Growing My Site Using Only Social Media

[Strickland]

Hi AffiliateFixers,
I was thinking it’s probably about time I started a journey thread, so here it is my next experiment. I've been wondering just how much traffic can I get from social media. So I set up this project to focus purely on that.

I’ll be using a brand new website, on a brand new domain and I’m going to grow the site using only social media.
All the social media accounts are also brand new, nothing is aged in, the whole setup is sparkling clean and fresh.

So far this has taken me about 12 weeks to set up, I spent some time researching and planning a 12 month traffic & marketing strategy. I have no idea if it’s going to work but it should be an interesting ride all the same.

The website niche is a sort of fun, comedy, and entertainment site. I’m hoping the site content will work well with social media and also, hopefully, put a smile on some faces. With all the crap going on around the world I figured a light-hearted site would be fun to promote.

I’ll be using social media in the following order
Instagram
Facebook
Pinterest
Youtube
Twitter

I’ll also be collecting Push and Email subscribers along the way, both will be on auto responders that basically just promote different parts of the site and encourage visitors to return.

For monetization I’ll start off using Adsense, but I plan to try out some other networks as traffic grows. A little further down the line I also plan to include amazon and test some CPA offers.

My first goal (I have many)
get 1000 visitors a month

So, let’s see how it goes, for the next 3 months I’ll be focusing on building up the Instagram account and driving traffic from that to the site. I currently have 34 followers and yesterday I got 5 hits

 

[azgold]

Good luck, @Strickland ! It should be interesting to see the results.

I love how some of our members are experimenting with things.

 

[Graybeard]

I would buy some appropriate pop traffic and redirect it to the social media posts to game the social media algorithms.
Also, don't overlook any tagging or keyword.
If you can game social media search that is a lot of possible traffic ...

 

[Strickland]

Cheers @Graybeard I'll give the pop thing a try.
I spent the best part of 6 months bending my head around Google algorithms and thought social media would be a breeze after that, more fool me

 

[Honeybadger]

Great to follow your new thread
For push and email subscribers what's your legal obligation?

 

[Strickland]

For push and email subscribers what's your legal obligation?

I have a pretty thorough privacy policy that covers GDPR, I also double optin with all email registrations.
It's my first time collecting push notifications so I've had that added to the policy, and I have a link from the little push subscription box to the policy. Just a "learn more" hyperlink.
As far as I know right now that covers me legally.

 

[Honeybadger]

I have a pretty thorough privacy policy that covers GDPR, I also double optin with all email registrations.
It's my first time collecting push notifications so I've had that added to the policy, and I have a link from the little push subscription box to the policy. Just a "learn more" hyperlink.
As far as I know right now that covers me legally.

Do you include company details?

• Office address
• Telephone
• E-mail
• Website

 

[Strickland]

Do you include company details?

Yes, I've been self-employed since I left school and started another LTD company a few months back that's specific to my online ventures, it covers me from personal loss if things go bad. I think in the states it's a PLC.
I also have a shared business address in London not far from where I live. It cost £26 a week to rent, but it means I have a post address a phone line and I get the use of office space 4 hrs a week. I've never used it, no wifi, and it's a bit run down but it's there if I need it.

 

[Honeybadger]

What's the setting to get threads update alerts?
I'm watching @Strickland's thread
But missing all the action !!

 

[Graybeard]

LLC Limited Liability 'company' Corporation really
Usually, you can use the corporation's resident agent's address --there are services in the US like $50 -$100 yr.

 

[Strickland]

What's the setting to get threads update alerts?
I'm watching @Strickland's thread
But missing all the action !!

Not much going on right now @Honeybadger I'm going to update with a progress report once a week on a Friday. You'll have to hold tight till tomorrow

 

[Honeybadger]

Not much going on right now @Honeybadger I'm going to update with a progress report once a week on a Friday. You'll have to hold tight till tomorrow

It's not your thread, must be a setting on the user control panel

 

[HJabir]

Good luck dude! Once you figure out how to make the most of hashtags Twitter and Instagram become easy. The key is: less is more with hashtags. On FB look for relevant groups for promotion and while I'm not sure Reddit is considered social media, its also great for traffic.

 

[Strickland]

So that’s week number one over and here’s what I’ve been doing

My plan for the first few weeks is to get 5 followers a day and post every other day. I’m doing this to avoid getting hit with bans or restrictions from Instagram. They can be brutal with new accounts if they grow too fast especially if they’re business related.

To get the followers I’m researching hashtags in my niche, then following and sending DM’s to select people following that hashtag. I have three different DM messages that I’m split testing to see which approach works best. It’s still very early days and impossible to tell if one approach works better than another. I’m also interacting with my followers using likes and comments as often as I can throughout the day.

I added some more content to the site and started writing emails for the follow ups when someone subscribes.
I haven’t enabled the subscription box for collecting emails or push subscribers yet so nothing to report there.

I also started playing around with some add placements on the site just to see where they might go. It’s still way too early to apply for adsense so I'm not going to waste too much time with it right now.

Here are some screen shots of the insta account and site traffic report
It’s a slow start, but a start nonetheless.
I got 39 followers this week and a steady trickle of visitors

Good luck dude! Once you figure out how to make the most of hashtags Twitter and Instagram become easy. The key is: less is more with hashtags. On FB look for relevant groups for promotion and while I'm not sure Reddit is considered social media, its also great for traffic.

Thanks for the heads-up @HJabir I'll look into Reddit and maybe add it to the list.

 

[Strickland]

Updater #2

So for this week, I added more content to the site, I will continue to add and update the content so any returning visitors get fresh content to view and will hopefully encourage continued revisits.
I didn't post much at all this week, I only added 3 posts. I was busy collecting hashtags and setting up some tiles with tailwind. Hopefully, in the next few weeks, I'll have it posting regular content to the insta account which should see improvement in traffic to the site and will also give me some data on hashtags.
I got my target 5 follows a day this week and will be aiming for the same again next week.
Other than that there's not much to report right now.

 

[PaidPoints]

Hi AffiliateFixers,
I was thinking it’s probably about time I started a journey thread, so here it is my next experiment. I've been wondering just how much traffic can I get from social media. So I set up this project to focus purely on that.

I’ll be using a brand new website, on a brand new domain and I’m going to grow the site using only social media.
All the social media accounts are also brand new, nothing is aged in, the whole setup is sparkling clean and fresh.

So far this has taken me about 12 weeks to set up, I spent some time researching and planning a 12 month traffic & marketing strategy. I have no idea if it’s going to work but it should be an interesting ride all the same.

The website niche is a sort of fun, comedy, and entertainment site. I’m hoping the site content will work well with social media and also, hopefully, put a smile on some faces. With all the crap going on around the world I figured a light-hearted site would be fun to promote.

I’ll be using social media in the following order
Instagram
Facebook
Pinterest
Youtube
Twitter

I’ll also be collecting Push and Email subscribers along the way, both will be on auto responders that basically just promote different parts of the site and encourage visitors to return.

For monetization I’ll start off using Adsense, but I plan to try out some other networks as traffic grows. A little further down the line I also plan to include amazon and test some CPA offers.

My first goal (I have many)
get 1000 visitors a month

So, let’s see how it goes, for the next 3 months I’ll be focusing on building up the Instagram account and driving traffic from that to the site. I currently have 34 followers and yesterday I got 5 hits

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View attachment 19433

Iol nice. But I would like to know more about the crap going on around the world.

 

[Uerdgoly]

Iol nice. But I would like to know more about the crap going on around the world.

But why do you have to go through all this shit? This is a real hassle.

 

[Honeybadger]

Good to see your progress
How are you collecting hashtags?
Do you have any advice about hashtag use?
I like to use one hashtag in each post
It's normally a variation of the same hashtag
Really enjoying your thread

 

[Honeybadger]

I'm not sure Reddit is considered social media

Agree with that
Reddit is just Reddit
It's like Hungarian language
Somebody asked what's Hungarian similar to
Reply was Hungarian is just Hungarian
Reddit is just Reddit
Sorry @Strickland

 

[Strickland]

Reddit is just Reddit
Sorry @Strickland

LOL, I completely see your point of view

How are you collecting hashtags?

I signed up for hashtagify, not sure if it's any good but it's a start. All my previous use of IG has been with influencers so I haven't used hashtags seriously before. I have to admit I'm finding it hard. It seems if you pick a popular hashtag your post gets buried under all the other posts really quick. Then if you go for a tag that isn't so popular nobody goes there anyway. I think the posts with more views, likes, and comments get a better position with the hashtags so I might try promoting a post for a while and see if it makes a difference

 

[HJabir]

LOL, I completely see your point of view

I signed up for hashtagify, not sure if it's any good but it's a start. All my previous use of IG has been with influencers so I haven't used hashtags seriously before. I have to admit I'm finding it hard. It seems if you pick a popular hashtag your post gets buried under all the other posts really quick. Then if you go for a tag that isn't so popular nobody goes there anyway. I think the posts with more views, likes, and comments get a better position with the hashtags so I might try promoting a post for a while and see if it makes a difference

Hashtagify is a great tool to use! Also try tossing in a trend of the day hashtag ala "#Wednesdaywisdom" every once and a while when relevant for extra views

 

[Strickland]

I haven't updated for a few days, the reason being my IG account got restricted twice, it was only 4 days but I slowed everything down to avoid any more upsets. My activity got restricted by IG in their words "to protect the IG community"
I don't really have too much of an issue with it, just a bit frustrating because I was just getting in a groove with hashtags at the time. I could have used an aged account for this experiment and avoided this type of thing but that would defeat the purpose of the experiment in my opinion.

For anyone interested my daily IG campaign was like this.

contact 30 people in my niche, follow their account, and send a DM.
follow 10 people in my niche without a DM
like 50 posts, reels, or stories
make 15 comments
post 2 times a week testing hashtags

I didn't stick to these numbers exactly but I'm pretty close, it's all done manually on my phone 3 times each day.
I think I might need to post more so I'm going to up the post rate and include some reels and stories atleast once a week.
Hopefully, by the end of the week, I should be back on it and I'll post a numbers update.

Hashtagify is a great tool to use! Also try tossing in a trend of the day hashtag ala "#Wednesdaywisdom" every once and a while when relevant for extra views

Hashtagify definitely helped increase views and likes. I was starting to get followers from the hashtags too which is great. The only thing I found hard was knowing which hashtags the followers are coming from. I'll also try some trending tags with my next posts cheers