Using Social Media to Drive Traffic, Leads & Sales

Content is a key ingredient in inbound marketing, but it can only be effective if prospects see it. One of the primary ways of promoting your website and your content is through social media.

Think about it:

• 73 percent of people say they use Facebook for professional purposes.

• Twitter has 313 million active monthly users.

• In the past two years, content consumption on LinkedIn has increased 21 percent.

(Find more social media statistics compiled by our partner HubSpot here.)

And one more: 90 percent of all marketers say that their social media efforts have generated exposure for their business.

But how much is enough? How many social media followers do you need to see significant increases in website traffic, leads and sales?

Find answers and goals to shoot for in our Marketing Benchmarks from 7,000+ Businesses report.

How Does Twitter Impact Website Traffic

While both B2B and B2C companies use Twitter to increase exposure, with a steady relationship between the number of followers and website traffic, for B2C companies there can be dramatic impacts.

While the impact is nearly the same for both types of companies up to 1,000 followers, once a B2C company crosses the 1,000-follower benchmark, the impact on website traffic is incredible, with nearly double the web traffic of companies with 500 to 1,000 Twitter followers.

How Does Facebook Impact Website Traffic

As with Twitter, 1000 followers proved to be a tipping point for the more than 7,000 companies included in HubSpot’s benchmarking study.

For all companies—both B2B and B2C—those with more than a thousand followers had nearly three times as much website traffic as those with 500 to 1000 followers. Again, though, B2C companies experienced even greater impact.

How To Capitalize on Traffic From Social Media

With increases in traffic, should come increases in inbound leads.

But capitalizing on the traffic generated by using social media requires more than eye-catching Facebook images or conversation-creating tweets. You must have your website optimized to turn the increased traffic into leads and sales.

 (Don’t make these mistakes: 3 Ways Your Social Media is Failing to Support Inbound Marketing.)

That means providing content, calls-to-action linked to landing pages for engaging offers, and an automated lead nurturing program to guide your leads through the sales funnel.

Find more on each of these important steps in the cycle here:

Content:

• 10 Secrets to Blockbuster Blog Content

• 5 Ways to Write a Blog (templates)

• Create a Content Library Your Readers Can Use

• Beyond the Blog: Other Ideas for Marketing Content

• How to Turn Your Content Ideas Into Complete Marketing Campaigns

Calls-to-action:

• Three Rules for Writing Must-Click CTA Copy

• 4 Keys to Creating A+ Calls-to-Action

• 4 Call-to-Action Mistakes to Avoid

• Call-to-Action Placement Checklist

Landing pages:

• 8 Pieces of the Landing Page Puzzle

• 4 Tricks to Improve Lead Conversion on Your Landing Pages

• Let’s Talk Landing Page Forms

• Landing Page Content Template

Offers:

• 25 Offers to Appeal to Every Stage of the Buying Cycle

• 3 Tricks for Making Your Offer Irresistible to Leads

Lead nurturing workflows:

• The Growth You Are Missing By Not Nurturing Leads

• 5 Secrets to Humanizing Your Lead Nurturing Emails

• 6 Lead Nurturing Emails to Use In Your Workflows

• Lead Nurturing Workflow Template

Do you have enough social media presence to successfully use it to drive the website traffic you need to generate leads and sales? Do you have enough of the website content to capitalize on your social media success?

Find out by checking out the benchmarks for blog posts and landing pages established by more than 7,000 HubSpot customers. You’ll find them here in our report.