Driving sales to your online and retail stores is an important part of overall small business management. Social media platforms can easily become one of your most valuable ecommerce sales tools — if you use them wisely. These five strategies can help turn social media campaigns into sales.
- Leave the Sales Pitch on the Floor
Forget the traditional approach to selling when it comes to using social media and online activity as a way to drive traffic. While ads have their place — and can work well — interacting with customers and giving them valuable, shareable content is your best bet. This makes your company stand out from the crowd and encouraging people to share and comment spreads your message — and your brand — even farther.
- Interact With Users and Colleagues
Social media success doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Interact regularly and enthusiastically with the public, your customers and your colleagues in the industry. Be part of round table discussions, live chats and groups focused on your industry.
- Do Some Keyword Research
Take the time to understand how best to use keywords in order to increase your overall conversion rate. This may mean using industry specific keywords and phrases or employing word choices and sentence structures commonly used within the marketing world.
- Encourage Social Reviews
Make it easy for people to review your store, your products and your services in every available outlet. 88% of people report that they trust online reviews in the same way they trust a personal recommendation. This translates into greater sales and a better sense of trust when attracting new customers.
- Plan for Quality Content
High-quality, shareable content doesn’t just magically happen. Invest in the time and energy it takes to create good content that offers valuable information and insight to readers through regular posts via social media or a dedicated blog. This means setting a schedule for posts and planning at least two weeks in advance. There will always be times when you need to throw something together quickly in order to take advantage of a sudden trend, but having a framework will make those last minute, off-the-cuff posts easier to handle.