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How Your Facebook Posts and Ads Relate to Your Website Traffic
The Sprocket Report
Social media has long been a marketing darling for engaging followers, but if they aren’t following all the way back to your website, you’re squandering sales opportunities. Here are some real-life scenarios that explain what we mean.
Sprocket provides social media services at various budget levels, but sometimes website clients have their own social media providers which gives us some great research material. Without naming names, we’ll share some of the results that we have seen and learned from.
Consistency Is Key
This client decided to take on social media tasks themselves. While viral success might ebb and flow, a constant presence helps the audience stay engaged so you can get a better read on what is working and what isn’t. Unfortunately, the client wasn’t able to keep up a consistent posting schedule on their own, so their Reach and Engagement on Facebook dropped off month after month, even though they were occasionally posting really great content. And as their audience dwindled on Facebook, so did visits to their website.
The Wrong Message Confuses
This client started with one social media service, which showed some good success before they parted ways. We took over and built up both the Facebook Reach and the traffic to the website for a number of months before the client decided to try a new approach with a different social media service. The new service has been generating decent Reach, but the action is all happening on Facebook, with little of that interest continuing on to the website. If your Calls To Action are being fulfilled on Facebook, that could be okay, but if your sales, appointments and other CTAs are on your website, then they aren’t happening, regardless of many views your Facebook cat videos get.
Build Momentum
The client above has a seasonal business and you can easily see from the Google Analytics graph above when all the action happens on the website. But instead of letting Facebook traffic die down between seasons, we keep this client’s Facebook audience engaged with regular posts. Yes, there is still way more activity during the on-season, but with regular posts all year round, they lose fewer Facebook followers during the off-season and start out each year better than the one before and make more sales on the website.
Consider a Paid Boost
Folks sometimes try a single Facebook ad and conclude it’s just a waste of money, but that’s because there isn’t really a plan behind it. Here’s a good example of Facebook ads working the way they should. We have been providing social media services to this client for some time with decent results and traffic to the website. As Facebook throttled back some of the organic results we used to enjoy, the client decided to try Facebook ads with a spend of about $1.50 per day. You can see the green Paid Reach line suddenly appear on the Facebook graph above. Reach also jumps up immediately, but more importantly, traffic to the website also increases noticeably once the paid ads start running, exactly as it was planned to do.
When you are just starting out with your social media marketing, it can be difficult to tell what’s working and what isn’t, but the sooner you start paying attention to your insights and analytics, the sooner you will recognize trends. The biggest piece of advice we can give you is to be consistent with your efforts so that the data is reliable. Well, maybe that’s the second biggest piece of advice since we really suggest you delegate those social media tasks so you can focus on what you do best. If you are ready to get professional help, just give us a call to talk over your particular needs.
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Kate Gingold
I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.
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I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.
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