Social media is an essential platform that marketing experts should be leveraging.
It is not only a free space to share content, but it has millions of daily active users.
If you are looking to drive traffic to your online store, social media is the best place to hone in on your target audience. In addition to finding suitable customers, it’s a place to build better relationships and brand awareness.
If you want to increase social media sales, here’s a simple but effective guide that can help.
Share Interesting and Educational Content
Although it may seem counterintuitive, you shouldn’t try to make a hard pitch in every post. People are not keen to see posts that pressure them to buy something.
The best way to make a sale is to play the long game. Provide your audience with educational and entertaining content. Since people use social media during their free time, they want content that will keep them relaxed, so a post that is fun to watch is what will push your brand further. If people enjoy your content and product, they will make a purchase.
People will engage with and share content they like; they’ll tag friends and even comment on those posts. The more engagement there is, the more the social media platform’s algorithm will push your content to other users. The more people who see your content, the better your chance of making a sale.
User-Generated Content
Consumers often read multiple reviews before making an online purchase to make sure the company and the item are reliable. These kinds of reviews reduce a customer’s worry about making an investment in a product they’ve never used or from a brand they don’t know.
The opinions and experiences of other users are valued by your potential consumers. They are authentic content and more likely to be considered trustworthy. The more positive reviews you have, the more people can trust your brand.
For social media, you can re-post user-generated content by asking your customers if you can share their posts. Most platforms also have a way you can share someone else’s content without reposting it. This way, you can save time creating content while also building your credibility by showing off positive reviews.
Use Social Media Advertising
Posting on social media is not enough. With so many competitors and a constantly-changing algorithm, gaining attention is difficult. Social media advertising is a good way to supplement your organic reach.
There are options on every social media platform to either create advertisements from scratch or promote content you’ve already posted. Ad targeting tools guarantee that a relevant target audience will see your brand. Your prospects of generating sales through social media will be further improved by increased visibility.
You can choose your audiences or target demographics when advertising on social media or allow analytics tools to choose your audience based on your followers. Advertising costs depend on how many people you want to reach and how long the ad will run.
Directly Sell on Social Media
Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest have all integrated e–commerce tools into their platforms. Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok have suggested that they are also looking into social commerce for their platforms.
Social commerce is effective because it makes shopping easy, making the sales process quick and smooth. Offering a direct shopping experience on your social account can lead to fewer cart abandonment issues.
Choose Social Networks Your Target Audiences Use
It might be tempting to register for every social media site and cross-post the same content to each platform, but using every social media site can be a waste of time.
Each social platform is designed for a specific audience and each audience prefers different content. For example, Gen Z often spends more time on TikTok than on other social platforms. So if they are your audience, use this platform instead of trying Facebook.
If you are a B2B company and your target audiences are other businesses, LinkedIn is the ideal place to start building your brand.
Using your web analytics, you can understand who interacts with and buys your product. In addition, studying your insights can cut back on spending unnecessary time and resources on platforms that won’t work.
- Facebook: Long-form text content, photos, and videos
- Instagram: Images, short videos, story-like descriptions
- Pinterest: Recipes, styled images, and DIYs
- YouTube: Long-form videos and new short-form content
- Twitter: Short text content, images, and videos
- TikTok: Short videos
Use Influencers
A popular strategy for using social media to boost sales is using influencers. There are tens of thousands of influencers, each with a distinct audience.
Research influencers who have a target audience similar to yours and who may be interested in your product. This effort will guarantee that they have audiences who will be interested in your products or services and be more likely to buy.
In exchange for a discount, an affiliate link, or perhaps even a free sample, ask influencers with smaller followings to promote your company by posting an honest review of your products on their accounts. Bigger influencers, though, will only do paid partnerships.
You don’t have to hire famous or expensive influencers. Instead, opt for micro-influencers. They have thousands of followers but their interests are more specific and their engagement levels are higher.
Turn Customers into Brand Ambassadors
You don’t always have to rely on influencers if you want to market your items through reviews. If you can persuade your current customers to spread the word about your products in return for gifts and discounts, they can become powerful brand ambassadors.
You may identify people who are posting about your brand on social media by conducting keyword and hashtag research linked to your brand and product name. Keep an eye on your notifications too to see if people tag your business account in their posts.
You can also implement a brand ambassador referral program, where you provide special referral codes to your devoted consumers and give them discounts each time someone uses their code to make a purchase.
Find What Resonates With Your Audience
Knowing your audience pays off. Most customers will choose to buy from a brand that understands their wants and needs, not a competitor who doesn’t understand what the consumer wants.
Businesses can learn what consumers want in part through social listening, which allows them to learn more about their clients, the market, and rivals. Social media conversations can convey sentiment regarding particular brand campaigns, and provide information about the trends your customers want.
Businesses should develop marketing messages that convert potential consumers by combining social listening findings with content analytics and customer care channel insights.
Stay On Brand
Your social media pages will be how many people discover your business. If someone is interested in your products after viewing your content, they will probably look at your profile. It follows that your profile, content, and messaging must accurately represent your brand.
If you stay true to your brand, you’ll probably get more social media sales, engagement, and followers.
To stay on brand, here’s what you can do on your social media accounts.
- Ensure the username of your accounts reflects the name of your business
- Add your website to your social media profile and landing pages
- Use your company’s logo as a profile photo and in images and videos
- Pick high-quality images that reflect brand imagery and colors
- Keep content visible to the public, don’t make your account private
Keeping your content consistent with brand guidelines will foster trust and professionalism. People will trust your brand if you stay true to your identity as a business.
Additionally, keep in mind that your social media accounts have to look the same everywhere. By doing this, people will recognize your brand, which keeps your business in their minds and makes them more likely to purchase than a competitor.
Post Often and Consistently
People are always looking for new content. You should frequently post on social media to keep your page active if you want to get the most out of your social media marketing.
This is especially relevant because the algorithms on the majority of social media sites are constantly changing. One constant, though, is the preference for active accounts.
Make sure most of the content you post is new and that all of it is original. It’s okay to repost old content if it is still relevant or if you frame it as a throw-back.
People will have more faith in your brand as a result of your constant posting of relevant, original content, which will in turn enhance sales.
Conclusion
Social media sales are possible when marketing professionals know how to utilize the platform in multiple ways. There are many ways to make campaigns work and help drive traffic to your website or make a sale through social media.
With the increasing number of social media users, these platforms are designed to acquire attention, build brand awareness, and communicate with your potential customers. Now you can create a plan to bring the right audience to your website.
Author: Vanessa Venugopal is a passionate content writer. With four years of experience, she mastered the art of writing in various styles and topics. She is currently writing for Softvire Australia – the leading software eCommerce company in Australia and Softvire New Zealand.