As a business owner, it’s important to know how to use social media to sell your products. I learned this the hard way when I first started my medical supply business. I didn’t have any idea how to market my products or reach potential customers. Thankfully, I was able to learn and grow from that experience. Now, I want to share how social media for businesses can help boost sales in any industry.
Social Media for Businesses: Connecting with Customers
Social media for businesses is the use of social media platforms to connect with customers and promote a company’s products or services.
This can help businesses build brand loyalty and increase sales. Additionally, social media can be used to generate leads and drive traffic to a company’s website.
Defining Digital Media and Social Media
For businesses, social media is an invaluable tool.
Social media is a great way to increase your visibility, generate leads, and increase your audience’s engagement with your brand.
When it comes to social media marketing, there are a few challenges that need to be taken into account. For example, creating content that is effective for digital marketing.
However, by including social media platforms in your overall marketing strategy and actions, you can increase lead generation, audience engagement, and sales.
This broad category covers any marketing efforts that are accessible on mobile devices, tablets, PCs, and, obviously, the internet.
Social media marketing can connect you with future customers and clients. However, this comes with a set of tactics and strategies.
Why Do Businesses Need Social Media Marketing?
Before even thinking about using social media, it’s crucial to understand why your business – especially a smaller or medium-sized business – should even be on social media in the first place.
Social media marketing is a cost-effective way to reach out to potential and current customers. A business account on a platform like Facebook or Twitter is free and can help you connect with a wider audience.
Small businesses have small budgets, so the more they spend, the lower the ROI.
Having social media accounts and a good social media marketing strategy allows your business to not only build brand awareness but also allows you to convey your brand’s tone and voice.
Awareness and virality are two of the most sought-after results of social media campaigns. By engaging prospects in a back-and-forth with the brand, marketers can create awareness and spur virality.
Brand awareness is closely connected to your brand’s authority and vice-versa. You need to create helpful, original content that your prospects can interact with regularly.
This tactic creates an image of a brand that is not only concerned with its customers but also wants to grow and develop alongside them. This is the kind of relationship that leads to loyalty and customer engagement.
Loyal customers, after all, are engaged ones.
When a business treats its customers like they are part of the culture, and allows its community to grow, it creates a more intimate relationship. This is especially true if marketers incentivize these efforts by getting prospects to promote the brand to their social circles. By doing this, the brand can get more exposure and reach more appropriate prospects.
By sharing your content on social media, you can increase your brand’s exposure and attract more appropriate customers.
Strong engagement with customers and a strong online presence are not just ways to boost a company’s return on investment.
Social media presence can influence search engine ranking. SEO is a strategy for building a brand and going viral.
Ensuring that your social media posts are optimized with the right keyword phrases is of vital importance.
Sharing blog posts and website content on social media is a great way to boost your SEO efforts.
8 Ways That Social Media Impacts Your Business
In this blog post, we’ll go over how social media impacts small businesses, as well as give examples of some successful brands that are leveraging it.
1. Allows Businesses to Become Omni-Present
The average person has about eight different social media accounts. Those in the 16-24 age bracket probably have nine. If your brand is on some of these platforms, you will seem to exist everywhere in a person’s life.
You’ve probably heard of the Rule of Seven where prospects need to see a brand’s message seven times before deciding to buy.
As of 2022, the average person encounters over 5,000 brand messages per day.
This makes social media a great tool for gaining views and brand awareness.
Single Grain grew its traffic by 300% from 2017 to 2018 by simply repurposing its posts on social media.
They spent time researching and experimenting with different types of content on different platforms.
Getting a good following on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin can be easy. Your employees, friends, and followers can share and like your content to organically increase your visibility. You don’t have to pay for advertising to get good results.
There are a few key things you can do to make sure your social media is working for your business. First, take advantage of Twitter traffic hacks to get more eyes on your content. LinkedIn is also a great platform for organic reach, so be sure to keep up with any changes in their algorithm. Finally, consider using an omnichannel marketing approach to overcome information overload.
2. Increase Personalization
Social media is allowing businesses to personalize their interactions with customers. In fact, 33% of marketing professionals say that developing a personalized experience is a top priority, and 81% of consumers are appreciative of brands that are getting to know them and know when it is appropriate and inappropriate to make a sale.
Social media allows you to subtly insert yourself into your prospects’ lives, so you’re there when they’re ready to buy. You can serve your ads to them based on interests they’ve expressed or pages they visited.
Since most of your friends are posting unprofessional photos, the cellphone photo helps us blend in. This makes us appear more human and less like an advertisement.
Another way businesses are standing out is through the use of Messenger Bots. When used properly, these bots are a great way to bring a personal touch to your marketing.
Why?
Email marketing is saturated with marketers, but chatbots are far less saturated.
This means that your message is more likely to be seen by your audience when you use a chatbot.
Chatbots also allow for a much higher degree of personalization than email. You can program a chatbot to send different messages to different people based on their interests, demographics, and even location.
By being grouped with your personal text messages, your recipient will see your texts in a more positive light.
Here’s a great example of a company using chatbots.
Chatbots can be great, but it’s important to use them correctly. In the example, only the very first message was an automated one. The rest was handled directly by a person.
If you’re speaking to a chatbot, they probably won’t respond. However, if you get a response, it will trigger a live person to take over.
Alternatively, ask questions to understand what the customer is looking for. This helps you provide a more personal experience.
3. Generate More Loyalty
Businesses use social media to generate more customer loyalty.
One way to get customers to engage with you on social media is by creating your page on a popular social media network.
A brand that excels at interacting with customers is Glossier.
How amazing is it that your customer is so loyal that they printed out this poster to return your lost product?
This customer then tweeted it, generating 600 likes. The brand then reposted it, gaining even more exposure.
By sharing your customers’ posts, social media allows you to build a loyal following. This, in turn, creates a snowball effect of people sharing your posts, and before you know it, you have an army of loyal followers.
Another way that social media platforms allow us to grow our loyal followers is by hosting exclusive, members-only events. According to entrepreneur and marketer, Noah Kagan, this is a great way to build a community.
Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are already where your customers spend most of their time. It’s easier to get them to pay attention there than through email or links.
To build an audience, you need to interact with them regularly.
Building a loyal audience on social media is a great way to create a strong brand presence. You can then use email to follow up with your audience and turn them into customers.
4. Increases Industry Collaboration
Businesses that depend on teamwork and cooperation can greatly benefit from social media.
65% of businesses plan to increase their budget for influencer collaborations in the coming year.
Social media isn’t just a platform for influencers. It’s also a great way for businesses to collaborate and expand their audience.
Social media makes collaborating much easier. Rather than having to send out an email or host a webinar, you can simply post something on social media and tag your partner.
Interviews with influential people are a great way to get exposure to your brand.
5. Adds Credibility to Your Brand
If a customer is researching a service or product, one of the first things they’ll do is check out a brand’s social media page. They do this to see if sales or promotions are going on or to see if the business is still around.
Potential customers can see how many followers you have, which builds your credibility and reputation.
Businesses need to have 40 or more reviews before their customers will trust them.
Facebook and other social media platforms are great places to generate reviews from customers since they already use these platforms.
To increase the number of online reviews, be sure to ask your customers to leave feedback, and include links in your email to all of your social media accounts.
Make sure to post this to your blog, too.
Even if a customer is dissatisfied with your service, social media allows your business to take control of your reputation. Potential customers will be able to see how you handle complaints.
30% of consumers are more likely to trust a business that responds to reviews.
Here is a great example of responding to negative reviews from a lawyer.
6. Increase Referrals
Social media is one of the most powerful platforms for marketing. In fact, 71% of consumers are influenced to buy products through social media.
Referrals are a huge source of business for companies like DropBox and EverNote.
So how can you increase referrals? Start by offering an amazing service and turn every customer into a raving fan.
If you already have an amazing product or service, you can leverage social media by running contests.
Facebook has cracked down on “like-to-win” and other “contests” that ask users to share a post to win a prize. However, there are still ways to run a giveaway or promotion that asks for engagement.
And they work – even if you’re a B2B company.
Every day in January, marketing guru and entrepreneur, Noah Kagan, gave away free prizes to his fans. All you had to do was like the Facebook post and leave a comment.
He posted 30-100 comments on each Facebook post, generating 100s of likes.
While his contest might not have had as many entries as some, it kept his followers engaged. This, in turn, led to more referrals.
The giveaways were targeted toward people who would be a good fit for his brand and help him increase his social media engagement and referral traffic.
7. Build a Personal Brand
Whether it’s for business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C), building your personal brand can be incredibly beneficial. In the world of digital marketing, people like Neil Patel, Rand Fishkin, and Larry Kim all use social media to build their brands, and you should do the same.
Most of Neil Patel’s content is in the form of video. He simplifies complex topics into easy-to-digest lessons that anybody can take action on.
He’s very active on LinkedIn, posting about 4-6 times per week. He tends to post more video content than text, likely because that’s the type of content that performs better on this network.
As you’re trying to build engagement and grow your loyal audience, be sure to reply to comments left on your content.
Even if you’re using a social media scheduler, you should still check on your scheduled posts once they’ve been published. This helps you ensure that you’re posting content that resonates with your followers.
Short quotes are a great way to generate engagement and keep your brand top-of-mind.
Other marketers like Larry Kim do a similar thing on Twitter, only his inspirational messages are often in the form of memes or images.
So experiment with different content formats for each social channel and be sure to post natively to that channel. Not all channels want the same types of content.
When building a personal brand, make sure that you’re present on all relevant social media channels. Also, post consistently so that your followers know what to expect from you.
8. Gauge Audience Feedback
After launching a new product or service, the first thing you want to know is how people perceive your new launch. Is the product easy to use?
Is it missing any important features? Did you list it at a good price point?
While it’s not uncommon for people to complain on social media, it’s a great way to engage with your customers and get their feedback.
If you’re about to launch a new feature, you can ask your customers for feedback or test it out before releasing it.
Make sure that after you ask for feedback, you take the time to respond to your customers. You don’t have to implement everything they say, but do respond and explain why you can or can’t do something.
This helps keep up your engagement as well.
Conclusion
If you’re a business owner, then you know how important it is to use social media to sell your products. This blog post has shown you the impact of social media for businesses. By following these tips, you’ll be able to reach more potential customers and make more sales.
