How We Increased Social Media Clicks by Over 870% [Strategy Breakdown]

What is a social media strategy? A social media strategy is a blueprint for using social media to bolster digital marketing efforts. A social media strategy includes identifying what type of content to create, how often to create it, and the best days and times to post. If you are interested in increasing your social media effectiveness then keep reading because this is the strategy that got us an 870% increase in clicks!

In January 2023, our digital marketing agency took on a client’s social media accounts. They admittedly didn’t have a social media strategy and looked to us to boost their marketing efforts through their social. In less than one year, we increased their social media’s:

• Impressions by 31.8%
• Shares by 86.4%
• New HubSpot contacts by 224.51%
• Published posts by 267.28%
• Sessions by 390.41%
• And clicks by 872.62%

Their social media pages eventually became some of the biggest traffic referrals to their website and major assets to their SEO (search engine optimization). We’re gonna tell you how we did it!

Social Media Strategy Research

The first thing we wanted to do was create a social media posting calendar, but to do that, we did A LOT of initial research. We gathered data on:

• The recommended amount of posts for each major social media platform — Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X (formerly Twitter).
• The best days to post on each platform.
• The best times to post on each platform.

We quickly learned that there are a ton of opinions and research on all of these aspects (and that “best” can mean different things). After examining all the data, looking at commonalities, and identifying outliers, we concluded:

Going from 0 to 61 posts a week is a lot. We knew that if we attempted to start posting that amount every day, we’d be setting ourselves up for burnout and failure. So, the next step was to make some posting goals.

Social Media Posting Goals

To effectively measure our efforts, we decided on a social media posting goal per quarter. Because of all the research we did, we already knew that the recommended amount of posts we were aiming for was on the high side. So, we started at the minimum amount that was still recommended, but nothing less. That way our efforts would still yield results. The recommendations were:

• Facebook – 3x a week to 2x a day
• Instagram – 3x a week to 2x a day
• LinkedIn – 1x a week to 1x a day
• X – 1x a day to 5x a day

Here’s a screenshot of what our quarterly social media goals looked like:

Posting 14 – 26 times a week was much more doable than 61! And as we slowly increased the amounts each quarter, we could eventually make it to 61 a week without burning ourselves out. Now it was time to make the calendar.

Social Media Posting Calendar

Our research on the best days and times to post helped us strategize a portion of our calendar, but not the entire thing. We still needed to post at least 14 – 26 times a week. To stay on the safe side, we built our quarter-one social media calendar around the goal of 26 times a week, knowing we might not be able to fulfill it every week.

To identify optimal times to post on other days throughout the week, we used data collected from Sprout Social. We made sure to include and highlight the peak days and times for each platform, and used Sprout to identify what other days of the week and times would be good to post. Our efforts resulted in a social media posting calendar that looked like this in the first quarter:

And to get the creative juices flowing, we picked a relevant theme for our client’s organization to post about each day which really helped with the content creation process. We found that after the second quarter, the daily themes were a little overkill because were posting so much every day. So, we included more variety in content by quarter three and posted about the same theme twice a week instead of just once a week.

With each quarter, optimal posting days and times were added until we finally got to quarter 4 and are now posting 61 times a week. Today, our posting process is a well-oiled machine!

What to Post On Social Media

Your social media content must be relevant to your business or organization (or your client’s). Our client’s organization has an e-newsletter, curriculum, podcast, blog, book sales, and an app. These are all subjects that we post about each week. This client is also a faith-based organization, so we also post bible verses and Christian quotes.

We understand that not every business or organization offers as many resources and products as this client. But let’s use a landscaping company as an example. Imagine this company offers lawn care, tree branch trimming, sprinkler system installation, xeriscaping, and gardening services. Those are 5 social media content themes you can post about every week!

If your company or organization has services or products, that means you’ve got content you can post about.

Increasing Social Media Clicks

Now that we’ve broken down our strategy, let’s dive into how we increased clicks. By clicks, we mean any time a user clicks on a link in one of our posts. Out of all the metrics we measure, this one matters to us the most because our links almost always direct social media users to our client’s website. This does three things:

1. Increases web traffic. Directing as much of our client’s audience to their website as possible is advantageous to their SEO!
2. Increases engagement and awareness. The more social media users we send to our client’s website, the more they can explore the site (also good for SEO) and learn about our client’s mission.
3. Increases conversion rate. The more users on our client’s site, the higher the likelihood of users getting involved and deciding to support our client’s mission.

Out of the 61 posts we create a week, 50 of them always include a link. It’s simple — when we post about our client’s products or resources, we always include a link to that product or resource. That’s 50 chances every single week for our client’s social media audience to interact with their website.

Social Media Metrics

We mentioned some other metrics at the beginning of this article that we managed to increase. We know they’re easy to mix up, so here’s a quick vocab lesson:

• Impressions: number of views your posts receive
• Shares: number of times users re-post your posts
• New HubSpot contacts: number of new contacts created in HubSpot as a result of web sessions driven by social media
• Published posts: number of live posts on your accounts
• Sessions: number of web sessions on your site that came from social media
• Clicks: number of times users click a link on your posts

Download Our Social Media Case Study

Your social media strategy right now may feel pointless. You might even be thinking, “We don’t have a strategy! We’re just winging it!” You don’t have to go in blind. Your time is a valuable investment, and every minute you spend creating social media posts that do nothing for your digital marketing is a waste.

That’s why we recommend you download our social media case study and dive deep into how we increased our client’s clicks. We’ve done all the research and testing; use our expertise for your digital marketing advantage!