4 Steps to Increase Sales Using Social Media

Social media appears to be growing at an increasingly fast rate. Forbes reports that Facebook has more than 2 billion users, Instagram has 800 million and Twitter has 330 million monthly active users.

With successful implementation, social media will help you reach your target audience, and build the trust needed to drive sales. You can increase your revenue by creating, maintaining, and strategizing a social media campaign that informs your target audience about your business and what you offer. 

In order to be successful with social media marketing, you need to understand these 4 stages of the social cycle: 

1) Social Monitoring & Listening

In this stage, you will monitor customer feedback, answer inquiries, and listen to important topics your audience is discussing or wanting to know about. Using social monitoring and listening, you will be able to manage your online reputation, reduce refunds, and identify product and content gaps. There will be positive and negative comments, so you should respond as soon as possible to show that you are reachable. 

Utilizing your Twitter account to hear the needs, wants and complaints of your customers can be an effective way of doing this. 

The following tips will help you improve your social listening skills as a brand:

• Listen attentively. Don’t just react, but listen to understand. 
• Avoid trolls and banter on social media. Do not reply in a rude manner.
• When you’re unsure or not in the position to help the customer, tell them politely. For instance, you can say, “Thanks for informing us, we’ll resolve this within an hour.” or “We are sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused you, we are currently working to improve your experience on our platform.”
• Upon resolving the issue, inform, apologize, and encourage them to continue using your brand. 
• Direct messaging can be used for addressing issues with individual customers/prospects. 
• Identify content gaps, what areas does your audience have questions about? Were there any topics not thoroughly discussed? Make content about these topics.

2) Social Influencing 

The purpose of this stage is to establish your authority by posting valuable content. The key here is to create content that people are interested in. It will help you stand out as an expert in the industry. Since your content is relevant, timely, and useful, people tend to follow and engage with you.

Additionally, you can also provide people with a freebie in order to show them what they’ll get if they decide to purchase your product. You can build your email list with this freebie. 

3) Social Networking

The strategy of social networking involves connecting with influential brands and people in your industry. Develop relationships that are mutually beneficial to both parties. Eventually, you will increase mentions, expand your circle, partner with people, and have meaningful communication with fans who will become your loyal customers.

Social networking will also allow you to share other people’s content to make up for what is missing from your own content. Don’t be scared to share information from competitors. This helps them see you as an individual who isn’t looking out for yourself alone but cares about the community. 

4) Social Selling

Social Selling on Seeker Channels (Youtube and Pinterest) – You should focus your social selling efforts on seeker channels. 

• These are channels where customers and prospects are actively searching for the product or service they are interested in. 
• Connect your products and services to a seeking audience to generate leads and sales. 
• Use strong calls-to-action in your videos and images to convert prospects into customers.

Social Selling on Engagement Channels (Instagram and Facebook) – Focus on engaging your audience and speaking about the benefits of your products and services on engagement channels. 

• Use eye-catching graphics and videos.
• Showcase your personality and maintain a consistent brand voice.
• Splinter relevant content such as blog posts then repost to these channels.
• To compel your audience, use calls-to-action.
• Don’t just focus on sales. Provide value as well.
• Use stories so the audience can remember what you offer.