Social media has been touted by many as the ‘next big thing’, with companies jumping on the bandwagon and setting up accounts with little consideration put into why and how, then wondering why they haven’t achieved the expected results.

Using social media can be the key to increasing your website’s ranking quickly if time and thought is put into doing it right. Here are our steps to getting your content shared and traffic increased to your website or blog via social media…

Choose the right social media platforms

Don’t sign up to every social media site going indiscriminately; you need to pick the ones that are appropriate for your business, and avoid having more than you are able to update regularly. Nothing looks less professional than a Facebook or Twitter page set up, updated a few times and then abandoned.

If your company is ‘business to business’ consider making connections via LinkedIn, and if it’s ‘business to consumer’ Twitter and Facebook might be more appropriate for you. Some other useful platforms include Pinterest, Instagram, Google+ and if you’re a little more daring, Snapchat or Vine.

Consider your brand values…

As when designing and launching your website, when using social media you must make sure you put some careful thought into how you come across. You should have the same tone of voice on your website as you do when communicating via social media, so your brand’s message doesn’t become confused.

Whilst the nature of social media communication is instant this doesn’t mean you should let your grammar and spelling become sloppy. A lot of errors will make your company look unprofessional; take a quick check over for mistakes before you post.

Make sure your post is visible

It’s a great first step to create quality content for social media, but if it isn’t easily visible your hard work could be lost. Make sure you attach an eye-catching image to every post you share on Facebook.

Uploading an image manually means it will appear larger in news feeds than if you just use the automatically attached thumbnail, and for important posts consider the ‘highlight’ option to really make them stand out.

Meet and interact with potential clients

A recent study by Audience Insight Report has found that LinkedIn drives more traffic to corporate websites than any other social media platform.

LinkedIn is a great place to find relevant businesses and people in your industry. Make connections, join LinkedIn groups, create groups and share your news and blog posts to get the most traffic and enquiries through to your site as possible.

Quality content

Possibly the most important thing is the quality of your content. However beautifully your Facebook page is designed and presented, if all the posts shared are dull and derivative it is pretty meaningless.

Your posts must be compelling in some way, and explore an interesting point rather than just regurgitating the thoughts of another blog. To be heard it helps to be controversial, very specific about your topic, an authority on your topic, or all of these things.

Emily Bradbury is writing for Superdream, a digital marketing agency specialising in graphic design, SEO and web design in the Midlands.