Social media as a marketing and lead generation platform is popular among businesses for a reason—it works. In fact, 92 percent of small businesses consider social media to be very important for their business. Couple that with projections that see social media users hitting 2.5 billion this year and the future of social media as an indispensable growth tool for business looks bright, indeed.

However, using social media to generate more traffic for your website takes a lot more work than just posting status updates and photos. In my years in content marketing, I’ve learned that there’s a whole lot more to consider to make the most out of your social media marketing opportunities. Here’s a list of my top tips below:

1. Expand your social media horizon

If you’re just dipping your toe in the world of social media, it’s easy to assume that your only options are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. While these are definitely some of the most popular platforms, and therefore, absolutely necessary in your social media plan, they’re not your only choices.

For example, Snapchat has a steadily growing audience that is very popular among millennials and younger generations. YouTube is a popular video streaming platform and functions as a social media network unto itself. Pinterest is a great way to share visual content with its own avid following and community. Reddit is a great platform for knowledge sharing with a very active and engaged community of users.

Chances are your target audience is on one of these platforms and you can easily reach them by choosing the right one.

2. Be discerning about which platform to use

This second point is hinged on the last. Just because you have all these great social media platforms to choose from doesn’t mean that you have to be on all of them. Your target audience won’t be on all of them, so there’s no point joining all of them just for the sake of it.

If you can focus on a handful of platforms where you know your audience will be, it increases your chance to reach them and engage them.

3. Promote your brand, product, or service on these platforms—within context

You can use social media to bring attention to whatever it is you’re selling or promoting on your website. But remember, make sure that you put it in the right context. Relate it to something that is relevant and important to your audience. How is it useful for them? How will it address a challenge or problem they are facing? What can your brand, product, or service do for them?

4. Post regularly and often

Statistically, companies that make an effort to post regularly and consistently generate a significant number of leads for their business. Create a mix of blog posts, photos, videos, infographics, and mix it up.  

Sound simple enough? Give it a try and you’ll likely see results quickly. If you’re interested in generating more significant results, however, get in touch with me at Leadspanda so we can discuss further what we can do to help you.