7 Smart Ways to Drive Conversions on Social Media

Got loads of fans for your social media campaigns?

Yes? Give yourselves a pat on the back.

Feels good to have all those views, likes, shares, and comments for your video, images, and posts, right?

Now what are you going do with all that attention on your brand?

It’s one thing to be seen. It’s another to inspire those fans and followers to take an intended and useful action.

Like hitting the buy, click, sign up, or call button.

You’re not doing this for popularity alone. You’ve got numbers to achieve, a boss to please, a job to keep.

Best way to do that? Convert followers to leads and customers.

We’ve got some tips for you.

Bonus: Get the step-by-step social media strategy guide with pro tips on how to grow your social media presence.

1. Write to be understood

We humans get bombarded with 105,000 words a day, 23 words per second, equating to 34 gigabytes of information. I didn’t make that up.

So then… how do you get noticed when the noise is deafening, the signal weak? In seconds?

Be clear and crisp with your words. Here’s how.

Keep it simple

Write it out. Then edit maniacally.

Replace long words with simple, everyday ones. “Utilize?” Oh please. “Use?” That’s the one.

Straight up, the Hemingway App will make you a better writer—immediately.

Write with the right brain, edit with the left

Writing without correcting is the best use of your creative, expressive brain.

It allows you to get what’s out of your head, onto the page. That’s right brain stuff. Left brain is the linear thinking—like editing.

Mix the two? This makes it too easy to stall. Trying to correct while you express, and you’ll leave your best thoughts off the page.

Best to barf out the words first then, correct, organize and fix four or five or six times afterwards.

Writer’s block is self inflicted.

Ditch the jargon

Why?

Because it requires brain-translation, making the mind work harder than needed.

It’s a lazy way to write.

Companies and their writers hide behind these terms every day, all across the web. But not you, right? Do the heavy lifting for the reader, because they surely won’t. They’ll just click elsewhere.

Write to the reader

Make them, not you, the hero.

Because everyone loves themselves most.

Keep this on top-of-mind when writing. Of course this requires you know something about your audience. A lot, actually.

When writing, think about how you can get them to nod their virtual head. Do this well, and the reader will feel you are talking directly to them. And…

You’ll increase the odds for them hitting that critical button, image, or link.

Include an effective CTA

…to set the right expectation of what’s coming the reader’s way.

And what gains they can expect.

Here’s a bunch of CTA tips I described recently.

The long and short of it: keep readers in the know, with CTAs that are part of the flow. No surprises when they click your CTAs. Otherwise, that’s clickbait.

2. Boost your top-performing content

Are you running multiple ad campaigns at a time? Many marketers do.

But it’s kind of hard to keep track of them all.

Facebook’s Boost Post tool to the rescue. Use it to automatically boost content that’s doing well organically. Like posts containing a link to your website once they receive 10 shares.

Choose the type of posts to boost
Set how long to promote them, and…
Specify when to boost them with ad money

We use shares as a key metric. It’s more of an active engagement than a like or view.

Try auto-boosting your shares.

Why waste people’s time when a bot can do this for you?

Faster + Better = more conversions.

Hootsuite Academy summarizes why you should consider boosting top-performing Facebook posts in the short video below.

3. Make your website mobile friendly

Why?

Because the data says so.

People use their mobile devices 80 percent of the time on social media.

Therefore…

Google prioritizes mobile-friendly web pages
Mobile is the standard, thus…
Site visitors expect it
Your pages will rank higher
You’ll get more conversions
And six other reasons here

And, design for mobile first. Then for desktop.

Otherwise, mobile never looks as good as it should, or it takes more time and fidgeting to do after the fact.

Luckily, WordPress, Squarespace, and other popular website platforms have mobile rendering built in. But don’t use this an excuse to think desktop first, and mobile second.

Mobile is the way of the world.

For now. Maybe it’ll be watches next? I hope not.

4. Use visuals to enhance your story

True, content drives design.

And images follow up to move the reader through the story, with elegance and grace.

Words + Visuals, they’re made for each other.

Like Bogart and Bacall, Astaire and Rogers, Bonnie and Clyde.

Or think Peanut Butter cups. Chocolate + peanut butter. Meant to be together—not apart.

A few tips to make your images stand out:

Be consistent with colors

For example, assign certain colors to topics or content. It sets expectations for the reader. And helps them scan and choose what to read, what to ignore.

We operate online by skimming and scanning. It’s required with all the noise on the web. Help readers help themselves.

Avoid poor stock photos

Otherwise, you’ll lose reader’s attention by looking like everyone else. And be perceived as a commodity business. Use stock photos the right way.

Insert a video or GIF

Reach out and grab your reader’s attention. Videos and GIFs stand out in feeds. Maybe your first time? Not sure how to create and use them? Here’s how.

Now—dance.

5. Split test

Split (or A/B) testing is a real-time approach to test small variations in your posts.

Change a single variation of a post at a time, to see what works best.

For example, test two posts…

One with a photo, the other with a video
One with a short video, the other with a long one
One with the heading in mixed case, the other in all caps
One with sub-heading ending in a period, the other with an exclamation mark
One with a green background, the other in plum
One with a key line of text stated as a question, the other as a statement

The options are endless. They key is a singular change at a time.

Don’t give up on a campaign too quickly, when a slight change can make the difference between 10 and 1,000 retweets. Really.

6. Create landing pages for the right audience

Your brand, service, or product message should vary based on the audience.

People’s demographics and psychographics differ among Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and the others.

As an example… want to direct people from Twitter to your landing page?

Well then, personalize the page by using a similar color scheme. Or, creatively integrate the tweets on your page.

Creating a smooth transition makes people feel at home.

You’ll be more believable, honest, and trusted.

Which makes readers more likely to click on your CTA.

Here’s a Hootsuite post for creating a great a landing page on Instagram. Use some of the same techniques on the other social platforms, too.

7. Offer up some social proof

Because 79 percent of humans trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

Do you use Yelp or Google Reviews before trying out a new eatery?

See what I mean.

The same applies to your posts and landing pages. We’re conditioned to make decisions based on what others think for…

Popular tweets and retweets
Brands with loads of social fans or followers
Articles with thousands of shares
Web pages with testimonials from satisfied customers
Case studies to show how you improved a bottom line

All this builds trust in the reader’s mind. Respect, too.

It’s emotional.

Want to convert views to clicks, clicks to leads, leads to paying clients? Get all that plus know what’s working, what’s not, and what to change for your social posts—in real-time. Try Hootsuite Analytics for free.

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Contributer : Hootsuite Social Media Management http://bit.ly/2M8zMcq