Alas, our time has come to a close. This is part 4 of our 4 part blog series, “4 for All and All for Social Media.” To learn about the best social media platforms for customer interaction, click here.
We hope that you have gained tremendous insight during this series on how your company can best use social media to grow your brand. To bring our series down the home stretch we are reviewing which social media platforms are in the fast lane, and which ones may take you a while to get to your final destination.
To truly get your brand in the fast lane of social media you must keep in mind the power of Google and how it drives traffic to your business. Its recent updates for crawling and indexing algorithms have placed a focus on social media posting and interaction. Indeed, regular updates across a variety of social platforms can help increase your rankings within search results.
In terms of traffic generation, which social platforms will lead to empty avenues and which ones will bring the equivalent of the 5pm commute?
Empty Avenues:
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Instagram’s primary currency is pictures and videos. Beyond that, it provides no means of creating referral traffic. Links are not clickable within Instagram posts, which can ultimately cost your brand opportunities for generating traffic to your website or company blog.
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Slideshare can generate referral traffic to your brand but the entire means of compelling viewers to get there is not as seamless as it is on other networks. For best results, embed links to your brand throughout your presentation to encourage viewers to visit your website.
Steady Flow:
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Google+ is steadily inching upwards for generating traffic to websites. During the last half of 2013, Google+ delivered an increase of 19% in referral traffic, and additional reports indicate that this trend will continue.
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LinkedIn, the professional social network, does generate a decent amount of referrals for users; however, it is not the top-ranked source for such.
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YouTube still holds out over Google+ and LinkedIn, but its referral traffic took a nosedive of about 35% in 2013. The key to YouTube success for traffic generation is by optimizing your channel with meta-tagging and keywords.
5 PM Commute:
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Facebook has steadily maintained its top position as a website traffic referrer. The network employs a special algorithm within the social platform that actually pushes engaging content higher within users’ news feeds.
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Pinterest has made great strides in producing website traffic in the past year. Recent reports indicate that Pinterest’s referrals to websites rose by a whopping 89%. This puts the site on the fast track to getting your brand going in the right direction towards traffic generation.
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Twitter is still a top contender for delivering referral traffic. Its influence is actually continuing to grow in this area. The use of photos and videos in Tweets is leading to a considerable increase in click-ability.
The most important thing to keep in mind when trying to increase your website’s traffic is that your audience will only trust an expert. Make sure all of your content is relevant, engaging, and thoroughly proofread to help gain more website visits.
Social media is a resource-rich tool to help your brand grow online. Gaining direct customer interactions, strengthening SEO, and establishing brand awareness are among the top reasons why your company should employ a strategic social media plan. Learn more about what social media marketing can do for your brand today with On Target.
