How to Harness Social Media to Drive Website Traffic
Propelrr
January 4, 2023
When you choose the right platform, you see for yourself exactly how powerful is social media in driving business results.
How powerful is social media? Is there a singular best social media platform to drive traffic to your websites? Is social media management and marketing really worth it to be present on every single platform?
These kinds of questions can’t be avoided when you are deciding to use social media to help you drive traffic and boost engagements to your website.
Take it from the digital marketing agency experts, we are here to help you answer these questions and guide you through your digital marketing campaign.
The power of social media
Social media marketing involves creating and sharing content on social networks to achieve marketing and branding goals. These goals may be to drive traffic to your business website, to increase interactions and metrics on social media, or to boost product inquiries through Messenger.
The age of the yellow pages is long gone. Today, a customer would log onto their social media accounts or search in Google to check the nearest restaurant, malls, department stores or local services that they are looking for. Social media has become the go-to when it comes to brands and businesses.
Recent global social media statistics suggest that 4.76 billion people across the world use social media to research products/brands and services via social networks. Facebook, Instagram, and other networks not only provide information about an offering. But allow people to interact with businesses and candidly review the product or services, as well as how customer service is delivered.
Check out some of these ideas on the impact of social media and its influence that can drive traffic and boost engagements.
- You can easily expand your market. Social media has a global reach, this can help you easily reach your local and global target audience. You can easily achieve this when you create a website that prioritizes customer centricity. This will help you reach more target audience, increase traffic and engagements.
- Your audience can genuinely interact with your brand. Social media allows your target audience to interact with your brand. This is done by the likes, comments, and shares of your audience who visits your social media page. Your audience can also message you directly, and when you are online then you can respond to them in real time. You can also install a chatbot on your page or website so that you can respond to their queries when you are not available online.
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Social media can boost your brand awareness. Social media platforms provide businesses with a unique opportunity to increase their brand awareness. When businesses post on social media, their content has the potential to be seen by thousands or even millions of people. This can lead to more people becoming aware of your brand and what you have to offer. Social media can also be used to generate leads and drive traffic. By posting interesting and informative content, that can attract potential customers to your website or social media page.
- Social media can be used as search engines. Social media can now be used as search engines, users can just type what they are looking for in their search box. Social media users can also learn from the video tutorials or review videos by the content creators.
This can drive traffic and engagement with your brand for as long as you know how to create the right content, interesting social media page, and clickable websites that can grab the attention of your audience.
Those are just some of the advantages of social media when it comes to traffic and engagement. But the interesting question is what is the best social media to drive traffic to your website? Which will best boost your conversion?
Let us go through each top social media network to help you decide the best for you.
So, which is the best social media to drive traffic?
To help you decide on what social media platform will be the best for you, here is a run-down of recent usage statistics, user profiles, as well insights on how to use it for your strategy. You’ll find these discussed per popular platform, below.
Facebook remains the most popular social media platform. If you are looking for potential traffic that can be driven to your website alone, then this platform is the winner. In recent usage statistics, it was found that Facebook has 1.84 billion daily active users, reaching 59% of social media users worldwide. Imagine being able to reach out to even a small fraction of that user-base.
With such a massive user-base and social media power, it is no surprise that more than 200 million businesses are using Facebook tools including the Facebook Pages.
Why is it a good platform?
Facebook has incomparable reach. It’s the most popular social network so it’s fair to assume that your target audience, regardless of age, location and socio-economic status, is on the site.
But if you are especially trying to reach young adults, Facebook is the best site for your business. According to Statista, about 65% of Facebook users are under the age of 35. This captures the tech-savvy Gen Zs and the millennials. It is important to know the user demographic of a social network to help you choose the one (or two) that caters to your target audience.
Facebook also enjoys the most hours spent by users. People spend an average of 19.5 hours on the social network each month, increasing the chances of content to be seen/consumed. The longer a user spends on a platform, the higher their chances of being exposed to your content.
What makes it unique?
Facebook has a lot of services that can help businesses, regardless of size, reach their target market, boost website traffic and increase conversions. Facebook Pages allows businesses to promote and sell, and connect with their customers for free. Many small businesses opt for a free Facebook Page rather than maintain their own website.
Here are some of the benefits of a Facebook Page:
- With the largest user-base among all social networks, you can expect exposure to the widest audience.
- The interactions on your Facebook Page may be a source of sales leads. You may invite people who “Liked” your post to Follow your Page.
- Facebook offers targeted advertising services in which your content and ads will be displayed before your identified audience based on age, gender, location and interests.
- Know what’s working in your social media marketing strategy and what’s not. Facebook Insights provide data on page views, page likes, post reach, post engagement, etc.
Instagram, a Facebook-owned social network, is the leading photo-sharing app today. It has more than 1 billion active users every month, 88% of which are located outside the US. Instagram is a top choice for retailers for its platform for visual content. Recent studies suggest that 81% of people use the platform to research for products and services.
Why is it a good platform?
Instagram is just second to Facebook in terms of the number of active users. People use the social network primarily to share photos and to research brands and products. If you want to introduce your business online, you have to have a massive audience on Instagram.
Instagram is a top marketing channel to boost traffic to your website, especially if you’re targeting Gen Z and millennials. Recent social demographics suggest that Instagram users are mostly female under the age of 34. In terms of assessing it as a candidate for best social media to drive traffic, it’s worth noting that 50% of people visit a website to make a purchase after seeing an offering on Instagram.
What makes it unique?
Instagram may be a photo-sharing social network, but its most popular feature is Stories. Stories allows users to capture and post images and video in a slideshow format. The content is visible for 24 hours before disappearing. This is similar to Snapchat’s My Story and Facebook’s Story.
According to Instagram, more than 500 million people use Stories daily and a third of the most-viewed content are from brands. Instagram allows Stories by brands to “skip the line” in followers’ feeds, giving good exposure to businesses.
Another popular content on Instagram is video. How-to tutorials are favourite content among users, followed by behind-the-scenes posts, interviews and news.
TikTok
Short video editing and sharing app TikTok is arguably a fast riser in terms of the platform’s popularity. Since launching in 2017, TikTok has amassed two billion downloads to date, despite a bit of their rocky start and almost facing a total ban in the US market.
Why is it a good platform?
If we’re talking about just sheer number of users, TikTok still has some way to go to catch up with its bigger competitors like Facebook. But the one advantage that it has over its predecessors doesn’t lie in how many are on the platform, but in who and how they use it.
If you’re looking at a social media marketing strategy that isn’t just good for virality and awareness campaigns, TikTok is your best bet. Why? Because currently, TikTok now also boasts the most engaged audiences and an engagement rate is 17.99%, according to recent TikTok usage statistics.
Add to the millions actively engaging on the platform monthly, TikTok has also seen its biggest uptake from Gen Zs with the audience demographic comprising 60% of TikTok’s user-base. This makes it the platform of the new market, and valuable in terms of expanding awareness to a fresher set of audiences.
What makes it unique?
So if it’s a video sharing platform, how is it then different from Google’s YouTube? And what specific quality does it have that provides a different value to both you and your target audience?
Well, it’s simply that TikTok is a social media platform designed for engagement. If its engagement rates don’t prove that, then a look at how your audiences interact with in-app content is something you should explore.
When you go on TikTok, you’ll find that users aren’t just equipped with the usual Like, Comment, or Share button. They have those, and more. Specifically, they can engage in many ways including Question and Answers with other users they follow, Duet or Stitch Videos, use original sounds from creators in their own content, and so much more.
This makes it good not just for initial awareness and engagement, but can essentially be the ingredients of viral trends. And if there’s anything TikTok is good at, it’s making various ‘TikTok challenges’ trend or even go viral.
One of the downsides of TikTok, however, is that it doesn’t yet have any integrations for linking back to your relevant pages. So if we’re talking about strategy, TikTok may not be the best social media to drive traffic. Although that’s not to say there’s no work-around for that.
Microblogging social site Twitter has 187 million “monetizable” daily active users and an active audience of 353 million. The largest percentage of users are from the US, followed by Japan and India. While Instagram has more female users, Twitter is dominated by males (70%). If your business is particularly targeting men between the ages of 25 to 34, Twitter is a good social media for you.
Why is it a good platform?
Although Twitter’s user-base is not as large as that of Facebook and Instagram, it’s highly popular among celebrities, academics, policymakers, politicians, and industry movers. This platform is preferred by B2B content marketers with 82% of them reportedly used Twitter for organic content marketing in the last 12 months.
For a brand or business, Twitter is a useful tool to promote product launches, share industry news, seek feedback from the public, and start or contribute to discussions on events.
What makes it unique?
Twitter is a microblogging social network that allows users to post “tweets”, or content composed of up to 140 characters. The tweets may include photos or images, and links to a website.
Twitter is widely used for current events and news updates. Based on recent stats, 86% of users say they use the platform for news, and 74% of them do so daily. People use hashtags to follow and join discussions on trending news. Brands and businesses use hashtags to promote a new product or service, or to get the public’s pulse on a topic.
You may drive traffic to your website by using promoted tweets which are displayed to users still not following your business’ Twitter account. These promoted tweets may contain a less-than-a minute video that will autoplay in users’ timeline.
Snapchat
Snapchat is a photo and video messaging app that pioneered the Stories content. The platform had the slideshow-type content before Facebook and Instagram. Snapchat is also popular for its Snaps or photos or images that will “self-destruct” in 10 seconds. The social network has more than 265 million daily active users worldwide, with 90 million coming from North America.
Most of Snapchat users are based in the US and within the age bracket of 13 to 24. It’s the most popular social media among teens.
Why is it a good platform?
Snapchat can also be one of the best social media to drive traffic. Snaps, which disappear in seconds, create a sense of urgency to the recipient. Businesses use snaps to introduce promos and special offers, showcase events, and promote calls to action.
This multimedia sharing platform is effective in building brand awareness among young consumers. You may create witty ads or engaging stories that resonate with the Gen Z and millennial audience. Another good news for you is that Snapchat users spend around 30 minutes per day on the platform, helping you reach more people.
What makes it unique?
Snapchat is unique for its self-destructing snaps. The platform reported over 210 million snaps being created and exchanged every day. To further boost engagement through snaps, Snapchat launched Snapstreak in which users create and exchange at least one snap per day for consecutive days.
Another feature that makes Snapchat unique is Lenses AR. This allows businesses to create AR experience for Snapchatters and invite them for “play time”, or the time a Snapchatter spends playing with an interactive ad. In Face Lenses, a user may transform their faces by changing their eyes, mouth, head, and shoulder. In World Lenses, businesses may display the specs of a product through a 3D version of an item. This feature detects and maps the environment and surface around a user.
LinkedIn is a professional social network with more than 722 million users. A third of its traffic comes from the US, followed by the UK and India. However, 76% of LinkedIn users are based outside the US and are spread across 200 countries worldwide.
Since LinkedIn is a professional network, most of its users are people searching for jobs. More than half (59.9%) of LinkedIn users are between 25 and 34 years old, or those who are starting their career. Hence, it’s important for hiring businesses to maintain a LinkedIn account to attract the best candidates.
Why is it a good platform?
LinkedIn is a recommended platform for businesses that would like to boost its brand awareness and attract the best candidates for job posts. But aside from recruitment, you may also use the platform to promote your brand, products, and services.
Through targeted ads, you can reach the right audience by choosing among 200 targeting characteristics. Ad exposure can increase purchase intent by 33%. Another benefit of advertising on LinkedIn is that you get to reach decision makers in other businesses. There are 61 million top decision makers on the platform.
What makes it unique?
LinkedIn is the largest professional social network which focuses on business-related content. This is why this platform is preferred by B2B companies. Recent figures suggest that 96% of B2B content marketers use LinkedIn for organic social marketing, followed by Twitter and Facebook.
LinkedIn has more than 10,000 Product Pages across the B2B software category. Product Pages allow businesses to connect and build brand affinity with their customers around their products. Products may be featured with rich media such as images and videos. Users may leave testimonials, ratings and reviews, as well as request for a demo or fill out a contact sales form.
YouTube
Youtube is a free video sharing platform where the users can upload a video, and their viewers interact by watching, sharing, and subscribing to the channel.
The video length that you will be uploading in YouTube will depend on whether your YouTube account is verified or not. If your account is verified you can upload up to an hour of video or as much as 128GB. If not verified, then you can only upload videos with a length of 15 minutes or less.
According to statista in November 2022 , the social video platform YouTube recorded approximately 71.66 billion visits.
Why is it a good platform?
YouTube is a good platform for your brand awareness. Engage with your target audience screen to screen. 59% of Gen Z agree that they use short-form video apps to discover things that they then watch the longer version of.
You can even create short-form videos and utilize YouTube Shorts for your business marketing campaigns. Plus, you can associate your website with your YouTube channel to drive viewers off YouTube and direct them to your website. All you have to do is strategically use YouTube annotations, info-cards, and end-screen screen annotations.
Lastly, you can collaborate with social media influencers to advertise your website and your social media page for their followers and viewers to visit.
What makes it unique?
YouTube is the most popular social media platform when it comes to video streaming. In 2022 the monthly global traffic estimated that there are 71.66 Billion visits by mobile phone users and over 8 billion desktop users.
On YouTube you can advertise your brand and at the same time earn money – depending on the number of subscribers and views on your YouTube channel.
You can track the real time metrics, see the people viewing your ad and how engaged they are. Plus, you can also include links to your website in the description section below each video. If your viewers are interested, they may follow these links to visit your site.
Who’s top of the class?
Which social media platform should you maintain? You may start a Facebook page and a Twitter account, or just keep an Instagram account. There is no hard and fast rule because this depends on certain factors such as:
- the profile of your target market;
- your target market’s social media behaviors;
- the target audience of a social network;
- the prime content type published in a social network; and
- your branding.
Choosing the right social media platform is an important part of your social media marketing strategy. It is similar to choosing the perfect real estate for your billboard ads, you have to know the right place where you can get the most eyes and interaction.
Influence that drives
Social media is powerful for your brand’s digital marketing as well as market research. Social media is the go-to of companies and small businesses when they want to reach out with their audience in real-time or they want to drive traffic and boost engagements.
Individuals also choose social media as the platform for connecting with other people and for them to receive immediate results of their searches of the latest news, trends, and finding products to purchase.
You can unlock the true potential of social media in increasing engagement and traffic for your brand when you know how to use the right social media marketing tools and right strategy for driving traffic to your website and boosting engagement.
You are now equipped with the knowledge on how to drive traffic and boost engagement. It is time to try it out on your digital marketing and see the positive results.
Key takeaways
Social media is arguably the most impactful innovation of the digital generation. It changed the way we express ourselves, connect with people in and outside our natural network, and communicate with brands.
That is why you must take advantage of the power of social media to drive traffic and boost engagements. Check out these key takeaways on how to do it.
- Pick the right social media platform for your brand. A platform that has the most users is not necessarily the best fit for your brand. You must choose the platform where most of your target audience are the users.
- Understand your target audience. From their preferred social network to the type of content they typically consume. Match these with the social media platform that you choose where to advertise your brand.
- Consider working with experts. Do not hesitate to ask for help with digital marketing experts. They are equipped with the right strategy and tools that can increase your traffic and boost engagements for your website and brand.
Do you have other ideas on how to drive traffic to your website? We’d love to hear your thoughts about social media marketing. If you have any other questions, send us a message via our Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts. Let’s chat.
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