information

4) If you are willing to put some finance into this venture then Facebook ads can allow you to target related social media users towards your website

5) Use social bookmarking websites (such as Digg, Pinterest or Delicious) to bookmark articles from your website or even interesting articles from elsewhere as your profile will show a link to your website. The increased number of links you have across the internet to your website the better SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) you will have

6) Comment on interesting articles and blogs that you believe your target audience will be reading. Leaving a comment will allow you to leave a link to your website. REMEMBER, your comment must be relevant to the article/post and must add something of interest....otherwise readers will just ignore you!

These are a few ideas for using social media to drive traffic to your website; it is unfortunately not an exhaustive list!

Next week I will be posting about using social media within the workplace and the potential pitfalls surrounding the implementation of internal social technologies, otherwise known as Enterprise 2.0.