Did you know that 55% of the global population, almost 4.3 billion people, use social media?
Imagine, if you could direct this social media traffic to your website.
Sounds too good to be true, right?
But, if you use the social media marketing tips discussed in this post, you can successfully increase social media traffic to your website.
In this post, we will talk about nine effective ways to boost your social media traffic overnight.
Ready to get started?
Here you go.
Table of Contents
9 of the Most Effective Ways to Get More Social Media Traffic to Your Website
Social media marketing is one of the most versatile marketing techniques that you can use to achieve multiple marketing objectives. One such goal, for many marketers, is to direct social media traffic to their website and, eventually, get more conversions.
If you have a similar goal, then this post is just what you need.
Here are some of our very best tips to direct social media traffic to your website.
1. Tailor Your Content According to the Social Media Platform
All social media platforms have a different purpose and a different audience. So you can’t always use the same content and the same tone across all these platforms.
You need to customize your content according to the social media platform you’re using. Here are some tips to help you customize your content for some of these popular social media platforms:
As we know, LinkedIn is more of a professional platform. So, it is important that you keep the tone more professional than casual and share content that professionals will find helpful.
One of the easiest ways to do that is to share an excerpt of your latest blog posts and a link to drive social media traffic to your website. This works on two levels: you engage your audience on LinkedIn with good content and drive social media traffic to read your blog content.
Here’s an example of a simple, yet effective, LinkedIn post where we have shared an excerpt from our blog post, along with a link to the original blog content.
Image via LinkedIn
Twitter has a limit of 280 characters for tweets. So, you need to use the space optimally and write clear and concise tweets.
Our two most important tips for Twitter are:
- Use Images in Your Tweets – Tweets with images are more engaging and work better than plain text tweets.
- Shorten Your Link URLs – To direct social media traffic to your site you need to add a link, but make sure you shorten it using a URL shortener. Such links look cleaner and utilize the limited space.
Here’s an example of a tweet that utilizes both these strategies.
Image via Twitter
Facebook allows you to create both short and lengthy posts for your brand’s page. However, it’s always a good idea to keep your posts short so you don’t lose people’s attention. It is also a good idea to add videos or photos that can better explain what you want to say.
Keep the caption short and to the point, and add a clear and precise call-to-action with a shortened link to your website. This will help you drive quality social media traffic to your website.
Here’s an example of a Facebook post with a short caption, engaging image, and a link to drive social media traffic to the brand’s website.
Image via Facebook
Instagram is more of a visual platform. So, visual content needs to be at the core of your Instagram content strategy.
The simplest way to drive Social media traffic from Instagram to your site is simply by adding a link in your bio.
Retail brands can leverage Instagram as an extended sales channel by sharing product pictures along with purchase links. You can add “tap to shop” buttons to the images of your products or other CTAs in your posts and stories.
When your followers tap on these buttons, they should be redirected to a relevant landing page. This will make it easier for people to directly go to your website, helping you boost your social media traffic.
You can also create an Instagram shop and add its link in your bio, just like Sephora (as shown below). In this Instagram shop, you can see all of the brand’s recent posts, along with links to buy the products mentioned in those posts or to relevant landing pages.
Image via Sephora
This is one of the best tactics to increase ecommerce sales and drive social media traffic from Instagram to your website.
You can also add “Swipe up” buttons to your Instagram stories to boost your social media traffic.
2. Leverage Social Media Ads
One of the best ways to drive social media traffic to your website is to invest in social media advertising.
Social media advertising is highly targeted and cost-effective, so it won’t burn a hole in your pocket while still driving results. Moreover, it will help you reach a wider audience and not just your followers, so it is also helpful in increasing your brand’s social media reach and visibility.
Want to know the best part?
You can create hyper-targeted ad campaigns that show your ads only to the most relevant audience. This ensures that you drive only qualified social media traffic to your website and double your conversion rate.
What’s more, is that social media ads are not just limited to those in-feed ads anymore. You can choose to place your ads in stories that will appear when a user is going through their stories feed.
Stories ads seem like native content and often get a lot more engagement than in-feed ads. So, if you are not yet investing in social media advertising (especially Instagram and Facebook ads), it’s time that you start doing so.
3. Add Relevant Hashtags to Your Social Media Posts
Hashtags are important when you want to increase your brand's reach and raise awareness. They help people who are not your followers discover your content more easily. So using hashtags could help you boost your social media traffic.
However, make sure to use hashtags that are relevant to your brand and industry so you can attract the right audience.
Hashtags are more suitable and relevant for social networks like Twitter and Instagram. Ensure that you don’t overstuff your posts with too many hashtags. Use no more than three hashtags per post on Twitter. But, on Instagram, you can use up to 30 hashtags in one post.
Also, remember to not use only the most popular hashtags as tons of other people will be using them. So it may be difficult to gain visibility with those hashtags due to a high level of competition.
But, how can you find hashtags?
To find the most suitable hashtags, you can quickly look at what your competitors are using. This will give you some perspective about which hashtags are working and which ones are not working.
You can also use hashtag generator tools to quickly find a list of relevant hashtags for any topic or keyword. Another great hashtag strategy is to create brand-specific or campaign-specific hashtags.
Wondering what these are?
These are hashtags that either use your brand name or campaign name and are specific to your brand or campaign. For example, if you launch a new product, you can use the product name as a hashtag for your entire launch campaign to promote the product.
It will help interested consumers to find your social media posts and links to buy that product, thus driving social media traffic to your website.
Bulgari, for example, uses a branded hashtag #BvlgariParfums for all its perfumes and also creates hashtags with individual perfume names like #DolceEstasi
Image via Instagram
4. Post at the Right Frequency and Time
Always make sure that you are active on social media when your target audience is the most active. This will not only boost the engagement rate but also generate more social media traffic.
But, how can you determine the best time and day to post your content on your social media channels?
You can either use social media analytics to figure out when you get the most engagement or interactions or you can do it manually.
Start by posting your content on different social channels at regular intervals during the day for a week. And then examine your engagement rate and check which social posts performed best. You need to consider parameters like shares, clicks, visibility, likes, etc.
This exercise will give you a better understanding of the correct times to post to generate more social media traffic. It will enable you to make a more effective decision and decide the best times to post content on different social channels. It will also help you understand the best posting frequency for different social platforms.
Once you identify the right times and frequency to post content on social media, stick to it. This will help you generate high-quality social media traffic.
5. Leverage Visual Content
Using visual content is a proven way of getting your audience’s attention and one of the best content marketing tactics of all time. This will help you get more engagement on your content, which would lead to more follower count and social media traffic to your site.
According to the 2021 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, native videos are their preferred video format for social media, followed by stories and live videos. Videos are of the most engaging content types and can help you attract a more relevant audience on social media.
Engaging social media posts, or those that are liked, shared, or retweeted, are usually accompanied by flyers. Including flyers from the link you want to feature attracts interest and is more likely to encourage users to click through. Make interesting flyers that excite your audience by using the online flyer maker tool.
In addition to videos, you can also use infographics. Infographics are a perfect blend of data and design. They are quite popular within the B2B industry. In fact, 67% of B2B marketers prefer to use infographics in their content strategies.
Images and infographics help you share complicated information in a much simpler way. And this will help your target audience understand your content better and visit your website for more. You can use tools like Infogram and Piktochart to create attractive infographics.
Quick Hack: Experiment with different types of videos like live videos and stories to see which ones work best for your audience.
6. Use the Right Keywords to Boost Engagement
When you are posting on social media, it is important to consider using relevant keywords. When used correctly, these keywords will help you boost your social media traffic because they make your content more visible to the right audience.
Choose keywords that are relevant to your brand, just like you would do while conducting keyword research for SEO. Think of this as SEO for social media.
How will this help?
Using relevant keywords can help your content get discovered by the right people. Many social media platforms, like Instagram, have an explore page where people can discover new content.
Most platforms use some form of categorization to sort content and help their users discover new content. This is where using the right keywords can help you rank under the relevant categories.
The more you increase your content’s reach, the higher your chances of driving social media traffic to your site.
Optimize your social media captions, descriptions, and profile for these keywords to get the best results.
Quick Hack: Use location-specific keywords to attract relevant audiences to your social media content and account.
7. Use Strong and Compelling CTAs
Using compelling calls-to-action is one of the most effective ways to increase social media traffic for your brand. Always end your social media posts and videos with a strong CTA.
Even if you can’t add links in some places, like Instagram post captions, you can still ask your audience to perform certain actions like click on the link in your bio.
For stories, you can add “Swipe Up” or “Learn More” buttons and for live videos, you can pin a message and maybe even add a link that you want your audience to click.
The way you can add a CTA may differ by the content format and platform, but the key thing is to use CTAs with all your social media content. Basically, direct your social media audience to the next step if you want to drive social media traffic to your site.
Make sure you use a simple and clear call-to-action and that it actually tells your audience what to do next. For an even bigger impact, use active words and keep your CTAs short and to the point.
Need an example?
Check out this Facebook post by Delta Airlines. They introduce a new service in the caption, add a relevant image, and provide a link to direct their audience to the next step. The action that they want their audience to take is to read more about the new service.
Image via Facebook
Facebook allows you to add links in post captions, so that was easy. But, for platforms like Instagram that don’t allow links, you can follow other strategies.
For example, you can add the relevant link (related to your most recent post) in your bio and update the link every time you post something new. You can also consider creating an Instagram Shop that contains images of all your recent posts and links to relevant pages on your website.
Pro Tip: If you meet the eligibility criteria, you can even create shoppable Instagram posts where you can add links to each product shown in your post image.
8. Optimize Your Profiles on Social Media
One lesser-known social strategy to increase your website’s social media traffic is to optimize your social media profiles.
This means using a proper social media account name, choosing a relevant profile picture, optimizing your bios, and more.
Let’s look at each element, one by one.
Profile Picture
If you are a brand, the best option is to use your brand’s logo as your social media profile picture. This allows people to easily recognize your brand on social media and follow you, instead of any fake profiles that might be there.
Some social networks or platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, also have the option to add a cover picture. Your cover picture should either represent your brand or you can keep changing it to promote your latest marketing campaigns.
Account Name
Your account name should be easily recognizable and easy to remember. Ideally, your account name should have the exact spelling as that of your brand name.
This helps interested people find your social media account easily and follow you on any platform. However, sometimes, the desired name might not be available. In such cases, you should at least mention your exact brand name in your bio.
Bio
Your bio should be crisp and yet have all relevant information about your brand. This includes the brand name, brief description, website link, link to other social media accounts, etc.
Also, use the right keywords to make sure that the right people find your account and it shows in relevant search results. And, mention any branded hashtags as well.
Here’s an example of a short and sweet Instagram bio for American Express. They have clearly mentioned their brand name, used a relevant account name, and even mentioned their branded hashtag. And, they have provided two different links to their site.
Image via Instagram
9. Use Quizzes and Contests
Using social media contests and quizzes is an old trick to drive audience engagement and even gain more followers.
But, did you know that you can use these to drive social media traffic to your website?
Well, you can. You can promote your contests on social media, but direct people to your website (usually a specific contest landing page) to participate.
Contests and giveaways provide enough incentive for people to visit your website, maybe even fill a form, and participate.
Similarly, you can promote a quiz in your story or social media posts, but direct people to your website to complete it and see the results.
BuzzFeed has created an entirely separate Instagram account just for posting quizzes. They have also created an Instagram Shop where you can see all their recent posts, along with the links to the respective quizzes.
Image via BuzzFeed
This is a brilliant way to drive tons of social media traffic to your website and maintain a steady flow of traffic over time. And, even if you don’t want to dedicate that much time to it, you can still post a weekly quiz to keep that flow of social media traffic to your website.
FAQs
Q1. How do you drive social media traffic to your website?
A. Use the social media marketing tactics mentioned above to drive social media traffic to your website. Here’s a quick recap, for your reference:
- Tailor your content according to the social media platform.
- Leverage social media ads.
- Add relevant hashtags to your social media posts.
- Post at the right frequency and time.
- Leverage visual content.
- Use the right keywords to boost engagement.
- Use strong and compelling CTAs.
- Optimize your profiles on social media.
- Use quizzes, polls, and contests.
Q2. How much traffic do you get from social media?
A. There is no definite answer to this as the amount of traffic differs for everyone. However, if you use these tactics right, you will get a steady flow of social media traffic on your website.
Q3. Which social media platform has more traffic?
A. Facebook is the biggest social media platform in terms of number of users (over 2.7 billion), followed by YouTube (2.2 billion users).
Q4. What's the best social media platform for organic traffic?
A. Instagram is one of the best social networks for organically driving traffic to any website, especially ecommerce websites. Due to its visual nature, Instagram can act like an additional sales channel and can be easily integrated with any ecommerce platform.
Q5. How do I get more social media traffic?
A. Use the strategies mentioned above to get more social media traffic to your website and get more engagement on your social media content.
Q6. How can I increase traffic to my Facebook page?
A. Use relevant keywords and hashtags to attract relevant traffic to your Facebook company page. Also, regularly create and share useful content to grow your audience on Facebook and any other social media platform.
Q7. What is the fastest growing social media platform?
A. Strictly in terms of the number of users, Facebook continues to be the largest and fastest-growing platform. However, platforms like TikTok have also gained tremendous popularity in a very short span of time and are worth mentioning here.
Q8. How do you drive traffic on Twitter?
A. The most important thing to do on Twitter is to post about recent events and current topics and actively engage with your audience on the platform.
Q9. Can you get traffic from Instagram?
A. Yes, Instagram is one of the best social networks to drive social media traffic to your website. You can create an Instagram Shop, add your website link in Instagram bio, and add CTAs to your stories to drive traffic to your website.
Q10. How do I see social media traffic in Google Analytics?
A. Google Analytics provides a breakdown of all traffic sources and “social” is one of the sources that it lists. All the data under this heading is social media traffic from different platforms to your website.
Final Thoughts
The use of social media is increasing and it will continue to do so. Many brands have already incorporated social media into their marketing strategies.
However, social media marketing can be very tricky. If you don’t pay attention to a few important things, your entire social media strategy can fail.
If you want to increase your social media traffic quickly, you need not look beyond the social media strategies mentioned above. These are nine of the most effective ways to boost your social media traffic.
Which of these strategies to drive social media traffic to your site do you prefer to use?
Do you know of any other effective ways to increase your social media traffic? If so, please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
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