How can social media act as the main sales channel for your business?

By jack123 | SEO | 0 Comments

Have you used social media to interact with customers and grow your brand? Are you really thinking about starting to use the social media platform to make more sales? If you do, this is in fact a great idea. We discovered that social media is one of the top five marketing channels that generate a solid ROI.

You are probably already investing in other channels, such as email marketing, content marketing, SEO, and PPC. Now it’s time to step up your social media marketing services strategy on social media and really get those extra sales. In this post, you’ll learn some of the most effective ways to use social media to generate extra sales and revenue. While many of these will generate direct revenue, some also play an important role as well as in stimulating indirect revenue.

Be where your audience is

The first rule of social media marketing is to be aware of what platform most of your audience uses. You can’t just sign up on Instagram and expect to find your target B2B customers there. First, look at the target demographics and try to find out where the most active potential customers are.

You can choose to be everywhere, but this may take a while. If you’re targeting a B2B audience, LinkedIn can be a good starting point, along with Facebook, because both have a massive user base. Interestingly enough, Sprout Social found out that the 18-29 age group actually dominates all popular social networking platforms, including LinkedIn.

Keyhole is a great tool for finding out where your target audience is most active. You can choose a popular hashtag or keyword that your competitors are using for their campaigns, and then perform a search using Keyhole. Let’s try to follow the hashtag #AsSeenOnMe from ASOS as an example to see how it’s done.

In this case, if ASOS were your competition, Instagram seems like a great choice.

Once you are on the right social platform, you will have a better chance of reaching your target audience. Consequently, when you can reach your target audience more effectively, your chances of generating sales improve dramatically.

Work with social media influencers

Have you heard of influencer marketing strategy and wondering what all this hype is all about? The so-called influence marketing is such a popular marketing tool because it works. A good example is that Twitter and Annalect platforms found that nearly 40% of Twitter users felt compelled to make a purchase after seeing an influencer’s tweet.

The study also found that the trust people place in influencers is comparable to the trust they place in their friends. This simply demonstrates that promoting your brand and products through influencers on social media is very likely to lead to sales and has been shown to provide a return on investment of up to 600% in some cases.

If you want to make more sales through social media, you need to use the power of the influencers of these social networks. Invite them to strategically present your product in their photos or videos, or tell a unique and compelling story about your brand. You can also work with influencers who will provide honest reviews about your product and/or will provide quality tutorials and content about your brand.

The opportunities are endless, but if you want to generate sales, an effective way to do this is to ask the influencers you are collaborating with to promote unique discount codes. Daniel Wellington, for example, has been using this strategy successfully since 2011, when they were founded. The watchmaker managed to sell a million watches in just three years, all with the help of influencers. And in 2015, the brand generated revenue and increased brand awareness of 214% over 2014. You can use marketing platforms for influencers like Grin to find and connect with relevant influencers that can help your brand’s social networks.

Turn loyal clients into brand advocates

If you want to promote your products using real people, you don’t always have to rely on influencers. Your existing customers can become effective brand advocates if you can get them to promote your products in exchange for gifts and discounts.

Searching for keywords and hashtags related to your brand or product name on social media will help you find people who are already posting content about your brand. Suppose you want to sell MVMT watches. Of course, you would search for #mvmtwatches on Instagram. However, by doing so, you will find that many of your top posts come from influencers you are currently working with or have already worked with. Remember, these are just the top posts. Scroll down and find some attractive photos showing your product, posted by a user you haven’t worked with yet. Then check their profile.

The user who created the post has let’s say a little more than 1,700 followers and took the time to post attractive content about your brand. This Instagrammer would bring a nice addition to the community of supporters of the MVMT Watches brand. For example, if you worked with MVMT, you could offer them a free watch or an attractive discount that could be used for their next purchase. And instead, you could ask them to create some creative posts that feature your watch.

Share user-generated content

Before buying something online, consumers tend to read all sorts of reviews to make sure the brand and product are trustworthy. These types of reviews alleviate anxiety about buying from a brand that a customer barely knows or about investing in a product they are unfamiliar with.

When these reviews are the opinions and experiences of other consumers just like them, then they feel a kind of honesty with which they can connect. When it comes to social media marketing, you need to keep in mind to make the most of the content created by other customers to generate more sales.

According to an Olapic study, 70% of US respondents are more likely to buy products after being exposed to a familiar or positive image created by other consumers. Another great way you can generate more sales through social media marketing is by encouraging your customers to share their photos online. Also, make sure you take it a step further by sharing these user-generated photos on your own social media brand profiles. This is an extremely easy way to increase loyalty to your existing customers and add credibility to your brand whenever potential customers visit your social media profiles.

ASOS has an ongoing campaign to invite all customers to share photos of themselves using ASOS products on the social media platforms they are using. Customers just need to use the hashtag #AsSeenOnMe in order to stand a chance to be featured. ASOS then collects the images and presents some of the best on their Instagram profile As Seen on Me. They even have an entire web page dedicated to these user-generated photos. When users click on the photos presented there, they can view and purchase the items used in the photo.

Create valuable content to educate and engage with your main audience

Social networks are a great platform to provide valuable content to your audience. This content should be as engaging as possible for your audience and compelling enough to attract them to buy.

Ideally, you should provide guidance and content. The goal is to give customers the kind of information that will entice them to try your product. For example, Betty Crocker uses her Facebook page to share videos with short recipes as a way to better inform her followers. These recipes are simple enough to entice viewers to try them out and use the ingredients from Betty Crocker.

Similarly, you can provide useful tips on how to use the products in combination with other things. For example, in the case of fashion accessories, you can make an outfit that matches your accessory. Or, in the case of technological gadgets, you can present some of the interesting things that people can do with it. Using this type of “informational” content gives your product a broader context and gives potential customers ideas on how to use it. As a bonus, this type of content gives your target consumers more reasons to consider buying your product, which can lead to more conversions.

Invest in social media advertising

Social platforms have millions of users. Even when you find the perfect social networking platform to engage your target audience, your marketing efforts may not be effective if none of them have heard of you before. You can make sure they discover your brand by investing in advertising on social networks.

Each social platform has the option to create ads or promote your content. This will ensure greater visibility for your brand among a relevant target audience. Increased visibility will further improve your chances of generating sales on social media.

On Instagram, you can easily advertise through Instagram Stories in addition to regular advertising. Through this type of advertising, the online luxury fashion retailer YOOX recorded a 6-point increase in brand awareness and an 11-point increase in ad access.

Through advertising on Facebook, the gift book publisher LoveBook managed to raise awareness of the brand and increase conversions. They created video ads, which led to three times higher purchase rates. They saw a 57% increase in the cost-effectiveness of advertising on social media while spending 53% less on other advertising platforms.

Similarly, you can invest in advertising campaigns on Twitter or in sponsored posts and InMail to reach the right audience on LinkedIn. You can even customize your ads by displaying products that a user recently viewed on your website. This could remind them about the products and will engage them to make a purchase.

Short conclusion

These are some of the most effective ways in which your brand can increase its sales through the use of social media. As you can see, these tips mainly involve gaining the trust of your target audience through other people – influencers and customers.

You also need to make sure that your brand is highly visible to a relevant audience and that it is crucial to facilitate the purchase of your products through social media platforms. Do you have questions about these tips or any tips to add? Please do not hesitate and feel free to write to our Web Push team in the comments below.