Business Corner: How to Use Social Media to Drive Your Sales

If you’re not already using social media for your business, you could be missing out on major (not to mention easy) earning potential. The best part is you don’t need to be a social media pro to use these platforms to your advantage! With the right strategy, you’ll be able to successfully generate strong leads and drive more sales for your business.

Why Social Media Marketing Is Important

Here are a few numbers, courtesy of Sprout Social, to give you an idea of why social media is worth the effort. As many as 57% of consumers follow a brand on social media just to learn more about their new products or services, while 47% follow to stay on top of company news. It doesn’t stop there. After following a brand over social media, a whopping 91% will visit the company’s website, 89% are likely to make a purchase, and 85% will recommend the company to someone else. Convinced yet?

9 Things You Can Start Doing Now

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you tackle your social media strategy.

Tell Your Story: Everyone loves a good story. Use social media platforms to provide insight into who you are as a company and to personalize your company. This will help you differentiate your brand from others, connect with your followers (who will hopefully become customers if they aren’t already), and increase brand loyalty. Just make sure that your brand story is authentic.
Nail Down a Schedule: Ideally, you should be posting something once a day or, at the very least, three times a week. Also think about what time of day you’re posting. The idea is that you want to make sure you’re posting when your target customer base is online, so that they’re more likely to see it. For your target demographic, that’s likely before and after a typical workday, over lunch, or in the evenings. You’ll want to avoid holidays and weekends if possible.
Plan It Out: It’s about more than just throwing up a couple posts and calling it a day. Take some time to think about what you want to share and put together a calendar of what and when you’re going to post. When you see it all laid out, it’ll be easier to identify overlaps and gaps in your content.
Use Video: Users are more likely to engage with a video post than a static image or text. As many as 72% of customers prefer learning about a product or service via video and 92% of mobile users are likely to share a video, according to Adweek.
Pick Your Platforms: You don’t need to post on every single platform. Think about your target audience and do some research about which platforms they’re using most. Pick the ones that make the most sense for your business and focus on those.
Take Advantage of Tools: There are plenty of tools available to help you manage, simplify, and even automate a lot of your social media work, including scheduling and posting, templates for graphics, analytics, and more.
Boost and Advertise: Consider setting aside a small monthly budget to spend on boosting posts and ads that can be targeted to a specific audience at a pretty granular level.
Do Some Tracking: By keeping track of the posts and ads that generate the most engagement, you’ll be able to get a better idea of what type of content to focus on in the future. Many social media networks offer free reporting built right into their platforms.
Experiment and Evolve: Social media platforms are continuously evolving, and so should you. Try a few different things, experiment with new tools, look for inspiration from other brands you admire, and see what works for your community. Some might be a miss, but you won’t know unless you try!