Automatically Improve Traffic from Social Networking Websites
Are you getting (non paid) web traffic and leads from social networking websites? I am working on a comprehensive strategy to improve "Referring Social Network Traffic". The business goals of using social sites include building brand exposure, creating customer relationships and bringing traffic back to the original website. This works the same for personal branding and corporate web marketing plans. Now you can automate the delivery of content to each of the social networking websites and stay consistently activate. This results in improving your "Referring Social Network Traffic". The key is to make it really easy for customers to connect (friend) and find you on ALL of the social networks so the audience consistently increases. I think, all of your personal and/or business profiles need a consistent look and feel to ensure brand consistency.Here are some things to think about:
Your website or blog needs to have a "Social Networking" section. This area should be very easy to find and include clickable icons with text links. You can also use Lijit and automate the icons that show up on your website, plus track those subscriptions.
Make sure your company or brand is easy to find in a search query on the popular social networking sites. This can be done by using target keyword phrases or tags in the personal profiles, business profiles and groups you create. Example: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and ect should all have a consistent about me section in the profile messaging that includes target keywords.
Companies need to move marketing dollars into video. This is especially important since YouTube is owned by Google. Video is an essential part of universal search. Naming and tagging your videos with keywords make them show up better in search results. Tip - Try TubeMogul and you can upload one video, then distribute it to ten sites at once, plus tag and track them all in once place.
Automate the content updates for ALL social networking sites. For example, with Twitter you can update your status on Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, Tumblr, SocialThing, FriendFeed and more. You can also automatically make your new YouTube videos show up on Facebook. Plus automate your blog posts, events, Flickr photos to show up on your profile(s). This makes the company look active and keeps your audience's attention.
Connect with your audience with automated marketing research. For example, with TweetScan you can track keywords on Twitter and create RSS feeds out of that content. So, you can be notified automatically (web or sms) when someone talks about your brand or even a competitors. Also, Google and Yahoo alerts are extremely helpful to track blogs, news and ect.
Create viral content that is easily shareable. The biggest traffic drivers for me have been controversial articles that attract a lot of comments or people to Digg or Stumble.
A custom email signature is an easy way to express that you are using social sites. Having this on your personal or business emails will help increase your fans and friends.- [Addition] Widgets are great tools also, suggested by Justin Thorp. Widgets are a great way to deliver automated content, games and applications for a company or brand. Example: A health brand can create a widget for their audience to use on their desktop, Facebook, MySpace and personal start page or websites. Clicking links in widget and forwarding of applications will result in more traffic back to your site.
Who else is thinking about this?
Have you see other blog posts about the automation of content for social networking sites? Are you generating traffic from your social networking websites? Please post your ideas or feedback here.I am testing this strategy across the web with corporate and personal websites to see which social networking sites bring the most traffic back to the original websites. Plus, I am experimenting with the best ways to get brand exposure, plus find ways to monitor the success in traffic, leads and conversions.
Labels: branding, marketing, media, networking, social, traffic
9 Comments:
Dude, the idea of making sure your content is shareable is a BIG one for me. It was a big reason why I joined Clearspring.
What is a widget? It's a piece of Web content that was made shareable.
How can a piece of Web content become viral unless it can be shared throughout the community or conversation?
Great post!
While I don't disagree that using social networking to elevate the findability of your site, I find this method of seeding links often mentioned in SEO sessions and feel that it is somewhat disingenuous, depending on the scenario.
For example, I'm a web designer and I use Twitter, Virb, LinkedIn, etc. If a byproduct of using those sites is that they link back to my own website, and contain carefully chosen keywords that point back to me, so be it. If I post links to tutorials on Digg or Twitter, and gain traffic and "link cred" so be it.
But if your target demographic is 50+ years old, and you're talking about using Digg and Tumblr, clearly geared toward a younger audience, to seed links to your boomer-oriented retail sites... well now, that's a different story. To me, that's not even a debatable gray area — that's gaming a system for profit, and therefore unethical.
And don't get me wrong, Alex — I like a lot of what you have to say and can appreciate the hard numbers you've been able to use to improve your traffic. I have no doubt you know your stuff.
However, I think there needs to be some clarification... Findability vs. SEO (at least, as SEO is commonly thrown around by questionable individuals) is about truly, organically organizing your content so that the people searching for it can find it, right? It's not about tricking the algorithms, though. It isn't organic if the bulk of your effort goes to spamming the hell out of comment systems and social networks to gain clicks.
I just think the key here, and I hope this is what you're saying Alex, is to run a tight ship by being consistent across the board, and use social networks for their intended purpose, but plan accordingly for a potential added benefit that might result in some extra search engine love.
My friend @dstarh also recommended HelloTxt. This service enables you to update your status across all of your social networks and microblogs with a single click. View at
Hellotxt.
Also testing Spongecell for event marketing. Create interactive event pages to engage your audience. http://spongecell.com/
@Tom Finley - yes Tom, we are on the same page. I am not trying to "trick" the search engines in anyway. Your brand just needs to be findable able when you search facebook or even myspace. This can be done by creating groups around brands or subjects. Being Findable is key.
Look for more follow posts on this topic. I am doing a lot of tests with corporate companies to find ways to improve traffic on the cheap.
I think these are great marketing methods and don't feel that ethically using social networking sites for linking, traffic or SEO is ever a bad thing. If they bring me traffic and also get me SEO benefits... I don't at all see that as "disingenuous".
Great tips... thank you!!!
I am trying to catch up with all this new sites and blogs... :-)
Thanks again
Paulo Jordao
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