Alexandra Mizels
By: Alexandra Mizels – Bayshore Solutions Marketing Assistant
For businesses, having a strong website presence is essential. But how do you generate more traffic to your website? Social media helps to showcase your brand, keep your customers connected, and boost traffic and search engine ranking. The following social networks offer the ability to employ, fun and engaging tools that Bayshore Solutions’ digital marketing experts can implement for you to promote your business.
1. Facebook:
Facebook is one of the easiest ways to build a robust community around your brand. Your content lets you engage with your clients on a more personal level.
Contests are very popular with businesses on Facebook. Growing your fan base, promoting your products, and interacting with new and current clients are just a few of the advantages to running a Facebook promotion. For more details, check out this podcast where Bayshore Solutions’ Digital Marketer, Jenni Walsh, provides several tips to running a successful Facebook Promotion.
The fun doesn’t stop there. One of the most common questions after an online Facebook promotional contest is, “Was this an effective campaign?” One of my favorite features that Facebook offers is the user insights for your company page. The user insights tab tracks page “likes”, demographics, page views, total reach, engagement, etc. Each month, you can measure your campaign’s “likes” and comments, and even mentions. This useful feature can help your company distinguish your promotion results compared to months that don’t run contests.
2. Twitter:
A recent publicly traded company, the 140 character messaging network can help grow your business by opening up the interactive communication with your audience. Twitter is a great way to drive traffic to your website. The quality and consistency of your tweets will have a longstanding influence on traffic to your site. For instance, let’s say you are the owner of a restaurant. Restaurants can tweet daily specials and you can create your tweet around a link. That message, or in this case, “daily restaurant special” will compel users to click and learn more.
Through the use of Hashtags, restaurants can post daily specials, venues can promote upcoming events and ticket sales, retailers can post coupons or sales events. But Twitter is more than just promotions, it’s a great way to have share industry news and relevant content with your audience and connect with partners.
One of the valuable take backs from Twitter is tracking the metrics. When creating a tweet, it is helpful to include a “trackable” link using tools such as Bit.ly or Google URL Builder to not only bring the user to your website but to also see if your call to action really worked.
3. Instagram:
Instagram, a photo and video sharing application, allows companies to tell their story through engaging images. Hashtags are also incorporated to this network, which helps expose your content and account to a much wider audience.
Let’s say your company is a cruise line. Utilizing Instagram can entice potential tourists to travel to your destinations. This social media application allows you to post pictures with relevant information on the caption such as sales, details, and location.
Hashtags are also incorporated into Instagram and are an important feature because not only can you create your own brand hashtag, but you can search that hashtag to see if other tourists (your target customer audience members and influencers) are raving about the cruise destination.
Instagram recently announced a new messaging feature that will launch before the end of the year. According to Mashable, private messaging should be available within the next software update.
4. Pinterest:
By utilizing the clever “pinning” technique, companies can share information on bulletin boards with other Pinterest users. Similarly to Facebook and Twitter, the goal of Pinterest is to increase traffic to your website and engage with your customers and potential customers.
It is very common for businesses to have social media icons on their website to direct the user to their social networks. If you are a florist, travel agency, airline company, clothing store, jewelry retailer, or even a digital marketing company, Pinterest is relevant for you. Any visitor on your website can “re-pin” directly from your website to their board. This technique expands audiences.
5. LinkedIn:
LinkedIn, also known as the “business” social network is used to raise awareness for your company. A valuable free tool for your company, LinkedIn can help your business by:
- Attracting New Business Clients
- Creating Inbound Leads
- Building Networks
- Keeping Interested People Informed
- Receiving Company Recommendations
- Recruiting Top Talent
- Cross Promoting Content Between Channels
- Generating More Traffic to Your Website
6. YouTube:
Creating a YouTube channel is an essential part of a complete online marketing strategy to engage your audience. When used correctly, YouTube can be a powerful tool to help build awareness for your company. Whether you are a fast food chain, retail store or financial equity company, YouTube can house your commercials for different audiences to see.
You can create trackable links of your YouTube videos and cross promote them between your Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Implementing Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and YouTube social media channels for your brand, then maintaining a healthy activity and engagement program with them is key to expanding your company’s presence online. Bayshore Solutions can build a social media marketing strategy to get your business recognized – Contact us today to get started!
Alexandra Mizels is a Marketing Assistant at Bayshore Solutions—a Web Design, Web Development, and Digital Marketing Company.