The importance of social media in brand visibility and sales promotion cannot be underestimated in this digital age. Today, a high percentage of the world’s population interact and even carry out business transaction on social media platforms. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram currently has more than 3 billion active users with Facebook leading the table.
These active users love the benefits that come with shopping online, especially with the back and forth of comments and feedbacks. Businesses are aware of the importance of the social media in driving sales but how effective they are in getting the needed result. Almost, every product site has at least three social media sites but how many of them are able to transform it into a higher product sale?
Here are four steps that are critical for anyone that want to promote their brand and boost sales using social media.
Choose a Social Media Platform
The choice of the social media platform is important for a business because the audience and functionality of the platform vary. For instance, LinkedIn is suitable for professionals and business expatriates while Twitter is more suitable for friends, family, and coworkers who would like to communicate. Facebook, on the other hand, was originally made for social networking but recently it’s used by small businesses to conduct product campaign and drive traffic to their product site.
Apart from the functionality and the social media platform, the location of the target audience is also an important parameter. I don’t expect a business targeting the Chinese market to use the Facebook rather Weibo and WeChat might be more appropriate. In choosing a social media platform, the type of business, the functionality of the social media, target audience and audience location should be the guiding principles.
Create a Fan Page
Once you have registered on a social media platform, the next step is to create a Fan page for your business or product. This is an important step because it helps you reach a wider audience when you begin your campaign. This function is not available on every social media platform.
Properly setting up a fan page is one of the most important steps in engaging your fans on facebook. Go ahead and upload your business or product logo and create a description of your product, mission statement. Do not forget to include your contact details. One of the key points in setting up a Fan page is selecting the appropriate niche. This is one of the lessons I picked up in the popular online course taught by Boniface Ogunti, a facebook marketing expert.
Post or share great content
Do not settle for good contents because there are millions of them on the social media. Only great content go viral and one viral content can turn your business or product around. Whether written or video presentation you want to put the best out there. Most importantly, you want to keep them coming to your page first thing in the morning and before they go to bed. The key to this is creating content that delivers value. This reminds me of one of my favorite quote on this subject.
“It is not just enough to create an amazing page and share contents about your products and services. You need to tell engaging stories that attract followers, and keep them coming back for more” Boniface Ogunti
If you don’t have great stories to tell share great stories and link it to information about your product or business.
Engage your followers
This is the stage where you take time to interact with your followers and earn their trust. Having a social media account does not mean you have to run it in isolation. You must engage your followers with mind-blowing questions and thoughts that will propel them to share your post.
Another way you can engage your followers is to create a question or content out of their comments. While you are doing this, do not forget to provide your thoughts to their comments. This is one way of showing that you care about their opinion and there is a face to the product or business you are a promoting. People don’t just want your product, they also want to understand the personality behind the product.
You can also join groups in your niche across different social media platforms and engage in conversations thereby answering questions that are asked and showcasing your expertise in problem-solving in different topics. This will also attract people to your page.
The social media is one of the quickest and cheapest tools for making product sales right at the comfort of your home. It is a wagon that many businesses a joining but only few can turn it into high business sales. You can be the first in your block to hit a million dollars using the social media.