Few small businesses have successfully integrated social media marketing strategies with their other web channels.

It’s not enough to use social media marketing. Of course, maintaining a presence on Facebook, Twitter and any other platform is good for a company, but failing to integrate a social strategy with other parts of a web presence can negatively impact a business’ investment. According to data from BIA/Kelsey and vSplash relayed by eMarketer, just 19.5 percent of American small and medium-sized businesses link to their Facebook Pages on their websites, and the number falls to 12.1 percent for Twitter.

Integrated web marketing campaigns must allow users to seamlessly navigate between different channels included in a strategy. A user who lands on a homepage should be able to click a link that allows them to follow the company or Like it on Facebook. The reverse is true as well, as it’s important that branded social pages and content should help drive traffic for sites.

Social media marketing strategies can help SMBs drive more traffic for their websites and increase brand awareness.

Part of small businesses’ failure to integrate social campaigns properly with other web efforts is due to a poor understanding of the evolving conversion funnels from SMBs. Brafton recently highlighted comments from the Content Marketing Institute’s Joe Pulizzi that found developing a conversion funnel that factors in several different channels allows prospects to interact with different kinds of content and guides them closer to purchases no mater where they find a brand on the web.

Joe Meloni is Brafton's former Executive News and Content Writer. He studied journalism at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and has written for a number of print and web-based publications.