Social media is one of the best ways that you can increase traffic to your website and in general, increase awareness of your business and brand. By now most business owners understand how important social media is but with the increasing amount of users and competition online it can be hard to get the traction necessary to grow your business.
So how do you do that? How can you increase your social media shares?
That is what I’ll be exploring in this post because many business owners are still not getting this aspect of their marketing right. I will be sharing 7 proven methods that you can use to increase your social media shares, and in turn, open up a floodgate of traffic to your site.
1. Write a Tutorial That Provides a Ton of Value
Creating highly valuable content is the most effective way to get new readers and keep them. Writing a tutorial that provides a ton of value simply means writing something that a user can use immediately that will help them in their business. It could be anything like, how to write an ebook, how to rank for keywords. The list is endless.
You can write a tutorial in a blog post or even record a video of it and then use an email subscription form to capture email addresses with an incentive that you will provide them with more information on the topic once they sign up.
The way you can also use this to increase social media shares is by using social buttons that allow a user to unlock the content. Encourage them to share your content so they can get access to the rest of your content. This is a proven and surefire method for increasing social media shares.
2. Create Infographics
Infographics are a great way to capture attention and interest of your readers. Creating a great infographic is not as hard as you think because you can outsource it to a designer, and there are even some great tools and applications you can use. Infographics are time consuming to create but they are one of the best ways to increase social shares because they capture people’s attention and interest.
3. Offer Incentives Like a Free Bonus When Your Content is Shared
Creating content is very easy to do with WordPress. One thing you should definitely be doing is giving readers a bonus for sharing your content. Using a plug in called One Press Social Locker you can add a box at the bottom of your posts that allows visitors to download a PDF of the post, or another bonus of your choosing.
This is a highly effective method for increasing social media shares and traffic. It’s one that has been used by Matthew Woodward, who has used this to double traffic to his site.
4. Profile Experts From Your Industry With a Round Up Post
This is one of the most popular ways to increase social media shares. What you do here is find out who the experts are in your industry and ask them an interesting question that you think will benefit your readers. This is a common tactic for increasing traffic and social media shares so make sure you ask a question that is interesting. That way the top experts you contact will be more likely to participate.
This is a great method because all of the experts you contact for your post will be likely to share your post with their followers. All you need to do is contact them the day your post goes live and if all goes well you’ll have a ton of social media shares and traffic to your site.
5. Host Interviews With Influential Figures in Your Industry
This is a great way to increase social media shares and grow your business. You can host interviews in the form of podcasts, videos, or even a simple written question and answer blog post. The best way to do this is in a series so for example, maybe do one per week for a month focusing on a particular series. It could be something like blogging tips, SEO tips, etc, and then feature experts in these niches each week for a month.
If you use this method then it’s highly likely that the person being interviewed will share your interview via their social media channels. This is a great way to grow a business and has been used by many entrepreneurs online.
6. Creating a Recommended Resources List
Business owners are always searching for things to make their lives easier so why not create a recommended resources post. This could be anything that you feel would provide value to your audience. The great thing about these kinds of posts is that they rank well in terms of organic search results but they also get a large amount of social media shares.
A great example of this can be found here, where Ian Cleary from RazorSocial.com has used his post to get over 2,000 social shares. Think about what resources would be useful to your readers and create a post based around it.
7. Take Advantage of Click to Tweet Quotes
People love to see good quotes so why not make the most of this by using click to tweet quotes on your blog posts. This is very simple and highly effective. Find a quote in your posts that you think would provide inspiration or incredible value to others and highlight it for a “Click to Tweet” feature.
This is something that Lewis Howes has done incredibly well with his own site. What he does is post articles with a “Click to Tweet” feature with each of his podcast episodes. He always provides tons of value so listeners naturally want to share his content.
Conclusion
Social media sharing is one of the most effective ways to increase traffic to your site, and increase awareness around your business and brand. This is basically a goldmine of opportunity that many people are still struggling to get right. If you use these 7 proven methods outlined above then you should start seeing results quickly.
Apply these methods to your social media strategy and watch the traffic start flooding in, and the social shares increase significantly.
Which one of these methods have you had the most success with?
Christian Michaels