As a marketer there are numerous ways to promote your products and services. Social media networks have a vast reach and are an excellent way to build brand awareness. Most companies have realized this and have begun investing time and effort in social media campaigns. Get additional info about how the right social media can slingshot your business.
However, it is essential to have a solid strategy in place to start seeing results. The resource page over at idigic is recommended reading for strategies and nuances about brand building using social media.
Here are 5 ways to sell more products through social media.
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Understand Your Core Customer
Matching your social strategy to your customer is important. Not every social network will be a good fit. Understand your customer demographics and details including their interests, likes, and dislikes. Is your customer a teenager, a working professional, a technology early adopter or a modern mom? Each of these people have different social media habits and they use some social media platforms more than others. Conduct research on the various platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest and understand which of these your customers use most frequently. Choose which networks you will be focussing on, start paying attention to your customers’ concerns and share useful advice.
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Build Your Network
Building a network is possibly one of the most challenging aspects of social media marketing. It requires a lot of hard work and focus. The best way to go ahead with building a network is to create daily, weekly and monthly goals focussed on the pace of engagement you’re looking for. Go to the relevant social sites and look for people who are using related keywords or talking about your industry. You can then begin interacting with them by responding to their queries, sharing their posts or retweeting them. By contributing to their conversations, you can add value to their network and inspire them to follow you.
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Encourage Customers to Share Their Journeys
Social media success is mostly dependant on how much your customers talk about you. Many marketers encourage their customers to post about and share their favorite items before, during and after they make a purchase. This is known as purchase-process sharing and is an excellent way to build credibility for your brand. Many social media users have made a purchase after favoriting, commenting or sharing a product. For instance, lifestyle brand Crate and Barrel has an e-commerce platform that offers incentivized purchase-sharing techniques such as refer-a-friend campaigns and social rewards. You can reach audiences you otherwise may not have access to by leveraging these positive customer interactions.
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Feature User-generated Content
User-generated content is material that is shared and created by your followers, fans, and customers on social platforms. This content could be created spontaneously or through giveaways and contests. Curating user-generated content works well for e-commerce as customers are more likely to make a purchase if they come across this type of content.
Images created by customers featuring your products are particularly useful as they show your product realistically. In fact, many online shoppers check Instagram for pictures of the product in use before making a purchase. This is why many brands such as Whole Foods use social curation tools for Instagram. They use authentic visuals put up by customers to demonstrate social proof, increase on-site conversions and drive purchases.
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Conduct Promotional Activities and Contests
Getting your target audience involved in your online activities is one of the most effective strategies for social media engagement. Contests and other promotions are excellent ways to solicit audience participation and drive their interest since you are offering them valuable incentives to take part. You can be incredibly creative with these contests and provide appealing rewards. You can also make use of sharing and other tools available in your social network to bring more exposure to the contest and get more of your followers to join in.
Final Thoughts
As social media networks mature, digital marketers are learning how to build and harness these to get better exposure and create brand awareness. They have realized that social media marketing can be used as a powerful tool to improve sales. By doing your research, using the right targeting techniques and sharing relevant content, you will be able to grow your social presence exponentially and give your sales a boost in the process.
Author Bio: This is a guest post by Nancy, a social media strategist from iDigic.net.
