Social media truly is the global water cooler of today.
The number one question on many business leaders’ minds is, “Can social media actually drive sales?” The answer is yes! Before a customer comes through your door or visits your website, chances are they already know a lot about you. Customers now days are savvy; they check out reviews of services, products, compare prices and make judgments. They do all of this through Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter and many other online avenues.According to a new study from Social to Sale by Vision Critical:
- Social media drives roughly equal amounts of online and in-store purchasing.
- Nearly 4 in 10 Facebook users report that they have at some point gone from liking, sharing or commenting on an item to actually buying it.
- 43% of social media users have purchased a product after sharing or favoring it on Pinterest, Facebook or Twitter.
Here are three ways to use social media to help you generate leads and drive sales.
1. Engage then Sell – Social media truly is the global water cooler of today. In days past, people would hang around the water cooler in the office and chat about the new products they love. Today, all that chatting is done on social media sites like Facebook or shared on Pinterest. Your business should be providing free, valuable and regular information to its customers on social media. This can boost your sales by showing customers you’re not just there to sell. You’re also there to provide them with helpful information they may need.
2. Target Keywords & Landing Pages – Your goal as a business is to generate leads that later convert into sales. In order to reach that goal you need to have a solid conversion strategy. This is a plan that converts an online looker into a real life buyer. To do this, you need to create content pages for targeted keywords and simple direct landing pages that convert visitors into leads for your business. A good way of doing this is to eliminate any extra navigation on your website and give them bullet points to read instead of long extended paragraphs. Long forms also scare people away, so keep things short and simple.
3. Real-Time Marketing – Twitter recently bought Spindle, an application that reveals “what is happening nearby right now.” This application pulls social content from networks like Twitter and Facebook to tell users what is going on in their area. It doesn’t get this information from general sites on the web; it only pulls information from social media platforms. It’s local search, driven by tuning into social media networks, and that’s where marketers see the future of sales. So make sure you’re using social media to promote your events and company happenings to your customers.
Finally, social media provides businesses with the opportunity to keep customers happy even after a purchase has been made. In the past, once something was purchased it was very difficult to retain a customers’ interest in the products or services. Social media now puts that control back into the hands of a business by allowing them to offer customers ongoing relevant, valuable content for free. This helps keep customers interested in your brand. But the real secret to retention through social media is to listen; to stay close to customers and ask them what they want. By doing that, you’ll keep buyers happy and have a returning customer base.
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Three Girls Media, Inc. is a public relations and social media management agency with teams in Silicon Valley and the Seattle area. We love working with small and emerging companies across the nation to raise their brand awareness and name recognition. We offer a complimentary 30-minute phone consultation with our CEO and can answer your questions and discuss your specific marketing needs.
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Photo Credit: Jason A. Howie