Social Media Helps Businesses Increase Web Traffic, Clutch Research Finds

More than 80 percent of people click through to company websites from social media, making it important for businesses to have a consistent strategy for both their websites and social media outlets, a recent survey from Clutch Research’s Visual Objects found.

The research revealed that Social media and websites are the top two digital marketing channels for businesses. In fact, 81 percent of businesses use social media, and 78 percent have a website.

Based on its research, the firm concluded that most businesses see the importance of using both social media and websites to reach and appeal to customers. The two channels, however, should have a cohesive strategy, and businesses’ social media profiles should make it easy for customers to contact them and visit their websites.

Among its other findings, the research uncovered the following:

• When contacting companies for general inquiries, people are most likely to use email (31 percent), social media (21 percent), and contact form on the companies’ websites (19 percent). Nine percent (9 percent) of people use chatbots, but that number is increasing.
• How people prefer to contact companies differs by generation: Millennials are more likely to use social media (26 percent) to contact companies, compared to just 20 percent of Generation Xers and 11 percent of baby boomers.
• Baby boomers prefer to go directly to company websites when looking to contact businesses. Thirty percent of baby boomers are most likely to use contact forms on company websites, compared to 20 percent of Generation Xers and 15 percent of millennials.
• Most people (81 percent) click through to company websites from social media, including 21 percent who click through at least once per day.
• Millennials (90 percent) are more likely to click through to company websites from social media than Generation Xers (80 percent) and baby boomers (61 percent). One-tenth of people (11 percent) click through to company websites multiple times per day, and 21 percent at least once per day. Millennials also click through to company websites more often than older generations – 61 percent do so at least once per week, significantly more than both Generation Xers (39 percent) and baby boomers (22 percent).
• Offers/promotions (27 percent) and images (25 percent) are most likely to persuade people to visit company websites from social media.
• Offers/promotions are particularly important for driving baby boomers (38 percent) to visit company websites from social media – more so than millennials (22 percent) and Generation Xers (29 percent).
• Images play a bigger role in millennials’ decision to click through to company websites from social media (33 percent) than Generation Xers (21 percent) and baby boomers (12 percent).

These finding indicate that social media helps businesses spread brand awareness and increase traffic to their websites. Clutch researchers, therefore, concluded that companies' social media accounts are essentially an extension of their websites, and businesses should use them to promote content, which encourages followers to click through to their websites.

Businesses also need to pay attention to their customers when deciding how to promote their websites on social media, they suggest.

And finally, businesses should create the types of content that influence customers to visit their websites from social media. This usually comes in the form of offers/promotions and images, but businesses need to listen to their target audiences and be aware of their demographics to publish the content that influences customers most.