How To Engaging Customers on Social Media?
We live in a messy world where many factors influence sales of a company. Examining how increased advertising is affecting sales is often a misleading way to measure advertising impact. For example, a soft drink company conclude that there is very little correlation between advertising and sales for them because another, much more powerful factor affecting the sale of their product was- temperature. That is, the company found that although a great deal of advertising is done in the winter, sales are greater in warmer months because people drink more soft drinks in hot weather. However, remember that the choice of brand of soft drink purchased in the summer may very well be influenced by advertising heard at other times. A quick look at what happens in a consumer’s life every day will give you great ideas to improve sales.
Today, most famous social media platforms allow businesses to run ads that attract specific groups of users based on what information they include in their profiles.
Traditionally, the goal in media planning was to minimize wasted advertising, which was achieved by reducing the quantity of advertising sent to consumers who are unlikely to purchase or have an interest in their product and who are not active in the category. This gave birth to the idea of target advertising. As discussed in my blog Social Media and Happy Customer, this concept has proven to be a very effective way to reach out to the right customers through social media.
In this series of blogs, I have been sharing ways to effectively use social media to increase sales, and my next advice is- cultivate relationships that lead to sales.
Encouraging your online followers to visit your store is a great way to get started. Begin with getting to know customers so well that they not only initiate conversations with you through social media platforms, but might even start tweeting orders to you! I am not suggesting that you use the page primarily for this purpose, but interestingly, if you have too much of such traffic, it can always be diverted to your phone or email. So there is no harm! The benefit – you are constantly visible online and that’s a great way to advertise your company!
Aggressive Promotion
Do not promote too aggressively. It becomes bothersome. While social network users have proven to be open to marketing, especially if it involves a discount, they certainly do not want to hear sales pitches on Facebook! Interestingly, I plan to write an entire article on the benefits of aggressive promotion, but I personally do not recommend it to boost sales. If I come across verified information about increase in number of sales with aggressive promotions, I might change my opinion later!
If your profile or blog reads like an ad, it will turn visitors away. It is advisable, instead, to pass along industry news and retweet interesting items from others, along with your own promotions.
Connect with Big Names
In addition to maintaining your blog, make sure to keep your eyes open to what others in the industry are buzzing about online. Reading independent blogs and joining industry groups on Facebook and LinkedIn is a good way to join the larger conversation. Some companies build their own community of many users primarily through word of mouth on related blogs. And if you can get an already well-followed individual to join, nothing like it!
Help Others
If service providers are able to establish themselves as an expert in the field, it will bring in a steady stream of business. LinkedIn’s Answers feature enables business owners to do just that. Service providers browse LinkedIn Answers for inquiries related to their industry and spend one to two hours per week answering them. In one month, you can be sure of being able to generate leads for your services directly from your responses.
Get Off the Beaten Path
While platforms like LinkedIn are specifically geared toward professional use, a lot of companies have found other social networks to be effective recruiting tools as well. You will be surprised to know that Facebook status updates about open positions in a company have also been used to effectively find prospective candidates, and quick!
While I talk about using social media to increase sales through innovative means, it does not mean sitting at your laptop all day! Did you know that there are mobile based applications that help you seamlessly connect on all platforms on the go? HyperEffects can get your business on a platform used and utilized by millions every day. You can get a personalized mobile app to connect with your clients on a personal basis with customized offers, push notifications and many other interactive features.
Find Potential Partners
Because LinkedIn is designed specifically for professional networking, businesses can find a host of valuable contacts there. Use LinkedIn, for example, to find business partners by identifying companies of interest and then asking your existing contacts to provide introductions. This is a good way to start eventual partnerships.
