5 Levels of Social Media Integration

Every business has a website today.
Every business has multiple social media accounts.
Every business has connected their social media accounts to their website.

But, not every business sees an equal amount of ROI on their social media efforts. There are two reasons for this.

Reason # 1 - Content. Businesses either don't create new content on a regular basis on their social accounts or the content they create lacks quality.
Reason # 2 - Integration. They are connecting their website and social media accounts in the wrong manner.

Content is easy to fix. If that is your problem, you are most likely aware of it and are working to fix it. But, integration is a problem that is not easy to detect unless you have an in-depth knowledge of social media. Listed below are five levels of social media integration.

Level 1 - No Integration
There is no connection between your website and your social media accounts. They do not link to each other at all. One does not know the other exists. Thankfully, most businesses are past this stage today.

Level 2 - Linking
You are linking your website to your social media accounts. This is where most businesses are. This is a better strategy that level 1 strategy, but a very bad strategy when it comes to your ROI.

Think about it this way. Your social media accounts are nothing but a tool to BRING visitors to your website. If you are simply linking your social media accounts to your website, you are SENDING visitors away from your site. All the SEO and PPC campaigns you have done over the years are now benefiting Mark Zuckerberg and Reif Hoffman's businesses. You do not want to be here. There's a better way. Read further.

Level 3 - Sharing
Let people share the content you already have on your website. Allow them to Like it, Tweet It, E-mail it to their friends, etc. You can place  these sharing tools on each page of your website, blog post, article, podcast and video.

When you do this, you are enabling your users to share the content on your website with their "friends and family". And, when their friends and family click on the "shared link", they come right back to your website. This strategy alone can bring massive amounts of traffic to your website if the content is of high quality.

An example of this is at the bottom of this post. You can share it with your Facebook friends, Twitter followers or Google+ circles.

Level 4 - Displaying Social Feeds directly on Website
Twitter, Facebook and Google+ will allow you to display the activity on your social media accounts right on your website. In other words, your website users do not have to leave your site to know what's happenning on your social media accounts. You can bring those activity feeds on your website and let them participate.

Level 5 - Social Media Sign-On
Social media sign-on can tell your website that a 30-year old professional male from Boston, MA of Indian origin is viewing the site. You website digests that information and then displays products that might be of interest to that individual.

Ever visit a website that asks you to sign-in with your Facebook or Twitter accounts? That's social media sign-on. Unless you have thousands of products and you serve worldwide customers, this level is not for you.

So, now that you know all the levels of integration, it's time to ask some hard questions.

What level is your business at?
Are you getting the desired results at that level?
Will your business benefit by moving on to the next level?

Remember, the most successful social media strategies combine levels 2,3,4 and 5 if applicable.

Feel free to email me at mayurgudka@gmail.com if you have any questions regarding social media integration.

Good Luck,
Mayur