Social media is a great way to increase sales for your business. A study in 2020 found that global internet users have contributed 76.8% of global Ecommerce revenue, and of that proportion, 44.8% of it came from social media alone. In fact, that number has only grown steadily since then. As of late 2021, the Ecommerce industry has contributed $2 trillion in global Ecommerce revenue, with China accounting for 52.1% of online retail, with half of the number said to stem from social commerce. The message we’re trying to convey? More people are beginning to embrace online and mobile shopping and social commerce is expected to be the next big thing to grace the front of Ecommerce. It’s not hard to see why, after all, social media and the internet go hand in hand and most of us spend a great time scrolling through social media anyway.
Now, even businesses are trying to get in on the game, not just by tapping into the internet but specifically through social media specifically to grab consumers’ attention, and that begins with brand awareness. If you own a business and you’ve been thinking about using social media to boost your sales, now is a great time to tap into the medium. Here are 6 ways you can leverage social media to do that.
For seasoned businesses, brand awareness is just the tip of the iceberg in the social media game. For those who are just getting started out in the game, however, your journey starts here. No business will ever see a surge in social media sales from day 1 just like that, it takes time for people to learn about your brand and to explore, which is why it’s important for you to establish a presence online before you officially launch your brand. We call this a soft launch or getting the word around about your brand. The goal here is not just for people to know about the brand, but to drive traffic to your social media account to get them to explore your products. If you have not built any brand awareness yet, consider spending time doing so. However, if you have already done so, this is where we start utilizing the wonders of social media to boost your sales.
It may sound counterintuitive to say this, but you should never stretch yourself out thin on social media. Rather than trying to be everywhere all at once, take time to identify which social media platforms generate the most engagement. Social media reporting tools such as Keyhole and Agorapulse are useful in determining the bulk of your audience. Once you have identified your audience, everything becomes significantly more manageable. Plus, being at the right place with the right audience means your brand stands a better chance of boosting its sales, as higher engagement generally leads to higher conversion and thus, more transactions. Apart from Keyhole and Agorapulse, there are many other social media reporting tools to consider, even for those who are budget-constrained.
You may have heard about paid social media influencer marketing before, but do you know that you can actually get your followers to provide marketing for you to a similar degree without necessarily having to spend a fortune? Paid advertising in the form of social media influencers is a great way to ramp up the sales, but if budget is a concern for the business, a cheap yet accessible form of paid marketing is to have your followers market your products instead. We use the word ambassadors because you will still have to pay your followers in return for their marketing, but not in the form of money. Essentially, you’ll be reaching out to followers with a sizable list of followers of their own to get them to talk about your brand and product. In return, you respond by sending them a free product or offering them discounts on their subsequent purchases. This is no different from word of mouth, only it’s more deliberate and structured. The other advantage to getting your followers to market for you is that it creates a community of its own, which will entice more people to explore your brand.
User reviews are everything. Consumers today have a ravenous appetite for earnest, honest reviews because it’s the easiest way to tell if a brand is reliable and trustworthy. It creates a transparent ground for the brand to connect with new customers and vice versa. And what better way to do that than to make use of your users' content? Encouraging users to share photos of your product online and reposting them on your brand’s social media account not only fosters a positive relationship with your users, you are also creating a positive association and impression of the brand through your users and their respective followers’ lenses. More importantly, it is a great way to strengthen customer loyalty. Together with making your followers ambassadors, capitalizing on user-generated content is a great way to drive traffic to your social media and encourage people to start shopping.
Creating content to inform your audience about your product or services is a very nifty way to boost your sales, this is because many people are generally hesitant about trying out a new product when presented because they are unsure and unfamiliar with it. When you educate the audience on how to operate your product or service, you entice them to take it a step further to explore what you’re offering, which can lead to conversion. Particularly, producing how-to video content with a call-to-action (CTA) cue inserted at the very end is a surefire way of getting your audience to explore further.
Have you ever wondered if your audience or customers are talking about you? Occasionally you would when they tag you on social media. But what about the times when they don’t? Social listening, or the act of finding out what your audience is talking about is a great way to explore the market and find out if your audiences are mentioning you or the lack thereof, which in turn empowers you with the necessary knowledge to captivate them. Knowing what piques their interest and the competitor brands they’re interacting with will give you an edge in portraying yourself in an advantageous way to sway them in your favor. There are various social media intelligence tools out there that provide you with an insight into your customer’s interest, even better, make use of the opportunity to interact with them to increase conversion!
Social media is a powerful tool to increase your online sales. However, they do require determination and perseverance to master. Given how competitive the social media game is, it would do well for business owners to familiarize themselves with the basics of social media first, before tapping into social media marketing itself.
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