5 Tips to Drive More Sales on Social Media
Do you find it difficult to sell through social media? You’re not alone. A few adjustments can help you optimize your social media commerce efforts and stay ahead of the competition. In this post, you’ll learn five ways to drive more sales with social media.
- Be Where Your Audience Is
The first rule of social media marketing is to use the platforms that your audience uses. You can’t just sign up for Instagram and expect to find your target B2B customers there.
First, look at your target demographic and try to find out where they’re most active. You can choose to be everywhere, but that might be a bit too time-consuming. If you’re targeting a B2B audience, LinkedIn may be a good starting point, along with Facebook, because each one has a massive user base. Keyhole is an excellent tool for discovering where your target audience is most active. You can choose a popular hashtag that your competitors use for their campaigns, and then conduct a search using Keyhole.
Once you’re on the right social media platform, you will have a better chance of reaching your target audience. Consequently, when you can reach your target audience more effectively, your chances of driving sales improves dramatically.
- Work with Social Media Influencers
You’ve heard of influencer marketing and you’re wondering what all the hype is all about. Influencer marketing is such a popular marketing tool because it works. Twitter and Annalect found that almost 40% of Twitter users felt compelled to make a purchase after seeing an influencer’s tweet. The study also found that the amount of trust people place in influencers is comparable to the trust placed in their friends. This simply goes to show that promoting your brand and products through social media influencers is very likely to drive sales.
If you want to make more sales through social media, you need to utilize the power of social media influencers. Get them to strategically feature your product in their photos or videos, or have them tell a unique and engaging story about your brand. You can also work with influencers who will give honest reviews about your product, and/or provide tutorials and how-to content regarding your product. The opportunities are endless, but if you want to drive sales, an effective and easy way to do so is to have your influencers promote unique discount codes.
- Turn Loyal Customers into Brand Advocates
If you want to promote your products using real people, you don’t necessarily have to always rely on influencers. Your existing customers can become effective brand advocates if you can entice them to promote your products in exchange for freebies and discounts. Conducting keyword and hashtag searches related to your brand or product name on social media will help you find people who are already posting content about your brand. Once you find a couple profiles that have audiences that align with yours, reach out and ask if they’d like to collab! Odds are if they’re already in love with your product or services, this will be an easy yes.
- Share User-Generated Content
Before buying something online, consumers tend to read several reviews to make sure the brand and product are trustworthy. These types of reviews ease the anxiety about buying from a brand that a customer barely knows, or about investing in a product they’re not familiar with.
When these reviews are the opinions and experiences of other consumers just like themselves, then they feel a kind of honesty that they can connect with. When it comes to social media marketing, you need to make the most out of the content created by other consumers to drive more sales. According to an Olapic study, 70% of US based respondents are more likely to buy products after being exposed to a relatable or positive image created by other consumers.
Another way you can drive more sales through social media is by encouraging your customers to share their photos online. Also, be sure to go one step further by sharing these user-generated photos on your own social media profiles. This is an easy way to increase loyalty with your existing customers, and to add credibility to your brand whenever potential customers visit your social media profiles.
- Share Valuable Content to Educate and Entice Your Audience
Social media is an excellent platform for brands to provide bite-sized, yet valuable content to their audience. This content should be engaging to your audience, and compelling enough to entice them into making a purchase. In addition to promoting your blog posts on social media, you can also create bite-sized informational content that will provide value to your social media audience. Ideally, you should provide guides and how-to content. The goal is to provide customers with the kind of information that will entice them to try your product. Making use of this kind of “informational” content gives your product a broader context, and it gives potential customers ideas about how to use it. As a bonus, this kind of content provides your target consumers with more reasons to consider buying your product, which can lead to more conversions.
