Why should you bother a lot about traffic from Social Media?
Based on Statista data, revealed in March 2015, these are the approximate numbers of active users in different social media networks:
- Facebook – 1,415,000,000
- LinkedIn – 347,000,000
- Google+ – 300,000,000
- Twitter – 288,000,000
Tremendous numbers! Just to compare: The population of USA is something like 300,000,000. And all of these social media users are there, just on the other side of your screen!
There was a time when you could blog every day, SEO optimize your content, expand your audience via email and RSS and just wait. And this strategy did work well. But now it is the epoch of social media!
Shareaholic published the amazing report on traffic sources at the beginning of a year. Its main conclusion is that social media today drives 31.24% of overall traffic to sites. The shift from search to social isn’t just in progress: it’s already here (by BuzzFeed).
You just need to adapt and use all the available resources to get traffic for your website. The insane amount of traffic is what we all secretly (mostly not) desire. The following tips will help you increase the level of traffic from Social Media. So if you think that Social Media is too mainstream – there is nothing for you in this post. If success it what you need – let’s move on!
1. Craft contagious content
Easier said than done, right? Yet there are tons of articles and researches about what makes the content contagious. But, putting it simple: the content will go viral if it’s able to make people feel that urge to share it with their friends and followers. Such content promotes itself literally without any effort from your side.
People are likely to share the content when it is:
Useful/Practical
When your reader benefits from what he’s reading, he will share this useful knowledge with his friends. This will also inflate his self-importance, since he will be the one to share a wise advice in front of his friends and followers.
Funny
Yes, most of us blog on serious topics. But you can’t have a gloomy face all time reading! Add a small joke, a funny picture, so that your reader catches a break and at least smiles. Blogging is not writing scientific papers, right?
Surprising (shocking)
Add some extraordinary fact or stats. The goal is your reader saying “Wow”. “OMG!” is even better. He will try to astonish his friends and followers with something that astonished him.
I’m a firm believer that creating original contagious content is a hit-and-miss. Even monster companies like Google have failed quite frequently in their attempts to create something viral.
That is why I usually search for the ideas of viral content. If it worked for someone else – it should work for me too. Here’s how I do it:
2. Search for viral ideas to build yours on top
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9
Before you start producing content you should ask yourself a simple question: “Will it be worth sharing?” There’s a way to find this. I use a powerful tool by Ahrefs to see how many times relevant posts have been shared in different social networks.
Thousands of Tweets and Facebook shares is what you’re looking for. Play a bit with words in your query to make sure you’ve picked the optimal idea. Just don’t drop down to stealing. Remember, you’re just looking for ideas!
3. Visualize your content.
A plain text itself is not the thing people like to share, while visualized content will bring more traffic to your blog. Why visual content works better? Jeff Bullas gave a visual answer in one of his posts:
The following image from this post shows the importance of visual content in real numbers.
So it’s clear: visual information is perceived much better than the plain text. But there’s another benefit you can get from visuals: they can be shared alone from your post! Read on to learn more.
4. Shareable visuals and sound bites
It’s nothing but natural that by no means all of your readers will share your blog post. However if there is a small piece in it, that catches your readers’ attention, they might want to share it. You see? Not the whole post, but only a bite. That is the chance you must not lose! Give your readers an opportunity to share a bite of your content, not only the whole post!
And every single share like this will have a link to your post. For you it’s the same, whether they shared the whole post or its bite. Actually what you do is adding more buttons to share your post in a neat, discreet manner.
Shareable visuals and click to tweet quotes are definitely what you need!
There are lots of tools to make shareable images in your posts. As a WordPress user, I recommend Slingpic plugin or Shareaholic (which is free). They are pretty simple, but enhance the chances for your content to be shared. There’s actually not much to explain. Here is what you get:
As for the tweetable sound bites, Click To Tweet or TweetDis WordPress plugins come in handy. These tools allow you to add tweetability to any text your post. This may be a quote from a famous artist, a smart idea from the influencer in your field or your own words you want to emphasize.
While Click To Tweet is free, TweedDis has a bunch of options and numerous templates available to create tweetable quotes. Plus it can make images tweetable as well. Here’s a fine sample of what you can get:
Tweetable quotes are getting more and more popular for one simple reason: they work. Every tweet of a kind will link to your post or website, bringing more and more traffic.
One of these two plugins is definitely a must have for every blogger. I have both (actually why not?).
5. Ask, and it will be given to you
It’s quite surprising, why numerous people don’t use a call-to-action within their content? Shy? Maybe. Too proud? Most likely. But I am sure you are results oriented. Moreover, you will lose nothing if you just ask.
If you want more traffic – ask for it!
Ask your readers to share your post, engage them to write comments, appeal to their feelings and softly push them in the direction you need.
Do you know what a child does when he or she wants ice-cream? Asks for it! So why do grown-ups ignore such option? Of course it does not work everywhere in your life, but when there are monstrous amounts of potential ice-cream traffic around, why not to ask?
What if your call-to-action is the only thing your readers need to click a share button?
Always think about the power of Social Media while Marketing your Content. I’m pretty sure this trend will keep on growing.
I’m sure that each of you found something useful in this post. Go ahead, share it, write your ideas and opinions in comments. And good luck to you!
Author: Nick Churick
Courtesy: http://www.advancedwebranking.com
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.