Knowing how to brand yourself with social media will go a long way in helping you generate more traffic to your website.
Nowadays, getting your website included in the top search engine results is not the only way to drive more traffic to your website. Search engine optimization still helps, yes, but it’s not the only thing that you should be focusing on.
With the amazing growth and popularity of social media websites, it is vital to learn how to brand yourself with Social Media so that you can claim your slice of the social pie too!
What Makes Up Social Traffic
A lot of people are still confused about what exactly makes up social traffic. Social traffic generally includes those people coming from social media sites, such as blogs and forums, social news, and bookmarking websites like Del.Icio.Us, Digg, and Reddit, as well as social networking websites like X and Facebook. Traffic could also come from review sites like Amazon Review or Yahoo Answers.
Thus, any traffic that you gain from such sites can be immediately classified as social media traffic. Furthermore, it is also safe to surmise that social traffic is generated more or less by the likes and dislikes of various people since it is the people who use these websites that have chosen to link to or visit your website.
How to Brand Yourself With Social Media And Generate Social Traffic
Now that you know where you’ll be able to get social traffic from, here’s how to generate it for your website.
Know What Makes People Come Back
It doesn’t matter if the people who have just visited your website didn’t purchase any of the products or services offered on your website. What matters is ensuring that they’ve left with the intention to come back. Social traffic will continue to pour in and don’t worry, those hits will eventually be converted to some sales, provided you continue giving them the type of information that they are looking for.
Ask yourself then: what made those people bookmark or link to your website? If you know what that is, can you give them some more of the same thing?
Know Who You’re Communicating With
It is easier to generate social traffic if you know what type of people you want to connect with and what they are interested in. Knowing who they are will go a long way in helping you to learn what they may or may not like on your website and then you can take the necessary steps to ensure that your website is as interesting as possible to them.
Look for the Catch-All Bait
Yes, it’s okay to create several variations of a particular topic to ensure that the different sectors of your target market will easily understand what you’re talking about. But, it’s just as important to create universally attractive content.
Use Eye-catching Headlines
Yes, using a huge font size and a glaring font color can make your headlines eye-catching but we mean it figuratively.
Use words that instantly grab your reader’s attention. Those words should be powerful. Why use nice, for instance, when there are way better words like amazing or beautiful? Why use the word increase when you can use the term soar, which is much more exciting?
This tip works for all kinds of sources of social traffic. With eye-catching headlines, you succeed in making a person stop whatever he’s doing just long enough to read more of what you have to say.
Make an Impressive Profile
This will work with all kinds of social traffic as well. Blogs, forums, and social networking websites all let you create a profile. Take advantage of this to let readers know more about you and most importantly of all, use your profile page to convince people to read more of your content. Here you have a great opportunity to brand yourself as an expert in your niche.
Be the First!
This tip works best with social news websites like Digg and Reddit. It’s very important to be the first to write about the latest topics concerning your website’s industry. If you are selling pet supplies, for instance, then news like purported toxic contents in a popular dog food brand would be something you can certainly write about. If you’re the first to write about it, more people will be able to link to your work since it’s the first thing they’ve seen and they will be able to use as a reference in their own writings.
And if you’re not the first to write about a particular topic, try at least to be the first to use a different perspective on the topic. That approach also works well.
Use Plugins
This is the last but best tip I can share with you on how to brand yourself with social media.
Make sure to install a plugin on your website that will allow people to share your content easily. I use Social Media Feather, but there are many to choose from, so experiment and see what works better for you.
If you would like to read more about Social Media and Blogging, click here.
Want some great social media training, this is the place to go.
I sincerely hope that this article has helped you see ways to brand yourself with social media, and if you use these tips, you will see how many more visitors you will be able to generate to your website.