How to use a social media marketing plan to drive traffic to your website or blog
Using a social media marketing plan has to be one of the most low-cost, fast and relatively easy ways to get lots of visitors to your website or blog or product.
I will show you here some simple social media marketing ideas you can implement today to enable your content to be shared across the web and how to create your own social media marketing plan.
You may find this useful as it streamlines the entire process: The ultimate social media planner.
Why is this a relatively fast method for getting online traffic?
Well, because doing all the necessary work and then waiting for the search engines to rank you on page 1 (which is where the traffic lies) can take an awfully long time and you may well give up before it ever happens! These days it's harder than ever as one of the major search engines keeps moving the goals posts with constant algorithm changes.
However, with social media you can start getting traffic very quickly - after all, once a few people have shared your content with their Facebook friends or Twitter followers or Pinterest followers, you are already reaching a much wider audience. And that could happen within minutes or hours.
I will show you here some simple social media marketing ideas you can implement today to enable your content to be shared across the web and how to create your own social media marketing plan.
You may find this useful as it streamlines the entire process: The ultimate social media planner.
Why is this a relatively fast method for getting online traffic?
Well, because doing all the necessary work and then waiting for the search engines to rank you on page 1 (which is where the traffic lies) can take an awfully long time and you may well give up before it ever happens! These days it's harder than ever as one of the major search engines keeps moving the goals posts with constant algorithm changes.
However, with social media you can start getting traffic very quickly - after all, once a few people have shared your content with their Facebook friends or Twitter followers or Pinterest followers, you are already reaching a much wider audience. And that could happen within minutes or hours.
Step 1 for your social media marketing plan
This step is such a quick way to start getting a presence on social media sites - simply go to a site like Addthis.com and open a free account (they have a pro version too but the free one is great).
- At the top right hand corner of the page after you have signed up and signed in, you will see a 'profile' tab.
- This is where you can add the name of each website or blog you want to get traffic to.
- Next step is to go to the 'toolkit' icon in the left column.
- There you will find a great selection of ways you can add 'sharing' buttons to your site. Choose the one that suits you best and then decide which side of your site you want the buttons to appear and so on.
- Then choose which social media sites you want to include.
- Then click 'activate'.
- Now simply add the code they give you to your website.
It gets even better though - you can also use their 'follow' icons, a conversion welcome bar like the one you can see at the top of this page, and a recommended content feature which is excellent. They are all in the 'toolkit' and you simply need to choose which you want and activate them and add the code to your site's pages.
The 'summary' icon in the left column will show you how many shares and to which social media site you have had on any given day. Invaluable!
An example of how this first step of your social media marketing plan can rocket your tarffic
Here's 1 social media marketing idea: Let's take a quick peek at how just one social media site works and how it could affect your business for the better.
You have no doubt heard of digg.com but do you know how it can help your website's or blog's traffic?
Let's say you, or someone else, submits some of your site's content to Digg (your site's visitors will do this with content they like if you have included Digg in your social media sharing buttons like I have on the right hand floating sidebar).
If other people on Digg like the content they will 'digg' it -
in otherwords give it a 'thumbs up'. If lots of people do
this your content has a chance of reaching Digg's homepage. And if that happens, boy, will you know about it as they get a ton of users!
Now the chances of making the homepage may be slim but you get the picture.
Imagine now that someone likes your content and they use the Facebook share icon to share the content with their friends.
What if they have 300 friends and then some of them also like the content and share it with their 300+ friends...
I am sure you can see the power of creating great content that people can then easily share using simple-to-use share buttons!
You have no doubt heard of digg.com but do you know how it can help your website's or blog's traffic?
Let's say you, or someone else, submits some of your site's content to Digg (your site's visitors will do this with content they like if you have included Digg in your social media sharing buttons like I have on the right hand floating sidebar).
If other people on Digg like the content they will 'digg' it -
in otherwords give it a 'thumbs up'. If lots of people do
this your content has a chance of reaching Digg's homepage. And if that happens, boy, will you know about it as they get a ton of users!
Now the chances of making the homepage may be slim but you get the picture.
Imagine now that someone likes your content and they use the Facebook share icon to share the content with their friends.
What if they have 300 friends and then some of them also like the content and share it with their 300+ friends...
I am sure you can see the power of creating great content that people can then easily share using simple-to-use share buttons!
The plan itself + which social media sites work best
Okay, so you have added the social media buttons just like I have described above and you have followed my 8 traffic tips too. Now what?
- Decide how much time you have in a week to put into your social media marketing plan.
- Choose which social media sites you want to focus on - will it be Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and so on?
- Learn exactly how to get the best results from each of these platforms (follow the links on my traffic page at the end of each section).
- Create a timetable dividing up your available time into sections, one for each social media site you will be focussing on.
- Write down the main activities you will do for each and then fill that in on your timetable.
Example:- How many Tweets per day
- How many new pins a day for Pinterest
- How many Facebook posts a day
OR work the SMART way and get a robot to do all this for you - It will also show you which hashtags to use, create viral content for you, and bascically rocket the number of followers you have; Click here to find out more
Also decide if you will be using advertising on Facebook/Twitter etc and make sure you know how to get the best out of an ad campaign before you start throwing money at it.
In my experience it's better to spend the money on an automated social sharing system that does REAL shares so that you aren't spending all day on Twitter and facebook etc.
Adverts can be useful to get a new page off the ground however.
Monitor the results (use a site like Stacounter.com for in depth results and data) so you can see which sites are working best for you and sending you the most visitors. Then you know which to focus on more.
In my experience it's better to spend the money on an automated social sharing system that does REAL shares so that you aren't spending all day on Twitter and facebook etc.
Adverts can be useful to get a new page off the ground however.
Monitor the results (use a site like Stacounter.com for in depth results and data) so you can see which sites are working best for you and sending you the most visitors. Then you know which to focus on more.
Which social media site for your business?
Let's take a look at different types of businesses and see which social media site will be the best fit - you can then focus on that one, but use them all for best results!
Facebook: Suitable for just about any business as you can create your own unique business page. I have many different pages for my many businesses. On the header part of your FB page you can have a button which can lead through to your website or online shop (there are lots of destination choices) and in the 'About' section you can describe your business. I like Facebook because the better your posts and the more interaction you get from visitors, the more people they show your posts to.
Here's how to master Facebook ads (in case if you want to seriously speed up your Facebook results).
Pinterest: If your website or business is very visual with lots of unique superb images, then Pinterest may work best for you. So this is for you if you have a home decor or feng shui business or a beauty or flower business or similar. Having said that, weight loss and fitness and beauty also work well as they are very visual.
Here's how to double your traffic from Pinterest in less than a week.
Linkedin: Many professional companies do extremely well with Linkedin, but it can get overlooked if you don't fully understand the different things you can do with Linkedin.
YouTube: If your site is about fitness/beauty/hairstyles etc you may find Youtube will work best as you can post fitness routine videos on there or beauty tips etc Create a channel so you can build a brand and loyal following. People who specialize in their niche on YouTube are getting millions of views!
Try them all out and see what works best for YOU.
I hope these social media marketing ideas bring you all the traffic you deserve.
Go from social media marketing ideas to how to make money off your website
Facebook: Suitable for just about any business as you can create your own unique business page. I have many different pages for my many businesses. On the header part of your FB page you can have a button which can lead through to your website or online shop (there are lots of destination choices) and in the 'About' section you can describe your business. I like Facebook because the better your posts and the more interaction you get from visitors, the more people they show your posts to.
Here's how to master Facebook ads (in case if you want to seriously speed up your Facebook results).
Pinterest: If your website or business is very visual with lots of unique superb images, then Pinterest may work best for you. So this is for you if you have a home decor or feng shui business or a beauty or flower business or similar. Having said that, weight loss and fitness and beauty also work well as they are very visual.
Here's how to double your traffic from Pinterest in less than a week.
Linkedin: Many professional companies do extremely well with Linkedin, but it can get overlooked if you don't fully understand the different things you can do with Linkedin.
YouTube: If your site is about fitness/beauty/hairstyles etc you may find Youtube will work best as you can post fitness routine videos on there or beauty tips etc Create a channel so you can build a brand and loyal following. People who specialize in their niche on YouTube are getting millions of views!
Try them all out and see what works best for YOU.
I hope these social media marketing ideas bring you all the traffic you deserve.
Go from social media marketing ideas to how to make money off your website