Do Social Media Contests Drive Traffic?

Image Representing Social media contests drive traffic to website

Today’s post is by guest blogger, Dragan Palla.

How Much Traffic Does a Social Media Contest Really Drive to Your Site?

Ask a blogger – driving traffic to your website with a contest can be a really exciting, effective process. However, there are some very key points you need to think about in order to make it a successful concept.
Two things you need to look at right away are:

  1. The Source of the Traffic
  2. The Quality of the Traffic.

Why are these two items the most important?

The Source of Future Profits

The source of social media traffic is extremely important because if you’re not targeting the right audience, your efforts aren’t going to pay off. The contest should be marketed to the right people in the right way in order to get on their radar.

For example, if you’re marketing an online contest for a free Kindle and your site talks about writing–you don’t want to market to people who love to bead or prefer to play active sports. The marketing for the contest should be done using avenues that writers frequent, both online and offline. Even if you market to a writer who doesn’t go online very often, they may find enough information on your site to keep returning in the future.

When they enter the contest, they’ll have a reason to return to check the prize winning results. They will also come back to see what’s new, especially if they really enjoyed the first visit.

If you see an uptick in visits from certain demographics or sources that were not previously visiting your page regularly, then you know contest marketing is on target. These are the results you want to see any time you’re driving traffic to your site, but especially during the running of a contest.

Traffic Quality is Number One

Getting visitors is great, but if they don’t follow through on your call to action–they’re not profitable. The quality of your traffic determines how often your call to action is completed and whether or nor your contest advertising dollars are being spent in the right place.

Quality traffic is important because that means you have website visitors who are ready to spend time or money on the subject you’re sharing. If they’re not looking for information or ready to spend money on a solution, then the quality of the traffic is really low.

So how do you know you’re getting quality traffic and how can you improve it? Target the right people where they’re at and there you have it–quality visitors!

A contest will always attract people who just want the freebies. Don’t worry, expect these and know they will help share your site just to increase their contest entries.

This is helpful in terms of getting your name out there, but the individual lead is not likely to increase profits very much. The contest entries that stick around and keep reading are what you’re really after.

These are social media visitors who enjoy the topic, like what you’re saying and are going to share your page for more than just an additional contest entry. In fact, the contest may become secondary once they discover the resources you’re offering.

Getting quality traffic means that you’re getting many more serious inquiries for information and answers than you are simply for social media contest entries. That’s how you know your contest is accomplishing the right purpose and the social media drive is being effective.

In the end, it’s not about how many visitors your site gets as this doesn’t determine future value. It’s about a contest bringing your site to the attention of serious buyers or clients.

Comment below to share ideas and any previous experiences you’d like to post.

 

About the author:
Dragan Palla is founder of DomainsFlow where he shares his passion about content marketing and social media. Get more from Dragan on Google+.

Photo credit

By Wanda Anglin

Wanda Anglin has a passion to help businesses and non-profits reach their goals by attracting more of the right website visitors. Her empathy and understanding for small business challenges comes from a background in project management, sales support, accounting, and business ownership. When not helping clients, Wanda is traveling, fixing her home, or tending to her 900 trees (really).

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