The three most talked about ways of generating traffic to your website are SEO, PPC and of course social media. People tend to neglect social media in favor of the other two however, which is a great shame. If you spend just a few hours per week using social media to stimulate interest in your website or business, it won’t be long before you start to see the results.
Interaction is the key to success
Lots of people tend to believe that the secret to cracking social media is to plough thousands of dollars into a really sexy Facebook or Twitter page. Whilst having a really nice layout invariably does help, it’s by no means the be all and end all of social media marketing. In fact, when you first start out marketing on social media you’d be well advised to keep your money in your pocket – because it’s really not necessary from the outset.
The key to cracking social media is interaction. Interacting with potential customers, existing customers and the general populations on social media will get you traffic, and sales. There’s a fine line to be drawn between spamming, and interaction, but if you’re serious about social media success, it’s not too hard to find that line.
How to get the interaction going
Customers and social media users can be a tough bunch – so you’ll have to coax them out of their shells a little in order to get them to interact with you. You’ll have to think outside the box as to how you’re going to do this, but often free giveaways, discount codes and competitions are a really, really good way to stoke some interaction on your social media page. If you’re selling something on your site then why not offer a special price just for people on social media?
Another great way to get interaction with people on social media is to invite people to post photos on your page. If you’re selling hats online, ask people to post pictures of them wearing the hat they purchased from you. If you’re running a niche site selling tattoo galleries on Clickbank, why not ask people to post pictures of their ink to your social media page? There are lots of ways to provoke interest in your page, having users share pictures on your page is just one of these ways.
I don’t have the time for social media – what can I do?
There’s no getting around the fact that you need to spend a good portion of time nurturing your social media presence. If you simply don’t have the time to spare then you should think about outsourcing the task. Even if you just pay someone for two or three hours of interaction per day, you will definitely reap the rewards. One of the things to remember here is that kids absolutely love social media – so why not task your children with managing your social media presence for a little extra pocket money?
What do you think? Let me know in the comments below!