Social media platforms have gained significant influence on us as we consume tons of content both entertaining and educational just by scrolling our feeds.
If you're a content creator a big question arises: how to attract people to follow your blog, use your service, or buy your product online with all this competition?
Buying bots, hosting giveaways, and using scam tools to grow your audience on social media is a bad choice. If you want the audience to stick around, you should attract people initially interested in you and your content.
Think about it: do you want a large number of fake people in the “followers” section or a quality audience showing a high engagement rate? What will eventually be more profitable for you? I hope the answer here is obvious.
For this reason, you need to make use of special strategies to let your potential customers discover you. For instance, you can do it with the help of download gates. Let us show you how to grow your social media engagement with TapMixer, an intuitive and easy-to-use service for gate creation.
What is a download gate?
The download gates strategy is a valuable technique to expand your audience and enhance your presence on social media. Initially developed to help musicians in promoting and distributing their new releases, this strategy now encompasses a wide range of fields.
Here's how it works: you offer a lead magnet as an incentive for social engagement. For instance, you can provide free downloadable content in exchange for a subscription, like, or share. This content can take various forms, including samples of products, consultations, discounts, or complimentary services.
Essentially, you're offering something for free. It's important to recognize that in today's digital landscape, followers, shares, reposts, and likes hold significant value. Building a strong social media presence and a substantial following can be highly beneficial. While you're providing something for free initially, the fan base you cultivate through this strategy can generate substantial long-term value.
Benefits of download gates
By adding download gates into your marketing strategy, you can achieve the following:
Expand your fanbase
Download gates enable your target audience to discover your music, services, products, or your personal brand. This allows you to attract a high-quality, long-term audience that is genuinely interested in what you have to offer.
Enhance brand visibility
Utilizing download gates helps establish your brand's recognition on various social media platforms. With the assistance of algorithms employed by platforms like Facebook and Instagram, a single "like" can potentially lead to your content being recommended to friends and followers, thereby increasing brand awareness.
Build a contact list for retargeting
The contact information provided by individuals in exchange for your lead magnet should not be overlooked. You can leverage this valuable data for running email or SMS campaigns, or create a custom audience to optimize ad retargeting efforts.
Boost conversion rates
The download gates tool not only aids in growing your social media audience but also guides potential customers through the sales funnel. By visually illustrating the customer journey towards conversion, you can effectively increase your conversion rate.
So, employing download gates allows you to accomplish two goals simultaneously: expanding your audience and driving potential customers to conversion.
How to create a download gate
Once you’ve set up a TapMixer account and clicked the “New Gate” button, here is what you’ll need to do:
1. Provide a link to your incentive
Follow-to-download gates initially emerged as a music industry tool, allowing users to download MP3 files in exchange for following on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. However, this strategy has now found usefulness in various other ways.
Firstly, it has evolved beyond mere "downloading." While music or video content for download remains an incentive, it represents just one possibility among many.
For instance, coaches can offer downloadable text files such as guides, checklists, articles, or even recipes to introduce their courses. Similarly, subscription-based platforms can use download gates to provide free trial access, enticing users to sign up and potentially convert to a paid subscription after experiencing the service.
Discounts can also be utilized as a reason for users to like, share, or follow your account, benefiting both you and your potential customers. By offering a discount, you incur no loss while gaining engagement and potential sales.
If you have an online course, hosting a free webinar or podcast allows potential customers to preview the course's value before making a purchase.
In any case, the first step is to provide a source link, whether for downloadable content or a signup form.
2. Set up what your gate will look like
There’s not much you can set in a download gate as all the design comes to the image and the text you use. Still, you will need to be creative and use your imagination.
The design of your download gate reflects the professionalism and credibility of your brand. A visually consistent and branded design creates a positive impression, instilling trust and confidence in your audience.
A clear and concise design communicates the terms and conditions of the download gate effectively. It ensures that users understand what they are getting in exchange for their engagement, whether it's following, sharing, or providing their contact information.
The text as well should clearly state what users are going to get. The same goes for the CTA button which helps to maximize conversions and increase the likelihood of users completing the necessary steps to access the download.
What we love about TapMixer is that they have an instant download gate preview so that you can immediately see what your gate is going to look like.
3. Choose the gate steps
Think about the type of social interaction you want in exchange for your incentive, based on the specific social network you want to drive traffic to.
On TapMixer, the following options are available:
Within each step, you can select multiple actions a user will need to take. For instance, you want to increase engagement on Instagram. Then, you can set up two substeps to make people follow your profile and like your post.
More than that, with the paid subscription, you can implement several gates on one page, thus growing your following on multiple platforms at the same time.
Remember that the number of gates you employ should align with the value of your product and the users' motivation to obtain it. Users should feel compelled to complete all the stages, and they will if the incentive is enticing enough. For example, a guide or checklist may only require an Instagram post like. However, gaining early access to a favorite music band's new album before its official release would likely warrant providing an email address or phone number, as well as subscribing on various platforms.
4. Add a Facebook Pixel (optional)
If you’re an advanced Facebook ads user and have a Facebook Pixel set up, you should consider implementing it to your download gate. With it, you can monitor and analyze user behavior on your download gate. This includes tracking the number of visitors, their actions, and conversions. The pixel provides valuable insights into how users interact with your download gate, allowing you to make data-driven decisions and optimize your marketing strategy.
The Facebook pixel enables you to create custom audiences based on user interactions with your download gate. This means you can retarget those who engaged with the gate but did not complete the desired action, such as subscribing or purchasing. By retargeting these individuals with relevant ads, you have a higher chance of converting them into customers or followers.
5. Customize the download gate’s link
To make your gate stand out in the crowd, even the link to it should catch people’s eyes. That is why with TapMixer, you can customize the link to your gate so it clearly reflects what’s hidden behind it.
A personalized link functions as a customized route that directs users to valuable incentives. By incorporating a custom URL into your download gate approach, you can improve the user experience, monitor user engagement, and establish a stronger brand presence.
In the link, you may mention the name of your blog/brand/company, or reflect what kind of incentive the users will get, such as tapmixer.com/leadenforce/ads_cheatsheet
Once “Publish” is clicked, your gate is ready to use. One more question remains though - where to place the link to your gate?
6. Find the best place for your download gate
Your gate’s URL should be put somewhere noticeable. It depends on who you are and what you do as well as what platforms you are using for promotion.
Here are some common locations where you can put a link to a download gate:
- Incorporate the link prominently on your Website or Landing Page, making it easily accessible to visitors. This could be through a button, banner, or a dedicated section.
- Add the link to your download gate in the bio or description section of your Social Media Profiles. This allows users to find and access the gate when they visit your profile.
- Include the link to the download gate in your Social Media Posts. You can either include it directly in the caption or utilize features like swipe-up (on platforms like Instagram and Snapchat) or the "See More" button (on platforms like Facebook) to provide a direct link.
- Insert the link to the download gate in your Email Newsletters or Marketing Campaigns. This encourages people to click on the link and access the gated content.
- Use it in your Ad Campaigns to let people notice it while they’re scrolling their social media feeds.
- Embed the link to the download gate within relevant Blog Posts or Articles on your website. This allows readers to easily access additional resources or exclusive content related to the topic they are reading.
Remember to ensure that the link is clearly visible, easily clickable, and properly labeled to guide users to the download gate effectively.
7. Keep up with the gate’s performance
Once the gate is set up and the link is posted, you’ll be for sure curious about how it performs. Gladly, TapMixer provides you with analytics that graphically represents the number of visitors, clicks, etc.
Monitoring the performance of a gate is important for several reasons. It allows you to optimize its effectiveness, gain insights into your audience, track progress towards goals, and continuously improve your strategy. By analyzing metrics and data related to engagement and user behavior, you can make informed decisions, tailor future campaigns, and ensure that the gate remains aligned with your objectives. Regularly assessing performance helps you stay on track and maximize the impact of your gate.
To sum up
TapMixer is one more marketing tool you can use to enhance your brand awareness and promote your business or blog. By offering valuable incentives and strategically implementing download gates, you can provide people with exclusive content in exchange for specific actions. With the ability to tailor and optimize download gates, TapMixer empowers businesses to effectively engage their target audience and achieve their marketing goals.
Good luck creating your first gate on TapMixer!
