Facebook is still number one in terms of traffic referrals from social media channels. The goal on Facebook is to make it into people’s News Feeds. To do this, you need to be posting consistently, and interacting with your fans (and with other Pages!). The more activity on your Page, the higher Facebook will rank your content, meaning that more people will actually see your content and, hopefully, share it with their friends.
Pro tip: Your own engagement counts! Commenting in reply to others’ comments still counts as engagement on your Page, so take every possible opportunity to respond to your fans!
On Twitter, most users never reach the bottom of their news feeds, due to the sheer volume of activity. This means you can share your own content more frequently without the risk of alienating your followers.
Pro tip: Use hashtags with keywords that are relevant to the content that you’re sharing. The audience following those topics will already be looking specifically for content on that subject. (#relevance FTW!)
Google+
Obviously, Google holds its own social network in higher regard than other networks, so merely sharing your blog posts on Google+ is likely your greatest return on investment (ROI) in terms of time spent on social media. Endorsements, or +1s, carry more weight than likes on other networks.
Pro tip: Set up Google Authorship and work on building a Google+ following. Search results rank articles higher that are authored by or shared by the searcher’s Google+ networks, even their extended networks, increasing reach exponentially.
Second only to Facebook, Pinterest refers more outside web traffic than Twitter, Reddit and LinkedIn combined [source: Mashable]. Tons of traffic can be harnessed through easily re-shareable images that link back to your website. For Pinterest to work for you, you should have dynamic imagery in each blog post (something you should be doing already!) — and a Pin This button on your site.
Pro tip: Brand your images! It’s very easy to lose the original source of a Pinterest image. Including your logo, and, ideally, your URL, will help interested users find you again if the trail runs cold.
LinkedIn is unique in its demographic of users, in that more people are sharing and reading helpful business articles there, and far fewer of users are looking for entertainment. As a business, your quality content will be better received in this atmosphere. We’ve found that LinkedIn shares tend to have much lower bounce rates than shares from Facebook and Twitter, meaning that people who find your content through LinkedIn are more likely to stay on your site for awhile.
Pro Tip: Join industry-specific groups on LinkedIn. This is a terrific way to get even more targeted in your content sharing, and increases the likelihood that viewers will find the content useful.
A strong social media presence can help your SEO strategy and sweep your fans off their feet.
Please share your own tips in our comments below, and contact us if you have more questions about SEO or social media strategy. We’d love to talk to you about taking your inbound marketing to the next level!
