For a lot of small businesses who want to capture their audience’s attention and engage them, the best and most cost-efficient way to go about it is through social media.

It’s popular for a couple of reasons. First, because almost everyone is part of some type of social media platform. According to a study conducted by Hootsuite, a popular social media scheduling platform, there are 3,499 billion active social media users today. Second, because it works. In fact, social media content is consistently included as one of the top three content marketing tactics today.

Social media, for all intents and purposes, can help businesses build brand recognition, foster an engaged community, and improve your bottom line. It’s all a matter of knowing how you can drive maximum traffic to your social media platforms. As a marketer, I’d like to share a few techniques that helped achieve these objectives for my business:

1. Create a great profile

How many times have you encountered a brand page with nothing more than just a company or brand name on the profile?

Whether it’s your Facebook page, Instagram, or Twitter bio, this is a great opportunity for you to inform customers about what you do—so make the most out of it. You can use this space to share your company vision and mission, your slogan, and more importantly, a link back to your website to boost traffic.

2. Use your blog content to drive traffic

You put a lot of effort towards creating great content for your blog, so make it work for you. Use your new blog posts to drive additional traffic to your site by promoting it on your social media platforms. Not only are you generating attention for your posts, you’re also able to send more traffic to your website.

To make your posts more eye-catching, I always suggest asking your target audience a question that’s related to your blog so they feel more enticed to click on it and read it.

3. Be smart about using visuals

People say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. However, in social media, you have a very small window to grab and hold your audience’s attention. Within seconds, you have to grab their attention, entice them to click, and get them to read your content.

With the right use of visuals, you can easily do this. Choose an image that is relevant to your post, or better yet, use videos, to support your message.

4. Make sure it’s easy to share your content

The more people who see your content, the more opportunities you have to drive audiences to your website. To that end, your content should be easy for them to share. From your website, be sure to add social sharing buttons so anyone who wants to post your infographic, photo, product, or blog post on their own social media can do so.

5. Engage your audiences

Social media is a great way to reach out and interact directly with your audience. You have a direct line to your target market, use it.

Whenever your audience comments, asks a question, likes, be sure to acknowledge it. Start conversations and answer their queries. This helps to build your credibility as a brand and establishes better trust and rapport between yourself and your audience.

There you have it. Hope this answer helps! If you have any more questions, do reach out to me at Leadspanda and we can continue this conversation.