Software publishers, how can you generate web traffic using social networks?

Software publishers: the best web traffic acquisition specialists share their best practices with you. Let's start with Massaï: the agency has kept pace with developments in the digital world since 2001.

These (r)evolutions are always ongoing, because while there are start dates (the appearance of this or that lever), there are rarely end dates. Massaï's teams are therefore constantly training to understand changes in platforms, algorithms, different types of reach, etc.

But above all we seek to understand all the finer points of social media 'consumption': sometimes you're a private individual connected, sometimes an online professional.

Are your colleagues your 'friends'? Do your customers 'follow' you? Have your competitors created a buzz?

Social networks: stop the myths!

Contrary to popular belief, it's not just young people who use social networks: over 80% of people with Internet access in France are registered on at least one social network, with the average Facebook user aged 43!

As the conversational crossroads of the web, social networks have now become media in their own right, with a huge audience to target precisely and meticulously.

For example, you can easily reach sales managers in France, aged between 35 and 45, who have shown an interest in computer software in the last month, own their own home, are married with two children and have a monthly tax income of between €2900 and €4100.

Creating a tailor-made Social Media strategy is the first step to success

To be effective, the first thing you need to do is create personas - the typical customer you want to reach - in order to draw up a list of social networks to invest in. Knowing the behavioural trends of your contacts and understanding the logic behind each social media channel is essential if you are to define an effective and relevant content strategy.

In line with your marketing objectives, you also need to segment and adapt your communications by platform: Facebook users do not have the same expectations as Twitter or Linkedin users.

In addition to professional networks (Linkedin, Viadeo, etc), you need to bear in mind that the average user is relaxing when he consults his social networks. They are under heavy advertising pressure all day long and expect brands to offer entertaining, even humorous, content.

So be interesting before you are interested.

After this theoretical phase, you now need to apply these analyses and strategic reflections, by mediatising your content in order to achieve your ultimate objective: to create conversions. Once again, there are a number of steps to follow in order to be as effective as possible.

Media your content to gain visibility and create interaction

There are more and more users on social networks, and therefore more and more content. As a result, the average user will not be able to consult all the publications of their friends or the brand pages they follow, which has tended to reduce the organic reach of publications over the years.

Let's say you have 10,000 people following your Facebook page. With a publication reach of 2-5%, you will reach an average of between 300 and 500 people. Media coverage of your content is therefore essential if you want to gain visibility and achieve your objectives.

Let's assume that you are not very well known, if at all (at least among your potential customers on social networks). You therefore need to prove your legitimacy and create enthusiasm before asking a social network user to visit your website or subscribe to your offer.

The first step will be to activate campaigns with objectives to maximise reach, i.e. the number of people reached, in order to work on your reputation with a large audience and to increase your visibility.The first step is to activate campaigns with objectives to maximise reach, i.e. the number of people reached, in order to work on your reputation with a large audience and to start creating interest, at a low cost.

This is followed by a phase of consideration and engagement through campaigns optimised for interaction. The aim here is to start creating a dialogue with your targets through expert content, such as advice, tutorials or in-depth articles: positive information.

After this period of seduction, it's time to take the plunge: generate traffic to your website!

Generate traffic and create conversions to achieve your goals

Start by installing the Facebook pixel, to understand the actions of your visitors: what is the typical path taken by your potential customers?

How many add to the shopping basket without making a purchase? - Reach the audiences that matter to you: re-target buyers? target people with the same profile as those buyers? - and analyse the effectiveness of your advertising: which target generates the most clicks? The most conversions? The best return?

As well as raising your profile and creating engagement, the previous two steps have another benefit: creating personalised audiences.

Rather than re-targeting people who have never seen your content, you can re-target people who have interacted with your latest content.

People who are potentially interested in your brand. This is an effective way of lowering your acquisition costs.

But unfortunately, not all the people redirected to your website are going to subscribe to your offers, for various reasons (lengthy purchasing process, comparison with your competitors, people not sufficiently interested, etc.).

To remedy this, here comes the final phase: conversion campaigns. Whether you're looking to generate visits to a particular page, sales or other specific actions, these campaigns enable you to reach people with the intention of taking the desired action.

For example, if you want to optimise your online sales, Facebook will give priority to targeting people who are used to making online purchases.

You will also have several targeting solutions, starting with retargeting, by trying to reach people who have not subscribed to your offers, but whose behaviour on your site demonstrates a certain interest (downloading a white paper, subscribing to a newsletter, going to the payment page without completing the purchase).

Depending on your activity, offering these people an exclusive commercial offer can be a good way of facilitating the sale.

To complement this, create similar audiences of your customers, i.e. people with the same profile as your previous buyers, while refining it with other targeting criteria based on your personas, such as professional status, location, etc.

In conclusion, there is no such thing as the truth about social networks. The important thing is to test and analyse the performance of your content and advertising, so that you can learn from it and optimise your campaigns. So Test and Learn!