In this post, I’m going to show you 10 easy ways that you can utilise various social media platforms in order to drive traffic to your blog and grow the size of your audience.
Many bloggers make the mistake of believing that simply writing blog posts is enough to engage their audience. Without promoting them to a captive audience on social media, however, you are missing out on a world of opportunity.
In this post, I’m going to show you 10 easy ways that you can utilise various social media platforms in order to drive traffic to your blog and grow the size of your audience.
1. Learn which social media platform works best for you
Different audiences hang out on different social media platforms. A mature, B2B audience for example, is likely to spend time on LinkedIn, while teenagers are more likely to follow Instagram and Facebook.
Tip: Try sharing your posts on different platforms and measure engagement rates then double down on the platforms that are driving traffic and engagements.
2. Link social media pages directly to your blog, and vice-versa
It might seem logical to link your social media pages to your main website, after all, this is what is most likely to drive leads and conversions. Linking to your blog, however, is a great way to drive people to content they are more likely to share and engage with. Similarly, it makes sense to ensure that people can find your social media pages from your blog.
Tip: Having links to social media right on your blog will allow visitors to find your social media pages easily, so that those already engaged on your blog can also follow you on other platforms.
3. Make content shareable
By making sure that people have the ability to quickly and easily post a link to your blog posts on their social media platforms, you will ensure that they get the maximum amount on traction.
Tip: Make sure that sharing links for all your social media sites are enabled on posts, there are several WordPress widgets for this.
4. Share multiple times
One of the biggest mistakes bloggers make is simply sharing posts on social media once. According to this post from Kiss Metrics, sharing posts several times is a great way to ensure that you get the maximum social value out of your blog content.
Tip: To avoid spamming, and losing followers as a result, ensure that each social media update has an entirely different message. You can also experiment with sharing at different times of the day and using Hashtags to appeal to different audiences.
5. Make content tailored to each social media platform
Your blog probably has its own style of content, but that style might not be suited to every social media platform. For example, if you want to promote your blog on Instagram you can only use pictures, for Twitter, only up to 140 characters and images to drive click through. Different platforms also just fit a different styles of content.
Tip: Take a snippet from some of the most compelling copy from your blog post and use this as the copy for Tweets and Facebook updates. Through monitoring click through rates you should be able to determine which types of updates are most likely to get a reaction from your audience.
6. Automate updates
Finding the time to write blog posts is for most people difficult enough, without having to update a number of social media profiles as well. Don’t worry, because there are services such as Hootsuite and Buffer that can help you to queue up updates for sharing across platforms.
Tip: Test and learn by sharing updates at different times of the day, using different copy each time.
7. Mention influencers
If you have referenced a source in your blog post, be sure to mention them in your social media updates. This will both increase the credibility of your updates and if you are lucky, lead to them sharing with their followers so your post will gain extra traction.
Tip: Use Followerwonk to find influential Twitter accounts and include an @ mention to them in your updates.
8. See what people are sharing
By looking at the type of content people are already sharing on social media you can gain insights into what will work for you.
Obviously, simply copying other people’s content is unlikely to be successful, however, you can usually see patterns and trends in the words and phrases that have been used in titles and you can use this insight to shape your own content and guarantee the best possible chance of exposure.
Tip: Enter a keyword or competitor site info Buzzsumo to see the most shared content in your sector.
9. Use Hashtags
Hashtags are a great way to get your content noticed, so consider adding terms that are relevant to your content. This post, for example, might benefit from Hashtags such as #blogging #socialmediastrategy.
A word of caution, however, it can look unprofessional to overstuff posts with hashtags – and some sites, like Tumblr, only track the first five Hashtags anyway.
Tip: Check hashtags before you use them. The best thing to do is to look through each platform’s trending tags (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all have sections where you can find these), and then try to tailor a few posts to fit those tags.
10. Be consistent, and don’t give up!
The key to success with both blogging and social media is to consistently produce insightful and informative content. Success won’t happen overnight, it takes patience and dedication, but if you follow the tips above you should be off to a great start!
Tip: Put in place a content calendar to help you keep your content production and promotion organised.
Image courtesy of Sean MacEntee
Martin Harrison
Works at Copify