Roughly 1.32 billion individuals use Facebook each month, and many of them “like” and “share” posts and links that they find interesting. Their friends follow the link, who then share the same if they find it equally interesting, and the cycle goes on. This is, in essence, free endorsement of an article, a product, a service, or an idea – the modern version of “word of mouth”. It’s an effective means for a business to gain more clients, so it’s no question that your Web and SEO specialist in Bruneimust include social networking marketing when planning your website.

Why Use Social Networking Sites to Boost Your Business

Other than Facebook, other social networking sites also have millions of monthly active users: g+ has 540 million, Twitter has 255 million, Instagram has 200 million, LinkedIn has 187 million, and Pinterest has 40 million. When users share a link, they bring site visits. Facebook alone directs approximately 24 percent of traffic to websites.

The graph from http://www.searchenginejournal.com/shows how much Facebook and other social networking sites are driving traffic toward websites.

How to Use Social Networking Sites

Including social networking in your website’s strategy can help boost your business. You can do this in several ways:

• Set up social networking accounts for your business. While these require regular maintenance, it will help you advertise for free, plus it lets you communicate with your clients and potential customers, and know what they’re thinking. Some sites like Twitter have automated features that let you post links to both Twitter and Facebook at the same time.
• Post interesting, intriguing, and appropriate content. You can announce your business’s events (e.g. an upcoming sale or raffle), or you can regularly post trivia related to your niche (e.g. If you have a bookstore, you can post the title of New York Times best seller of the month). This will help keep your followers interested.
• Put Share buttons in your website. It’s the easiest way your site visitors will be able to endorse your products or services to their friends and contacts.
• Have a blog. According to Business2Community, “Companies with a blog have 97% more inbound links than others.” Why? Not only will this help search engines know that your site is active, it also provides your visitors with reasons to keep coming back.
• Regularly post engaging content in your blog and share in your social networking sites. This way, your followers will know when something new is up.
• Interact with your followers. While this may not always be feasible in terms of time and manpower, it does make people feel good to be acknowledged when they make a comment. You can develop a loyal following simply by being nice to your readers.

A Bit of Advice

It’s certainly helpful to have those share buttons in your site, but try not to “force” them onto your visitors. There are some sites that have buttons that block parts of the content, and this can annoy your readers. Instead, place those buttons in a strategic location on your page where it can be easily seen but not hinder. Make your visitors’ experience pleasant and worthwhile, and they won’t hesitate to tell their social media friends about you.