How to Drive More Traffic from Social Media

When I ask clients what they want out of social media, one of the most common answers I get is “more leads/sales.”

Well yes, we all want that. But in order to get that, you need traffic and for people to know who you are right? Right. Well, if those are both true for you, I BEG you, do NOT give up on your social media efforts. For some context and to get a grasp of how many users there are for you to capture, Facebook still captures 2 billion monthly users - that’s 8 in 10 American social media users. While they’re not all on the same networks per se, this is why knowing your audience is so important, because different age groups and even genders flock to different platforms. According to Sprout Social, the average user spends around 30 minutes per day on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and up to 90 minutes on TikTok. So knowing this, and then deep diving into the data of your audience and your ideal customer, and the platform demographics, there is a huge amount of opportunity if you’re in the right place at the right time.

Here’s to drive that audience back to your website:

Increase your reach

One of the key components (and goal!) of many strategies I work on is increasing social media reach and engagement. More (quality) followers (please don’t buy followers. Ever.) means more eyeballs on your content and profiles, and thus growth in brand awareness. Naturally, this should, over time, increase social media referral traffic. Posting regularly, and engaging with your audience, is a great first start to building your audience and expanding that reach!

Focus on where the social traffic is coming from

Certain platforms are better than others for driving traffic. Facebook, according to Search Engine Journal is the top platform for social media referrals. Twitter can have big influence when Tweets go viral. In contrast, Instagram and Pinterest drive the least traffic to external sites. However, this is a great opportunity to look at where your social referral traffic is coming from and focus on those platforms. (This is why it’s so important to know your audience and understand where they hang out online!)

Optimize Your Profiles

Make sure your profiles are all optimized and include links to your website - your bio on Twitter, TikTok, and/or Instagram; your about section on LinkedIn, Facebook, and/or YouTube. Your users need to know where to go if they want to see MORE of you. While some profiles only allow one link - utilizing a Linktree or Linkin.Bio - can help get around this, or you can create a dedicated social landing page. Both Linktree and Linkin.Bio give analytics on clicks and views which is helpful to track if your profiles are actually driving traffic!

Make sure you’re posting often enough

The frequency of your posts can either help or hurt your posting strategy depending on the platform. Having a basic understanding of social media algorithms is helpful here. For instance:

• Facebook - This algorithm doesn’t like when you post the same article multiple times per day. Publishing a smaller number of high-quality posts will go further here. Also be cautious about links, as Facebook historically doesn’t reward linked content as well as say, video or carousels. I often recommend to clients to include links in the comments on Facebook to get around that (many have had better success with this).

• Instagram - While those with larger audiences may find it necessary to post multiple times per day to reach their audiences, those with smaller audiences may find the opposite is true. Instagram stories are a great way to engage with your audience and utilizing the link sticker can help drive traffic as well.

• Linkedin - I usually recommend one post per day for most brands - again larger brands may need to post more frequently (I saw an article where one brand posts 8 times per day - which just seems excessive and unnecessary, however, this was a magazine and thus… they have the content to push out!)

• Twitter - you can post multiple times a day because users come back to the platform multiple times per day, also the lifespan of a tweet is the shortest in comparison to other social media platforms.

Get Shared

If your audience is engaged, ask them to share! There is truly no better social media action than a shared post to their own feed. Those shares reach a new audience. Create content that drives these shares with high-quality images, and engaging content and if all else fails, just ask!

Pay for Advertising

Listen, no one likes to pay to play, but with organic reach down across Facebook and Instagram, you can get more out of your social media buck with even the smallest budgets. Not to mention, you can target the right audiences and thus, boost website traffic and speed up those results that you want to see from social media. Facebook is CONSTANTLY improving its advertising platform so keep an eye on updates or hire a professional to help you optimize for these new features.

Listen, we all want to feel like our social media efforts are not for nothing. By setting clear goals and getting clear on your audience, you can focus not only on the platforms that will drive those results but also on content that will resonate with your ideal customer/audience. Need some help setting some goals and getting a clear strategy? Download our free social strategy planner to help you plan out your goals and dive into who you really want your audience to be.