Promoting Your Website with Social Media and Outreach

November 27, 2018

Once you have implemented a solid SEO strategy and have utilised content marketing, you now have a solid foundation when Promoting Your Website and to build upon, which you can benefit from by implementing other popular internet marketing techniques.

While SEO is important for long-term growth and traffic, social media marketing and influencer-based marketing can still bring high amounts of traffic, which will convert into loyal, paying customers in the future. The traffic you receive from these channels is often focused and can convert exceptionally well. In this article, I assume you intend to promote a business, but of course, this counts for whatever you intend to advertise, be it a website, online store, etc.,

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is an excellent strategy to build a loyal customer base with whom you can communicate with on a regular basis. By creating Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest pages, these pages will soon attract fans and followers, which you can then advertise to in the near future.

If you haven’t already, make sure you create business pages for Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Ensure that your company logo is part of the profile photo, and that you have an enticing and unique header image. You can use Canva to create banner images, and they have a fantastic selection of sample banners you can use to get started quickly.

Next, fill out any text fields, such as you’re About section and bio of the business. Make sure to contain your business’ phone number, other relevant social media links, as well as essential contact details.

Advertising to Potential Customers

The overwhelming majority of social media users hate to see their feeds get flooded or spammed with advertising and ads from companies they follow. Therefore, you need to try a different strategy; rather than blatantly advertise your products, you need to build trust with your followers by posting appealing, intriguing content that has an entertainment value of some sort.

For example, a lot of companies post GIFs related to their domain or motivational quotes that are linked in some way to their field or create video content surrounding their products. Others parody their own products or create memes which are sure to get some laughs from their users.

However, the posts shouldn’t just be limited to the trivial, you can make posts of “Behind the Scenes” at your business, showcasing the ins and outs of how products are manufactured, and so forth. Just make sure that the content you create is dynamic and engaging; pull the viewer’s interest in and keep them hooked, with meaningful content that’s designed to inform or excite or innovate.

For companies, these pieces of content are essential for building rapport with their fanbase, and for slowly building trust with followers. That way, when they eventually do advertise their products, the uptake is going to be much higher, since users will have built momentous trust with this company and are much more likely to want to visit their website or buy one of their products.

Utilise the Power of Imagery

When creating your posts, make sure to include a colourful, attention-grabbing image, which contains the essential info presented in the post. You can create graphics with Canva, and the modern, fresh, and vibrant designs provide great templates for beginners.

If you ever post images that aren’t your own, make sure to use public domain imagery, which means it’s free to use, modify and re-share anywhere. You can include these images in any graphics you create, as well as blog posts and articles.

A great tool I recommend for this is Canva. It helps simplify the graphic design process and leads to incredible and professional resulting designs. I’ve been using it for all my blog posts and social media marketing projects.

You can also post the images you create to Instagram and Pinterest, especially if your business is in the creative or outdoors sphere. I’ve seen hundreds of companies post imagery on these sites and gain incredible numbers of likes and comments from devoted customers. Your Canva graphics can also be posted on Pinterest, and they’ll be pinned by fans in no time.

Advertise Your Content

There’s a rule in the social media marketing world, that 90% of the time you share content or post about topics related to your domain, and 10% of the time, you advertise your products or post directly about your business.

This is especially true if you want a great click-through rate; if you continually post about your business all the time, your followers are going to get bored, and with good reason. You need to keep them engaged with your company in an entertaining manner, and often, reposting or retweeting relevant news, memes, or videos related to your field is a great way to do so.

When you finally do want to let your followers know about a new product, sale, or piece of news related to your business, make sure your post contains a fantastic banner/featured image which highlights the main points of your post. This will keep your followers engaged, and could lead to better click-through rates.

Contact Influencers in Your Field

Influencers are social media personalities or celebrities with a loyal, dedicated fanbase. These influencers often advertise other businesses directly or create videos or vlogs about their favourite products; this leads to incredible traffic and lead generation for the company being advertised.

While it can be difficult to get advertised by influencers with more than a hundred thousand followers, you should target influencers with 20k followers or more, as these are contacted less frequently, and you’d have a much greater chance of striking a deal with them.

To do so, target influencers in your field by utilising BuzzSumo’s search functionality. Simply type in your company’s primary category (such as finance etc.,) and BuzzSumo will display a list of Twitter and social media influencers who regularly tweet in that field and have heavily-followed social media accounts.

You then need to get their contact details (a simple Google search will help) and write them an email asking if they’d like to promote your company on their social media profiles.

Some influencers charge hefty prices for advertising, others will do it for free if they genuinely like what your company does or have a great experience with your products. Others require that you send them your products in exchange for a review; this is another viable option if you have products you’d like to sell to online.

YouTube vloggers are also willing to promote your business in some way, usually by creating a video review of your products, or by recommending your business’ products in their videos. There are several websites online that help YouTube influencers or vloggers connect with potential clients.

Write for Large Blogs

Writing for blogs with a dedicated readership can help promote your website to those readers and help increase traffic as a result.

Often, blogs allow you to include a link to your website in the Bio section of your article, and if readers enjoyed your article, they’ll be sure to check out your website also.

Most blogs are more than happy to take guest posts from others and will gladly give a nofollow link to the author’s website in the Bio section.

How to Find Websites Looking for Writers

To find these websites, simply make a list of blogs you regularly read in the same field your website is in.

You can also search “write for us [topic]” on Google, where [topic] is the field your website is in. For example, if you have a gardening website, then search for “write for us gardening” on Google. This will return a list of blogs that are actively looking for writers to submit blog posts.

Many blogs are also hosted on Medium now, and these blogs are always looking for new writers, so make sure to check out blogs hosted on Medium also.

You should then email the blog asking about the possibility of guest posting, but make sure to include some potential titles that you’d like to write about also. Bloggers love to see that you’ve put in some research and have material or ideas already prepared; this will greatly increase your chances of the blogger accepting your articles in the future.

Even though guest posting for low-quality or “spammy” websites is heavily discouraged, you should only guest post for websites that are reputable and highly respected. Ensure that they have an adequate readership, as there’s no point in writing for blogs that offer little in return, in terms of traffic.

Conclusion: Outreach Is Key

Building an active community of dedicated fans on social media is essential to keeping an active relationship with your readers and can ensure that your readers keep coming back for more content.

However, since those readers can share your posts, your content will also reach a greater audience, i.e.: their entire network, including family and friends. Social media can help broaden your reach, but it must be done tactfully, and remember to always be respectful of your users’ time and feeds.

As we’ve seen, utilising the power of outreach in Promoting Your Website can help you to connect with a larger audience, thanks to contacting influencers and helping them promote your content.

Guest posting is also a form of outreach and can be a fantastic way to advertise your business or website to another group.

While these methods take time, they will soon bring traffic to your website, thus increasing your business’ sales and customers. It’s a worthwhile effort, and before you know it, your website will start seeing new customers.