Social Media’s Conversion Quirks

Businesses are flocking to social media venues in an effort to increase exposure and gain new customers. For many, their efforts are paying off in the form of increased visitors and new sales. On the flip side, however, many businesses are also experiencing a drop in conversion rates after entering the social media world.

How to Improve Conversion

Why? They’ve increased their volume of viewers without targeting the message, resulting in a higher bounce rate, and many more people who aren’t finding what they expected to find. You can improve conversion with social media by keeping the quirks of the system in mind as you design your landing pages.

●      Use descriptive posts. When you post something on Facebook or Twitter, make sure you’re specific in your descriptions. Don’t post “Check out our new product here!” You might get thousands of clicks, but you’ll also get thousands of bounces. To improve conversion with social media, post “Check out our new gps tracking watch here!” instead. That way, the people who click will be the ones interested in gps tracking watches.

●      Optimize landing pages. In order to improve conversion in social media, you need landing pages that deliver on viewer expectations. Your headline should work hand in hand with the social media post the viewer just saw, and your brand should be immediately evident. Make it easy for visitors to figure out what you want them to do, whether it’s sign up for a newsletter, enter a sweepstakes, or give feedback.

●      Give away products rather than gift certificates. When you hold a giveaway through Facebook, offer a product, your own or someone else’s rather than a gift card. Why? People looking to make a purchase will most likely wait until they find out whether they’ve won the gift card before they buy. By the time the winner is announced, the other thousand entrants may have forgotten you completely. Offering a product, especially someone else’s product (like an iPad) makes it more likely that people signing up for a contest on your site will click around and consider an immediate purchase.

●      Offer perks for repeat customers. If a viewer knows that you give discounts or free merchandise to people who make additional purchases, they’ll be more likely to buy from you in the first place. Make it worth your viewers’ while to stay on your page and choose you from among your competitors.

Don’t get discouraged if your conversion rates drop during the beginning of your social media campaign. It could just mean that your efforts to increase traffic are working. But as you delve further into your social media strategy, make sure you work to improve conversion with social media by targeting some of the specific conversion problems that social media venues generate.

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