Integrating Social Media With Your Website
As we continue our series of web tips for real estate investors, this week we’re going to focus on making social media an integral part of your website.
This piece is going to focus less on social media content and practices while exploring the mechanics of using social media as a part of your overall web strategy. In a nutshell, we’re going to talk about integration.
On its most basic level, integration means that consumers should be able to find your website via social media and vice versa. It should be obvious and easy for them to go from one to the other. Examples of this are like boxes and previews of your Facebook page displayed predominately on your website’s front page, Twitter and Instagram follow buttons, YouTube subscription links, and social share buttons on all of your content.
But true integration goes much deeper than that. As we’ve discussed before, your website is where consumers will take the action you desire, whether it’s making a phone call, filling out a content form, reading a blog, or viewing a listing. Social media should function as spokes on a wheel leading consumers back to the hub that is your website.
Social media is where you’ll generate your leads, but your website is where those leads will become of actual value. What can you do on your website to make the best use of social media, and how can you make it an indispensable part of your brand?
Embedded social content
Even though they each serve different purposes for you, you want the consumer to see your website and social media as fundamentally intertwined. It sends the message to a user who finds your website through Google, for example, that they should follow you on social media as well.
The best way to accomplish that is through embeds and social links. For example, you might embed your business Instagram feed somewhere on your website so users can preview the kind of content you post.
Using YouTube for video content is helpful as well. Instead of uploading videos directly to your website, create a YouTube channel, upload your videos there, and then embed them on your website. This allows you to grow your YouTube viewership and subscribers on your website while also providing video content to website visitors in an easy, familiar format.
You can also embed your Twitter feed. By themselves, embedded feeds aren’t likely to make a huge difference in your overall reach on that specific platform, but again, it sends the message that you as a brand have social media content which the user should view in its native format by following your social media accounts. Including a follow button prompts them to do so.
Link both ways and prioritize engagement
As we said earlier, it should be easy and obvious for audiences to go from website to social media or vice versa. You can facilitate this in both directions as it pertains to your overall goal.
For example, including share and like buttons on blogs, listings, and photos allow audiences to share content that’s relevant to them. This is easy if they see it on, say, Twitter or Facebook, but if they read a blog on your website, they should have the option to engage it in a way that’s familiar to them.
All social media platforms have social share buttons that you can add to your content, giving users the option to share it. You can also enable Facebook comments for most pages and content on your website, further integrating the platform with your website and encouraging engagement.
On social media itself, you should always link back to your website. The action button on your Facebook page should lead back to your website. Your website should be prominently displayed as a link on all profiles, and linked in every piece of content that’s reasonable. Examples might be putting a link in each YouTube video, creating a link/action button for Facebook videos, and regularly posting links to website content (such as blogs) on social media.
Speaking of links…
Get used to tracking links
Tracking links are links that are used for analytical purposes. The best example is bitly.com. Most of these platforms shorten a link and create a distinct, unique URL and pathway so you can track clicks on it later.
The most obvious practice here is shortening a link so it fits in a tweet more easily, and then tracking the amount of clicks it gets. You would use another, unique link – for the same piece of content – for other platforms, such as Facebook or LinkedIn.
The reason you would use different links for different platforms is to assess the effectiveness of each one. Which performs better? Do more people arrive at your website or blog through Twitter, or through Facebook? When you have different links for each platform, you can see how well each performs.
This brings us to the next portion of this piece in which we talk about analytics. Tracked links are one part of that, but you can also view analytics across various platforms to put together a complete picture of your overall web traffic.
Monitor analytics
Analytics provide valuable insight as to the nature, demographics, and preferences of your audience. They clue you in to the sources of your traffic and your leads as a business. They come in various forms, and you’ll want to take advantage of all of them to put together a complete picture.
For starters, use Google Analytics for your website. This is a wealth of information that tells you where your traffic is coming from, what audiences are doing on your website, how long they’re staying, what pages they’re viewing, and who they are. You’re going to want to know this information as you advertise your business.
This is useful even if you’re not putting together online ads with highly specific targeting; if you notice that most visitors and leads tend to come from a certain zip code, you might consider placing bandit signs in that area, for example.
Track the number of impressions (or how many times your content was viewed) on Twitter, and view your Facebook analytics daily. You can see, on both platforms, how users engage with your content and profiles and the rate at which they head to your website, which you can then correlate with Google Analytics or shortened tracking links.
Instagram and YouTube now have high-powered analytics as well, so be sure to include them in the picture, especially if you use tracking links in video descriptions on YouTube.
Final note: if you advertise on Facebook, make use of tracking pixels
Facebook is probably the easiest platform to advertise on where you’re likely to get the most bang for your buck (and unlike Google Ads, you don’t need a huge budget to see measurable results). You can make a pixel, which you embed in your website that tracks everything from visits to designated button clicks.
This helps you ascertain the effectiveness of your ads but also should contribute to the larger picture when it comes to putting together your analytics.
Like most investments, social media is about diversification. What works for one platform may not for another, and you’ll want to know either where to concentrate your money and efforts or what needs improvement. Analytics, links, and pixels all contribute to this picture.
Social media and your website should also be mutually supportive, though. As you see gains in one area, you should be looking to parley those gains into others. These practices will help you understand this picture and they’ll inform your decisions going forward.
For more perspectives on real estate investment and web practices, check back with us each week as we post new blogs and be sure to sign up for our Priority Access List for advance listings and market updates. You can also keep up with us on Facebook and Twitter!
- Get It Right Solutions