Social media, while ubiquitously written about, is actually not that great for conversions for subscription and paid content sites, according to 128 subscription site executives surveyed for our 2013 Online Subscription Benchmark Report. In fact, social media ranked 7th out of 15 possible acquisition sources, below email marketing, search and direct traffic, and even online ads.But social media can be effective for building audiences and re-targeting, especially for B2C sites.In my Tuesday Webinar for Subscription Site Insider members, I explained a number of tactics for increasing brand awareness and building audiences on Facebook (which in turn, can help drive traffic to your site). One of the best ones is to focus on optimizing your content for sharing, not on optimizing your Facebook presence via your brand Page.That’s because very few Facebook users visit a brand’s Page after liking it. Instead, they expect to get news and updates from that brand via their newsfeed.

At the same time, your content can be shared through Facebook to a wide audience without your own Facebook Page — or even your own doing — if you’re content is optimized on your website to be shared. That’s different from likes or recommends. “Shares” let Facebook users post your content on their own timeline — or others. When those posts import an image and brief text, they’re more likely to be seen by the Facebook user’s network of friends. In other words, shares get you noticed by people who haven’t liked your page.That means that every piece of content you publish — even if it’s behind a paywall — should be allowed to be shared on Facebook, if your target audience is on Facebook. A Story Before Bed implements this idea effectively, allowing paying subscribers to share their home-made recordings with friends via Facebook for free.

For more screenshots of how subscription sites are using Facebook effectively and to find out if your content is suitable for Facebook sharing, join Subscription Site Insider for just $1 and view the On-Demand Video “Leveraging Facebook for Paid Content.”