When using social media to drive traffic, it’s essential to recognize that some activities provide short-term, quick bursts of traffic while others work longer. I call this the short-tail and long-tail, and they’re both different strategies with different results.
For example, when you post something on Twitter, it runs through the feed, and people either see it and click on it, or they don’t. When you put something on Pinterest, it’s searchable for as long as it’s on Pinterest and will send traffic for the long-term. Twitter is a short-tail strategy, and Pinterest is a long-tail strategy.
Let’s focus on the long-tail strategy and evergreen content to drive traffic to your website continually. Evergreen content is search engine optimized content (SEO) relevant to your readers at all times. For example, a how-to article on baking bread can be pertinent to your reader’s year-round. In contrast, a seasonal sale article or announcement is only useful for a short time.
The trick is to have the right mix of evergreen content and trending content with the focus primarily on evergreen content so that you can successfully use social media marketing for long-term results.
Here are some tips for helping you balance the short-tail and long-tail strategy of content marketing:
- Provide Quality over Quantity – Whether it’s evergreen content or trending content, ensure that anything you create or share is high quality, accurate, and relevant to your audience. If you know your target market, this makes content creation easier.
- Mix it Up – Do both Evergreen content and trending or timely content. Set up your calendar according to your promotions you already know about, industry events you already know about, and then keep up to date on the news so that you can add in trending information. Share all of it across all of your social media platforms.
- Focus More on Evergreen Content – The most important content you can create for your business is evergreen content. That is content that will be useful to your clients for an extended period.
- Change up The Format –Don’t focus your content on only text content. Use different formats to present the same content. For example, if you read a trending article that made you think, make a video about introducing it, then link it.
- Add in Seasonal Content – One type of trending content that you should consider adding if it’s appropriate for your niche is seasonal content.
Begin by posting evergreen content on your blog and sharing it differently on your social media channels to drive traffic back to your website.
For more tips, tricks, and advice on using social media marketing for your business, sign up for our weekly newsletter. As a thank you for signing up, you’ll receive my free Google My Business checklist and DIY social media audit worksheet.
