7 strategies to boost your social media traffic

7 ways to increase social media traffic

Each social network is different, so to effectively boost your social media traffic, there are some steadfast rules to follow for all your social channels. Here are seven key ways to increase your traffic and cultivate brand loyalty.

1. Capitalize on user-generated content (UGC)

UGC is authentic, highly relatable and fun to consume. According to The 2023 Sprout Social Index™, 45% of consumers follow brands on social because their content is enjoyable and entertaining.

Here’s how you can use UGC in your social strategy to grow your social media audience, which naturally leads to an increase in social media traffic.

Crowdsource content

One of the best ways to get more eyes on your brand’s content is to crowdsource it from your followers. Ask them to share their photos, videos and stories related to specific aspects of your brand on your social channels. When you reshare user-generated content, you gain valuable new content and the users get more eyes on their work—a win-win for all.

Include user-generated content in your marketing materials

Use different types of UGC in your marketing materials, such as:

• Social media posts
• Videos
• Photos
• Graphics
• Testimonials
• Reviews
• Blogs

Incorporate this content into your website, blogs, email newsletters, case studies, infographics and other marketing materials.

According to the Index, user-generated content and customer testimonials ranks fifth on the list of content types consumers say they don’t see enough of from brands on social—so why not incorporate that valuable content into your marketing.

Run contests and giveaways

Host social media contests and giveaways and cross-promote UGC from those initiatives on social. There are two main routes you can take:

• Host the contest or giveaway on your website and promote it through social media posts. Ask people to click through to your website to enter and direct social media traffic to your site right away.
• Host the content solely on social media and ask users to enter by following your brand account, liking a post or tagging a friend. This enables you to increase your social media following and target new followers with other content directing them to your website.

Use lo-fi behind-the-scenes content

Consumers crave authentic content from brands. In fact, according to The 2023 Sprout Social Index, authentic, non-promotional content is the number one thing consumers don’t see enough of from brands on social media.

Provide your social media followers with behind-the-scenes content from your brand, such as an office tour or a day-in-the-life video showing what your employees eat for lunch. Ask your followers for lo-fi content of them using your brand’s product or service that you can share, too. Lo-fi content is expected on social media, so you don’t need to worry about production quality.

2. Optimize your social media profiles for SEO

To up your search engine optimization (SEO) game to increase social media traffic, you have to integrate best practices into your social content. This will improve your online visibility, generate more sales and leads and strengthen your brand’s authority. It will also serve to connect you more authentically with your target audience.

Here’s how to optimize your profiles:

Use hashtags strategically

Improve your searchability on social media by using hashtags strategically. Hashtags make your content easier to find. They also target your niche audience and demographics—making it more likely that the “right” people can find your content.

Keep in mind that not all hashtags work well for all social platforms. For example, Instagram Reel hashtags differ from hashtags on Facebook—both of which differ from TikTok hashtags. Make sure to do your audience research for the specific platform you’re targeting.

Include relevant keywords in your profile name, bio and page titles

A simple yet effective way to drive social media traffic is to use relevant keywords—especially branded keywords—in your profile name, bio and page titles. This helps fans of your brand find you on social media and also tells the social media algorithms that you’re a credible and verifiable account.

While you’re optimizing your social media profiles, be sure to add your website URL to your bio as well. This saves your followers from having to search for your website elsewhere. They can click through directly from your social profile.

Inspire your audience with visuals

First impressions are essential. That’s why over 50% of marketers use visuals in more than 91% of their content.

Provide visuals that not only stand out, but speak volumes about your product or service and your brand story. The best visuals on social media tend to include:

• Vibrant colors and well-designed layouts
• High-level photography
• Visual storytelling
• Visuals showing products or services in a new light

Images will boost your SEO if you use them strategically, by adding in relevant alt text for each image and using image-related hashtags in your posts.

Optimize images and videos for mobile devices

Speaking of images, it’s vital to optimize your visuals—both static and video—for mobile devices. Almost everyone looks at social media on their mobile phones.

If your visuals are slow to load or aren’t the right size for mobile, your social media followers get a bad experience.

Make sure your website is responsive and mobile-friendly

Social media optimization and website optimization go hand in hand when you’re trying to increase social media traffic. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly so it displays and renders correctly on a mobile screen. After all, if your followers engage with your social posts on their phones, you can assume they’re going to view your website on their phones as well. If your website isn’t optimized for mobile, users will bounce before they can interact with your site, and you’ll miss the chance for more quality traffic from social.

3. Create a consistent posting schedule

Posting regular and relevant content on all your social accounts is key to getting more followers and increasing engagement, so you create more opportunities for traffic from social media. Here’s what you can do:

Use a social media calendar

Optimize your posting schedule with a social media calendar to make a difference in your social media traffic.

To make sure you’re up to speed on every channel, try to fill up your social media calendar with regular post ideas as much as possible. However, it’s best to leave a little room for flexibility since social moves quickly, and you want to have space for timely content. Plus, there are times when planned content can change.

Once you build a schedule, you’ll have a clear overview of your publishing habits, cadence and tactics. Sprout Social’s unique social publishing tools can help you schedule social messages while keeping a visual overview of your calendar.

Choose the best times to post on social media

It’s important to nail the right days and times to post on social media. If you don’t think about the best times to post, your posts may not get the attention you want and may hurt your social media traffic.

Keep in mind that the best days and times for each social channel vary, so your posting schedule for each platform may vary, too. For example, the best times to post on Instagram are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, whereas the best times to post on TikTok are Wednesday and Thursday. The best times to post on Facebook are Monday through Thursday.

Social media management tools like Sprout Social’s Optimal Send Times help you calculate your best times to post so you can automatically or manually schedule your content for optimized engagement.

4. Keep track of social media trends

Social media trends exit as quickly as they arrive. But when they’re here, you’re missing out if you don’t take advantage of them. Stay up to date on the latest social media trends because while not all trends will be relevant for your goals, you may find actionable insights that’ll work for you.

Adopt social listening for brand and customer insights

Do you know what your target audience talks about on social media and why? Social media monitoring helps identify the topics your audience talks about, but social media listening lets you in on the reasons behind those conversations.

Sprout’s Listening tool translates social chatter into brand insights so you can connect more deeply with your audience. This leads to an increase in traffic from social media, higher conversions, and a bigger business impact.

Get to know your competitors

Social media competitive analysis helps you dissect your social media traffic against your industry contenders. You can easily locate key performance metrics and see how similar audiences respond to competitors’ social posts. It’s also a great way to answer the many social media questions you may have about your industry and best practices.

With competitive analysis, you want to gain an idea on how your rivals successfully engage with their followers. Try to understand what type of content drives comments, clicks, impressions and shares. This can give you a better idea into your own social media content planning.

For example, Sprout Social’s analytics software for X (formerly known as Twitter) will give you a clear comparison of your handle against a competitor. You can also stack two competitors against one another to see who is posting engaging content.

5. Continuously engage with your audience

Keeping your audience engaged is one of the best ways to drive social media traffic. It’s also a key aspect of social media management. Index data shows that 28% of consumers follow a brand on social media to engage with the community or customers of that brand. Plus, of the most memorable brands on social media, 51% respond to customers. The bottom line? Customers crave engagement—and they want more of it. So why not take advantage and boost social engagement to funnel engaged followers to your website and drive traffic.

Effectively manage your social inbox

Manage your social inbox more efficiently so you don’t miss out on any customer messages.  Sprout helps you do this by aggregating your incoming messages from all of your social media accounts into the Smart Inbox, so you can see everything in one place and respond to it all in record time. Keep track of your responses so you don’t duplicate any efforts and make sure your social media followers feel taken care of.

Turn IRL events into online engagement

Consider events your brand has in real life and how they can translate to the social media world. For example, if you’re hosting a product launch for VIP customers, create a photo booth where they can take selfies and post to their social accounts with an event hashtag. Then, you can reshare their posts from your brand account or comment on their posts. The actions you take post-event can multiply the level of engagement for your account.

Speed up your social media response times

Social media response time matters. According to the Index, most customers want to hear from you the same day, ideally within a few hours. Swift responses show your commitment to your customers, which leads to stronger brand satisfaction, higher brand loyalty and a positive brand reputation.

Increase your level of social media engagement

Bolster your social media engagement by tracking current performance using social media analytics tools. Determine what your engagement goals are and then develop a strategy to achieve them. Dedicating resources to proactive and reactive community management is an excellent tactic for boosting social media engagement.

For example, Wendy’s posted a product marketing video on Facebook that features a massive balloon in the shape of a Frosty hovering over Niagara Falls. As user comments came in, Wendy’s swiftly responded to amp up engagement and make their followers feel valued.

6. Partner with influencers in your niche

According to a Q3 2023 Sprout Pulse Survey, over 80% of marketers agree that influencers are essential to their overall social media strategy. Here’s how you can use influencers to boost your social media traffic.

Tap into micro and nano-influencers

Influencer marketing used to mean working with major celebrities, but things have changed today with the advent of micro and nano-influencers. They may have fewer followers than their mega and macro counterparts, but these influencers are more accessible and are great for brands looking to reach a niche audience.

In a Q1 survey of more than 2,000 consumers from the US and UK, we found that 40% of consumers say they prefer to interact with micro and nano-influencers.

However, finding the right influencers for your brand, regardless of size, isn’t easy. That’s where tools like Tagger, Sprout Social’s influencer marketing platform, help. They enable you to find the right influencers to promote your brand and manage influencer campaigns, while also helping you measure your success.

Prioritize diversity and representation

There are so many influencer marketing trends, but diversity and representation is here to stay—there’s a business case for it. According to Index research, skepticism around performative activism is on the rise.

It’s not just about partnering with influencers who represent diverse backgrounds, but engaging with them in a meaningful way. For example, if your brand wants to honor Pride month, then work with an influencer from the LGBTQIA+ community—or better yet, support those influencers all year round. Your customers are bound to notice your efforts.

Lilly Singh, a long-time social media influencer who’s part of the LGBTQIA+ community and the South Asian community, uses her unique brand of humor to promote brands that share her values, such as Skillshare. With this partnership, Skillshare gets more eyes on its brand—eyes that may not have followed the brand to begin with. And, with an influencer like Lilly Singh backing up the brand, her followers may be more interested in Skillshare going forward.

7. Use social media management tools

To increase traffic from social media, you need the right tools to maintain an engaging and consistent presence. Managing workflows, digging through analytics and gleaning insights from reports—all of these tasks can be optimized when you use the right software.

If you choose to do these things manually or with basic tools, you’re going to spend more time on administrative tasks than strategic ones—and that’s never a good thing.

Here’s how social media management tools can help you optimize your social performance, and increase your social media traffic.

Use data to curate content

Taking a data-driven approach to curate content results in higher engagement on your social media channels and increases traffic on your website. However, it can be overwhelming to figure out what content to share where and when. Tools like Sprout Social’s Find Content help you crawl through social media to find the most shared content and then match it with a relevant category for your brand. You can then find the most relevant content in that category to share on your social channels.

Measure your engagement

Tracking your social media engagement is a good way to move the goalpost so you can continuously improve your results. Most social media platforms have their own analytics tools. You can also use 3rd-party social media analytics tools to get deeper insights into how people interact with your platform. For example, Sprout Social uses AI-powered sentiment analysis tools to measure your brand health so you can better determine how to respond to messages.

Analyze your progress with in-depth reporting

Collecting data and monitoring social media metrics is good, but it’s the reports that are the star of the show. They help you see trends and anomalies over time so you can decide what to do next to reach your business goals, such as getting more people to visit and interact with your social media.

At Sprout, we use social media automation tools to help you analyze social performance across networks, with custom graphics and reports to visualize the findings. Plus, we have a keen focus on increasing social media traffic with tools like SproutLink. It’s a clickable replica of your Instagram grid, complete with unique links associated with each of your Instagram posts to drive more traffic to your website. Our integration with Google Analytics lets brands see traffic data directly in Sprout.