With a recent Nielsen report showing that people spend about 23 percent of all their Internet time on social media, it's more important than ever to make your social profiles work for your business. Consider these tips for turning your social presence into a powerful lead generation tool that consistently increases sales revenue.
1) Understand Where Social Media Fits
The messages you share on social media reach customers early on in the purchasing process, usually during the research phase. At this point, your audience is still considering where to buy what they need, and it's your job to grab their attention at this critical juncture before they go to the competition.
2) Create a Consistent Message
When customers click on a deal or promotion presented on one of your social media profiles, the landing page they come to should clearly reflect the same message. A page with conflicting or unrelated information will lose the sale. It's also important to make sure that the tone of your social messages matches up with the voice you use in your other content. Disney provides a powerful example of this through the social pages it has set up in the "personalities" of many of its popular characters. One company that's really consistent with their message is Oreo. They're consistent on all of their products.
3) Facilitate Decision-Making
Marketing to customers who are looking for a product or service should focus on helping them choose your company as the best source. Create social messages that spark interest and establish you as a leader in the industry. Take a step back from the hard sell and instead spend time answering questions and providing product information in an engaging, interesting manner.
4) Focus on Trust
Brand loyalty turns first-time buyers into lifelong customers. Social media is a powerful tool for creating an online personality that people feel comfortable interacting with. Whole Foods is a good example. The company uses its social profiles to engage with customers and establish meaningful connections by responding to posts and sharing relevant, useful content that makes people want to engage in return. One company that does a great job building trust with their social media platforms is Nu Skin. Another company is Bulk Apothecary.
5) Test Your CTAs
Create two or three different wordings of the same call to action and test them out on various social channels to see which drives the most traffic. When you discover which one generates the most conversions, aim to craft future messages in the same style.
6) Fully Integrate Social
Make social media an integral part of your total marketing efforts by sharing content across all social platforms to draw the attention of the widest possible audience. Place social follow icons on your website along with social profile widgets to remind customers how to find you anywhere on the web.
7) Collect Customer Information
Whether it's through newsletter signups, offering coupons or giving away free content, make sure you're constantly collecting information from social followers. Called "soft conversions," these interactions allow you to build a list that can be used for email campaigns and other follow-up measures in the future.
8) Make Buying as Easy as Possible
Minimizing the amount of clicks between a social offer and the final purchase encourages customers to take immediate action, especially if you create a sense of urgency with a limited-time deal. Now that Facebook is adding more conversion buttons to their platform so will other social sites soon.
9) Encourage Customers to Share
Product recommendations from friends have a powerful influence on purchase decisions. Include buttons on your website that allow customers to Like, Tweet, Pin or +1 your product pages and encourage their followers to shop at your site.
10) Monitor Your Traffic
The only way to know which social tactics are working is to monitor incoming site traffic using a tool such as Google Analytics. Look for click-throughs from all active social platforms, including the mobile versions, to determine where most of your visitors are coming from. Monitoring individual social campaign links gives more detailed information about the power of each type of message to create conversions. Focus your efforts where they'll continue to do the most good to further increase sales.
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