Do Social Networks Matter for Site Growth?

Social networks are one of the most important outlets when it comes to user’s communication, discussion, and interactions. For this reason, link building and integration of various elements (most notably comment sections) that are part of them have been integrated into many of the most successful sites.

The inclusion of social networks, their use for marketing purposes, and their overall importance in the daily lives of many people make them one of the most important instruments for site growth. We will show how this can be achieved in an easy way.

What Defines a Social Network?

Social networks can be defined using different methods and can have a different appeal to various groups. For the purpose of this article, we will focus on the web marketing aspects and the pros of enforcing the use of popular social networks for growth purposes.

A simple definition as to what is a social network is a relationship-based construct of different actors. In the modern world, the most popular example of such a model is the creation of web services and applications, the most popular ones are now complicated web platforms, having spawned numerous services of their own.

Modern web-based social networks that are used for general-purpose purposes each can be used for reaching certain outreach goals. Each one has a distinct advantage in a certain aspect:

• Facebook – This is by far the most well-known and widely used social networks. Facebook began as a project to help maintain connections between college students and grew into one of the most important web services worldwide. Every business and company strive to have an active community page and profile in it, as much of the data that is held by Facebook is also linked and used by search engines to rank sites. Cross-site data is usually collected from different sources to calculate the end ranking result.
• LinkedIn – This professional network is commonly used by many to research company business information, particularly on the experience of employees. Companies should make the necessary steps and validate their presence on this service to achieve a track record of validity and authenticity – such is perceived as present if the registration on LinkedIn is made.
• Instagram – This is one of the most widely used web services, mainly by young adults and teenagers, which focuses heavily on images and videos. It is very appropriate for brand advertising using such creative outlets.
• YouTube – Not only to spread videos, but YouTube has also grown into one of the most important online communities. One of the most important marketing strategies is the use of influencers, the practice has grown the most in the creation of promoted video content.

This shows that it is very important to maintain an active presence and outreach. By understanding what is the main audience type, the website administrators can choose which social network to place a special emphasis on.

Advantages of Relying on Social Networks in Building an Active Audience

The various social networks that are selected by the website administrators can have a substantially positive effect on the site’s growth by attracting and retaining visitors. For every site, it would be good to create an appropriate networks mix — an emphasis and strategy on which networks to use, how to create the most appropriate profiles, and how to maintain an active presence.

One of the reasons why social media marketing is considered very important is the factor that all of these services are provided for free to the users, and anyone who uses them may potentially reach the target site.

Advertising on social networks is usually done by promoting specific posts and content as opposed to whole profiles or site sections, which is the norm with other methods and mechanisms that usually prescribe the promotion of whole profiles (in this case sites). Social networks have grown to monitor users’ behavior, as they keep track of all of their activity. As such promoted posts, advertised content, and relevant content from a site’s profile are usually matched with search results. This means that social networks can generate organic growth by simply optimizing their content with the proper techniques.

As the profiles grow in complexity, content growth, and other factors, so the potential for a rise in the given site will arise. The collected information from the users profiles is usually used during the planning of marketing campaigns and can feature the following:

• Demographics Information
• Age
• Race
• Gender
• Interests

How To Plan a Social Network Marketing Strategy for Site Growth

One of the most important steps in being a successful marketer on the established social networks is to carefully plan how to distribute the effort and which mix of platforms and services to use. Usually, the most efficient way is to create a goal based on daily traffic — this means that the webmasters will seek to increase the number of site visitors to a given number per day.

For this to work it would be best to create a profile of the site — this is a measurement-based indicator of the specifics of the posted content and its format. Typical examples of popular categories of sites can be the following:

• Blog — Usually they cater to a specific audience and the increase in traffic will allow for the placement of ads and the possibility of using sponsorship and other monetization techniques to make them profitable.
• E-commerce Site — Higher daily traffic provides an opportunity for substantial revenue increase.
• Company Site — Increased sales and brand exposure can happen if more visitors find the site and interact with it.

By leveraging different social networks and the different analytics tools, the webmasters can get a sense of the combined metrics and estimate the real and legitimate growth. For this reason familiarity with the provided tools must be achieved to have a correct track record of progress. This is also to verify and expose the perceived current demographics and attempt to drive in the most favorable audience type. Ideally, their interests and age group should match the service and content provided by the site.

An essential part of the use of social networks and analytics is that usually the tools can be used to help get a sense of the competition. Business Intelligence is the field that is used to track how well a given site measures against others in the same industry. While the proper tools are used during the campaign tracking and measurements taking, the social media will also give insight on how other similar accounts and profiles are using the same methods for their growth. By watching how the competition performs, many website owners can get a sense of the trends and methods that work in different scenarios. This useful insight can be very helpful during stagnant growth.

How to Get the Most of Facebook Pages?

Social marketing is one of the most important aspects of site growth. Starting out with Facebook as the largest and most well-known example, we would like to list some of the essential steps that any site can take. The first step is to create a Facebook page — this is a profile that is associated with a given website. When this is done the page profile can be used for posting information related to the site, as well as content promotion.

Pages will automatically be shown when a social network user searches for the site’s title or posts that contain them. They are also the main representative force behind each site. They are free to setup and this is done by a simple step-by-step process. Once they are created, Facebook gives out website owners an ever-growing catalog of tools to achieve specific goals.

Using Facebook Pages the profile owners can keep communication with Facebook users and use them to build loyalty with the existing customers, as well as attempt to bring in new ones.

The Pages profile can be used for several other actions as well. This includes the use of boosted posts — this is the promotion of certain content based on the profile of the viewers. Pages also allow for the creation of call-to-action promotions that are used for automating certain site functions such as the providing of links, receiving appointments, donations, and etc.

Communication with the site via the Pages can be done via the Facebook Messenger platform, one of the most widely used instant messaging services. The analytics service that is available to Pages owners is called Insights and it helps administrators to check about how the visitors interact with them. If the site is focused on selling goods or services, the web administrators can leverage the Facebook Marketplace platform. This is the e-commerce offering that is part of the social network.

Use the Power of Twitter

Twitter is one of the fastest-growing and most widely used social networks. It’s known to many of us as the platform that is predominately based on short posts. This has actually worked out great for the platform, as it allows users to share in content that is precise, short, and incredibly mobile-friendly. Twitter clients are available from practically all devices, and are great for technology and media companies, allowing them an easy and immediate outlet for their content. An analysis of social network development shows that it grows exponentially each year.

Having an active verified Twitter profile works best not only for the maintenance of an online presence but also works best for growing brand loyalty. Albeit there is a historic characters limit in the Twitter posts, generally this platform is very strong in provoking debates and discussions. For this reason, many contents and social marketing strategies when planning out interactive growth scenarios heavily rely on creating specific Twitter posts that create a large engagement and user feedback.

Twitter relies heavily on trending posts — by using analytics tools and exploration of the now popular hashtags, website administrators can get a sense of the direction that they can undertake to achieve bigger popularity.

LinkedIn Marketing: Grow Your Business Authenticity

The professional network LinkedIn is widely considered to be one of the best places for making career-related connections. However, it has also quickly become one of the top places where marketers can contribute to brand growth. As such platforms are heavily used to promote the brands by exposing their merits and quality, specific goals can be met.

LinkedIn verification is very important, as the platform is usually heavily-sourced. One of the common examples that are usually given is the site’s legitimacy, a factor that is checked when buying certain security certificates. The issuing certificate authorities may make several checks on the social media presence and the linking of social media and its integration during the validation of the site’s credentials.

Creating and upholding a regularly-updated and concise LinkedIn page can have many benefits, namely the linking of relevant content from the site into the LinkedIn page. Common tactics that are used by marketers are to ensure that there is visibility between the two sides — the profile connections of the individual employees can be invited to “like” the page.

Furthermore, the webmasters that have a registered and active LinkedIn presence can promote the company page by using emails, posts in groups, newsletters, and etc.

As this is primarily a text and images platform, one of the most efficient ways to grow a site is to use infographics — they can present ideas, positions, statements, and promoted advertising in an easy-to-understand format.

The use of sponsored content will attract potentially interested followers, testing of different types of variations, and in-depth tracking (including conversion tracking).

Visual Performance: The Power of Instagram’s Social Marketing

Instagram marketing begins with the creation of a dedicated Instagram business account — this allows followers to easily connect with the brand. This also “unlocks” the use of Instagram promoted advertising. They enable website owners and digital marketers to track their audience using built-in analytics tools. The business profile also allows the use of specialized marketing tools and services.

The Insights analytics service can give detailed information about posts for a given period (a week for example) which can be useful during campaigns. Instagram is great for creating engaging content, as it relies on visual images, short clips, and animated GIFs. The use of stories, tags, and curated groups of followers makes it a very powerful instrument. If mastered and used correctly it can be a very efficient tool for site growth.

Sponsored advertising on Instagram is possible by having exact controls over the spending amount during the planning phase. Content can be showcased by selecting a single ad or several ones (by using the carousel feature). The potential reach can be extended by using highly-selective audience targeting, this is much more precise than what other platforms and services may offer.

Even though Instagram marketing is based on graphics and videos, it still offers a wide array of content placement that can be used to grow the site: photos, videos, dynamic, ads, stories, and stories canvas. Instagram is also one of the most effective platforms on which influencers can generate leads and help to market the site in a much more powerful way. Inbound traffic can be leveraged to meet the goals. Many marketing agencies and experts also note that the visual-rich contents actually create higher conversion rates, especially when this is planned carefully.

Video is King: Rely on YouTube For Site Growth and Promotion

YouTube is the best choice to consider when it comes to video promotions — this is one of the most visited social networks on the Internet and produced video can then be instantly shared on countless other sites and services, leading to the possibility of immense growth.

As a web marketing and site growth tool YouTube strategies do not rely solely on the production process (leading to quality content generation), but also on other important factors. They usually reflect key decisions that are based on analytics research and may include the following:

• Schedule — The schedule should reflect the timezone of the targeted users. This is important to match the expected time of interaction and therefore grow more visitors and interactions.
• Link Building — There are many ways that the videos can be used as lead generators — by presenting the links in the description, links placement during the video, call-to-action phrases, and etc.
• Video Format Choice — Depending on the type of promoted content, the video creators can choose an appropriate video format: short movie, how-to- guides, interviews, video podcasts, and etc.
• Audience Interaction — Many of the successful sites will also depend on users interaction through the comments section. Many of the viewers provide feedback if that is engaged, many video creators will see an increased retention and growth of subscribers.

Conclusion

To effectively grow a site by using social networks and media it is important to leverage all of the available options in the best possible way. As we have uncovered in our article, one of the most important steps is the actual planning as opposed to execution. The tools and techniques used to create and manage campaigns and track performance can be substantially more complex than other web marketing domains. For this reason, webmasters are advised to take the time and established reachable goals by using the most suitable social network presence.

Establishing a profile by using the best practices, engaging with the community, and using different mechanisms will ensure growth in the long-term if the strategy is used correctly. One of the disadvantages of social media use is that it requires constant tracking and monitoring, as well as experience in management. These types of platforms and services grow constantly and each year add in new functions, leading to even more potential places that can be used for marketing.