Social media has been getting a lot of hype over the years, and for good reason. It has the capacity to generate a ton of traffic when participating in social media websites: Digg, Facebook, MySpace, StumbleUpon, Twitter. If you want the full list, you’ll have to look it up because there’s quite a few.
So what do I mean by tons of traffic? We’re talking tens of thousands of unique visitors in the span of a few hours (Digg). That’s definitely not the average result, but it gives you a good idea of what the potential for traffic is. Every social network is different and will require a different approach.
For the most part though, the goal will be the same across all social networks. You’re essentially trying to rally as many supporters online as possible to help spread the word about your products and/or services. But because social media is driven by users, you actually have to be doing something cool.
Let’s face it, what you’re selling or offering might not be something that’s widely accepted (not cool), especially on the internet. If that’s the case, social media is not an avenue you want to dump money into. I would rather you dump your money into pay per click and get some return on investment.
But if you actually have content that you can share, whether it’s an article or a video clip that people are interested in, you can be rewarded with millions of visitors. As an example, we’ll use Ken Block, Co-Founder of and Chief Brand Officer of American action sports company, DC Shoes.
Within a month of uploading his Gymkhana Two video on YouTube, it received almost 5 million views globally. Now if you’re clever, you’d be wondering what the big deal is, asking how they plan on making any money from a car video when they’re selling shoes and clothes. That’s why Ken is even cleverer.
DC Shoes developed a product line of shoes, apparel and accessories with the DC Shoes and Subaru branding, styled in the same livery as the race car in their video. The best part: it was all launched the same day as the video. Imagine how much of that traffic went to their website and converted in sales.
That right there is a perfect example of how you can use social media websites to generate traffic, build links to your website, and convert traffic to sales. You might not have a huge budget to work with, so creativity will play an important role in figuring out what content to use and how to use it.
