Top ways to use social media to drive traffic to your landing pages

So you’ve invested in landing pages: SEO-optimized, beautifully designed, and packed full of customer calls to action. But it will take time to get the number of views and clicks you want from organic traffic. 

In today’s post, we’ll take a look at three key elements of sharing your small business landing pages on social media. We’ll cover:

• How to create content for social media
• How to tailor content for different social networks
• Planning versus scheduling: what’s best for social media?

How to create content for social media

Whenever you create a post on social media, you should ask yourself two questions.

• What do I want to say?
• To whom am I saying it?

First of all, you know you want to share your landing pages and drum up customers for your website. But if you just say, “Check out this landing page!” that doesn’t encourage them to take any real action.

Instead, try one of these ideas on social media:

• Share an intriguing fact or statistic, with more information available on the landing page.
• Invite viewers to get a limited-time-only sneak peek of a new feature of the product.
• Show graphics or interactive elements from your landing page.
• Set a challenge for viewers to complete; for example, finding a “hidden” offer or answer on the landing page.

Source: TAB Sport on Twitter

Secondly, remember who you are talking to. At the end of the day, you want to get clicks from potential customers. Write in a tone of voice that appeals to them, and encourage them to take action that will result in sales.

How to tailor content for different social networks

When you promote landing pages on social media, you should tailor your text and content differently depending on the social network. Here’s a quick guide to the most popular social media for small businesses.

LinkedIn

• used for business professionals and industry contacts
• statistics, how-to guides, and insider insights are popular
• formal tone of voice, with no emoji

Top tip: Posts with videos or photos do better than plain text. Make sure that your landing pages are set up so that when you share a link on social media, an attractive featured image displays. Use the LinkedIn Post Inspector to test your link before you take it live; simply drop the link and hit “Inspect,” and you will see how it will show up on LinkedIn. 

Facebook

• used by a very wide audience
• attention-grabbing titles and quick videos are popular
• friendly, informal tone
• use emoji sparingly

Top tip: Facebook can be a great way to gather website and business reviews. Always monitor the comments on your posts, and respond promptly – whether they are positive or not.

Instagram

• users generally young and affluent
• product photos and behind-the-scenes Stories are popular
• casual, friendly tone

Twitter

• used by a very wide audience, both professional and individual
• short videos and behind-the-scenes posts are popular
• witty, informal tone – but be careful to stay tactful
• emoji and gif reactions get lots of attention

Top tip: When people are looking for customer service, Twitter is often the first place they start. If you have a Twitter profile, check in at least once a day to respond to any queries or complaints.

Pinterest

• used by business and individuals with an interest in design
• photos and infographics only
• informal tone, but with lots of product detail

Planning versus scheduling: what’s best for social media?

On most social media platforms, you can schedule posts in advance. Some networks offer scheduling as part of the platform, like Facebook. For others, you’ll need a tool like Tweetdeck for Twitter, or Later for Instagram.

Source: Instagram

Over time, you’ll learn which times of day get the best engagement. For example, Instagram posts usually do best in the evening or at weekends, while Facebook posts do better on weekday mornings.

Just remember that scheduled posts can feel like canned responses. If you do schedule posts in advance, make sure that you post an interesting variety of content—and break up the schedule with spontaneous, day-to-day updates and customer interactions.

With time, you will see the traffic to your landing pages grow. As you build engagement on social media, use the feedback from customers to continue optimizing your website and making it as powerful as possible.