According to a recent study reported by
Search Engine Land, social media only drives 5% of total web traffic for business service companies, while organic search is responsible for 51%.
The numbers indicate that business service companies achieve less traffic and conversion from social media than other industries. Before investing in paid search campaigns, companies should improve their social media outreach, not only to drive more web traffic, but also because a strong social media presence helps support paid search campaigns. To help these businesses improve their social traffic, here are three tactics they can use:
1. Leverage co-marketing
Partner with other experts in the industry to develop content. For example, you can start a
digital marketing interview series or a
Q&A session and ask marketing professionals to share insights with your readers. This partnership will help you increase online exposure because when the participants share the interview or session on their social channels, you'll reach their followers. In addition, you can attract their followers to your website.
2. Use social media to list services
According to
eMarketer, 37% of US shoppers use social media to research offerings that they're considering buying. This behavior has influenced business clients, who now go on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter pages to learn about your company and compare you against competing firms.
Take advantage of this behavior by giving your social media pages more attention. For example, go a step further than just branding your Facebook page. Put up photos and credentials of your specialists in the Photos section. Use Albums for photos of your staff at job sites, on conference panels, or charity events. Populate the About page fully, with links to your Home page of course, but also with links to the 2-3 most frequently-read pages on your website. Use Google Analytics to identify your most popular web pages - they could be your service offerings page, client list or project pages.
3. Share relevant articles professional LinkedIn groups
Share useful, relevant articles you've written in LinkedIn groups. For example, if you're a small accounting firm, you can join LinkedIn groups such as
On Startups - The Community For Entrepreneurs or
Startup Specialists and share your blog about tax write-offs for small business owners. This technique will help you generate website visits because you're sharing content to a targeted audience.
By using the three approaches above, you can use content partners to expand your online reach and attract more social users to your website, take advantage of online behavior and increase client incentives to visit your company page and learn about your offerings, or share relevant articles in LinkedIn groups to a qualified audience.