Facebook

When it comes to social media, Facebook is still king. The below illustrates where social media traffic comes from across our entire network.

So when it comes to social media make sure to focus on Facebook first and do that really well before trying to take on other social networks.

Wait! What about Instagram?

Instagram can be great for engagement, but not so great at driving traffic. So if your primary goal is to drive traffic to your site, then focus on Facebook.

Email

Email is still the most effective way to drive traffic to your site. It's a distribution channel where almost everyone you send an email to will get it unlike Facebook where Facebook decides who will see your post.

For this reason, email is 5x more likely to be seen!

You might also be thinking that nobody opens email. That isn't true either! People dont like to open spam but if they have opted in to receive your email and you are delivering good, quality content then people will view it. In fact, 72% people prefer to receive promotional content through email, compared to 17% who prefer social media.

Here are a few things that you can share in every email:

• 3 To See - Events from your calendar
• In Case You Missed It - Recent and past articles from your website
• Guides
• Community Sponsors

So how do I do promote my content effectively?

1. Don't create new content just for email or social media, it just creates extra work! Instead, make sure all content is posted your website first, then share the link. This ensures people click to come visit your site.
2. Don't be afraid to reuse old content. You spent a lot of time and effort creating it, make sure you get the most out of it. You can post events more than once, you can share guides regularly, you can even share past content either because it's still relevant or as a throw back.
3. Tag businesses on Facebook with the @ reference so they see it on Facebook.

Going The Extra Mile

While you won't always have time to do this, whenever possible, follow up with an email and/or phone call whenever you post an article and ask the business or person to share it.

You should definitely do this if they:

• Are an advertiser
• Have a large social media following
• Are a big contributor to your calendar
• Are a prospect you'd like to sell

When you do, make sure to include the link to the article and a short blurb they can copy and paste into Facebook.

Why you ask? It's simple. People like to talk about themselves and if you make it easy for them to do so they will help drive additional traffic to your site. We call this community outreach.