Today, social media is one of the most important pillars you need for traffic-building. According to statistics, social media users are expected to grow up to 2.67 billion by year 2018. If used correctly, social media “humanizes” your blog and lets you connect with these people on a personal level.
The only problem is that 49% of marketers think social media marketing is the “most difficult” tactic – not because they’re unfamiliar with social networks, but because they overlook the importance of having a social media marketing strategy, which takes more than just hitting the share button every time you publish a new blog post. Sure, you can bring a few people to your blog this way, but you won’t attain significant and sustainable results without a strategic approach.
Below are the things you can do to supercharge your blog traffic through social media:
#1. Use Viral Content Bee
Even the most popular social media pages started with zero social media reach. To gain quick exposure, you can leverage the reach of other social media influencers through a tool like Viral Content Bee.
To get started, register for an account and go to the Add Project tab.
Fill in the important details of the blog post you’re trying to promote, including its URL, title, and description. Under Groups of interest, select all the focus industries of your content:
Be sure you read Viral Content Bee’s quality guidelines when choosing a blog post to promote. For higher engagement, check everything under Project budget to enable engagement on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and StumbleUpon.
That’s it. After submitting your post, it will be reviewed by moderators to see if it passes their quality standards. Once live, other users can now share your content to their own social media followers.
Tip: Projects on Viral Content Bee require credits, which can be earned by sharing other users’ content through the site. New accounts get 10 free credits at first, which is great for new bloggers who need a quick boost. You can also consider upgrading to a pro account to receive monthly credits.
#2. Create Viral Headlines
Even with superb writing skills, you need to learn content optimization and promotion strategies that will maximize your blog’s exposure. Since there’s no way to show entire posts in social media news feeds, you need to focus on eye-catching headlines that will compel readers to click.
According to a study by Kissmetrics, the ideal headline length is only six words long. But since this is nearly impossible to pull off consistently, you can simply focus on the first and last three words.
Below are some tips on creating captivating social media headlines:
- Include Numbers – Adding exact figures such as “boost followers by 200%” or “earn $1,000 blogging” shows that you know your stuff. As long as you can back your claims with sufficient data, this kind of headlines instantly boosts your authority.
- Reference the Audience – Referencing your audience directly instantly forms a connection between you and your reader.
- Ask a Question – Intrigue your audience by popping a relatable question. A common strategy is to focus on their pain points. For example: “still struggling with social media promotions?”
- Use the “Shock” Factor – You can’t win your audience’s attention if you only rephrase headlines that they’ve probably seen before.
- Use Power Words – To avoid ending up with a generic headline, try to play with power words such as “Skyrocket”, “Supercharge”, and “Massive”.
- Have a Call-To-Action – After capturing their attention, be sure to include a CTA that tells them to click your blog.
Regardless of your niche, going visual is one of the best ways to get noticed in social media. Statistics show that relevant images in social media posts instantly boost their shareability.
- On Facebook, posts with images receive 2.3x more engagement than plain text posts.
- Tweets with images generate 150% more retweets than those without.
- Posts with videos and photos have the highest organic engagement on Facebook with 13.9% and 13.7% respectively.
However, you’ll need more than free stock photos if you want to get your audience’s attention. A simple way to create unique visual content for social media is to use a cloud-based tool like Canva. It provides users with templates that are preconfigured for different channels – such as Facebook posts, email, and Instagram posts.
After picking a layout, Canva allows you to add different visual elements such as layouts, text, icons, and backgrounds. The drag-and-drop interface means you can design just about anything with little to no instructions.
You can use a social media marketing platform like Post Planner to streamline visual content creation and promotion. Since it integrates with apps like Canva, the images you create can be sent straight to your content plan. Another advantage of this is that you get to track the performance of posts once published.
#4. Create Infographics
Another trending strategy is to use infographics to spice up your social media content. These are images that combine elements such as charts, text, and artistic illustrations to convey data-driven information.
According to statistics, infographics are shared and liked on social media three times more than any other type of content. However, it can be difficult to create shareworthy infographics even if you have tools like Canva or Photoshop.
Whether you’re planning to hire a freelance graphic designer or a full-service design agency, a compelling infographic always starts with the right idea. Here is an infographic that can help you with this:
Infographic courtesy of Infobrandz
When it comes to distributing your infographic, you can leverage image-sharing networks like Instagram and Pinterest. Statistics show that 75% of Instagram users interact with brands they find through the network. Pinterest, on the other hand, is a great distribution channel if you want to reap evergreen value from your content.
#5. Stream Live
Nowadays, anyone with a decent smartphone can produce good quality video content for marketing purposes. But rather than spending time and money editing videos, you can simply stream live with platforms like SnapChat, YouTube, and Facebook Live.
Studies show that users spend 3x more time on Facebook Live videos compared to other types of video content. Facebook marketing through Virtual Reality videos is also in trend these days, not only are they easy to make, they will also help you reach more people and bring more traffic to your blog. The only challenge is coming up with an interesting idea that will draw more viewers.
If you’re running a company with in-house employees, a simple idea is to provide your followers with a behind-the-scenes look of your office. For bloggers, don’t be afraid to cover something that isn’t directly related to your niche. You can stream a birthday party, a random puppy at the park, or anything else that piques your interest.
Just don’t overdo it and stream relevant and valuable videos frequently. A good example is a live Q&A session on relevant issues in your niche. You can also interview popular influencers to acquire more views from their followers.
Final Words
When it comes to online marketing, you need to be relentless, passionate, and open to new ideas that will get your brand noticed. Hopefully, you now have enough ideas to get your social media marketing campaign going. You can refer to this post for more tips on growing your brand through social media.
Good luck!
