Social media marketing is about effectively communicating your brand though social media sites to get more traffic or leads. Proper handling of these sites will boost the popularity of your business and result in greater patronage from users who visit your website.
Here are 10 effective social media marketing strategies that you can use to help increase your web traffic:
1. Having accounts on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites.
The immense popularity and universality of these social media sites makes it ideal for promoting your products. You can easily create a Facebook or Twitter account featuring your products. The page can act like a mini website and chatroom which provides useful information such as product descriptions, location of stores, contact information, and most of all, market responses. Facebook and Twitter will always have a wide audience that will most likely visit your page. Post often and respond promptly to comments of visitors. This serves as a way of reaching out to your market. Other useful platforms to consider are Instagram and LinkedIn. 
2. Monitoring all sites regularly.
Check often for audience responses, especially those with questions posed to you. Tabulate the information using your social media management tool in order to check for effectiveness of your campaigns and traffic volume. Especially take note of “likes” as well as where they are generated. Also check out the pages of rival products to give yourself an idea of where you stand as far as competition and market share are concerned.
3. Advertising on social media sites.
As a marketer, you should not be afraid to spend for advertising on Facebook and other social media sites. A few dollars will create much visibility for your product, since Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites have a huge user population all over the world. As with any other medium, online advertising does have its own risks but still worth the investment.
4. Maintaining service quality.
Customer service should be practiced anywhere, even in social media. Be consistent with your quality of service, and keep improving it. Consider suggestions from your audience and where you might be able to apply them. Show your audience that you are always open to their ideas. Service quality is especially important when having to deal with negative tweets or posts from your followers, particularly customer complaints. Remember that news travel fast and one false move, no matter how small, can make your company go south.
5. Updating content often.
Nothing frustrates your audience more than to find out that the information you have on your Facebook page is out of date. Remember that posts and tweets show dates. Old dates, even those done a few months ago, give them the impression that your company has actually gone under or no longer exists. Post regularly, even just to greet them.
6. Employing interesting, strange, or funny material into your post.
People are always attracted by unusual or humorous material, and will respond almost instantaneously to such, even if they are not patrons of your brand. While this tactic may seem like a gimmick, it does help make your product get a spot in people’s minds, and even change any negative perceptions about it.
7. Pinning and highlighting posts.
In Facebook, it’s about clicking “Pin to Top” after you successfully post something significant. It keeps that particular post as the first one that visitors will see and thus reach a wider audience. Similarly on Twitter, you pin your tweets to keep them visible to anyone. You can always replace your pins with something else. To make your life easier, set up auto-updates of your posts.
8. Encouraging sharing and tweeting.
On Facebook, place a short reminder to your followers to share the post if they liked it. On Twitter, encourage your followers to retweet your post or promo. This will really increase the chance of your post go viral if it reach some influencers and will let your brand become more visible.
9. Maximizing the use of schedulers.
Let your social media management app do the job for you even during your sleeping hours. Use the scheduling feature of your social media management app to set up schedules of posts and tweets. Also set up auto-tweets, especially for old but still useful posts. We utilize Hootsuite for many of our Tweet posts and find it highly useful and effective.
10. Following your target audience.
It’s being at the right place and time. Know the behavior of your target market very well and keep track of the social media sites they frequently hang out. For instance, business professionals would most likely be in LinkedIn, homemakers and crafters may have Pinterest accounts, and foodies would post their restaurant experiences on Instagram.
Have any other strategies you use to get your company more leads or traffic? Please let us know in the comments.
