How To Increase Sales: Social Media Content

You don’t have to personally like it and you don’t have to use it for personal accounts but folks; Social media is not only here, but its here to stay. If you're looking to increase sales this is the place to start.

Take a look at the technology as it emerges, its focus is SOCIAL MEDIA.  This is technology that didn’t exist 20 years ago.  As the younger people grow up they will be using this technology for things we can’t even begin to imagine. 

If there are tools you’re seeking that can be ignored while you are looking to increase traffic to your website, don’t consider Social Media as a tool to be ignored.

Competing for customers/clients in today’s market is brutal.  Social Media is a MUST if you want to become a dominate player in your field or industry.

How does Social Media boost your website content and increase sales?   Well let’s explore Social Media numbers and see how these numbers pan out and then we can talk about the content built around these numbers.

Who is using Social Media?

Users of the internet are spending 4x more time on their Facebook accounts than on Google.

What does that mean to you?  Why should you care? 

Because that’s where YOUR customers are spending their time! Social media content is how to increase sales

How many potential customers?
    Active users

         Facebook; 1 billion
         Google+: 100 million
         Twitter: 170 million
Why should you care? Because if you use Social Media correctly you will help your business:

     Get More Leads
     Get More Customers
     Build Relationships
     Grow your reach

Companies that use Twitter average 200% more leads than those that don’t use Twitter.
LinkedIn has shown that 65% of their users have gained a customer through their network.
Facebook marketers report that 77% have gained a B2C customer through their posts on the site.

How To Increase Sales
Not everyone is ready to buy your product and service today.

By building relationships on your social media sites you position yourself as the go to person when that day does come and your prospect is ready to buy.  You have built trust, gained authority and you did all this with Social Media.

One area that you can shine and build your business brand is by using social media as an addition to your great customer service. By responding to the great comments, as well as the not so great comments you’re able to show your potential customers how their experience with your business will be fantastic!

Remember that each one of your new fans or followers has their own group of fans and followers.  When you interact with your fans you’re able to grow your reach into the lives of everyone in your current fan or follower circle. 
Consider this a “warm” lead.  A thumbs up or recommendation from a person you already know and trust goes a long way in overcoming the initial trust issues that people who know nothing about your company may have.

Years ago there was a shampoo commercial that was focused on telling 1 friend.   It showed how quickly the word can be spread when you tell one person and they tell a friend and so on.  It’s referred as “going viral” and we can see this type of viral spreading everyday through Social Media sites.

Another strong aspect of Social Media is the human touch.
People do business with people they like and trust.  Asking people to give their trust to a corporation or business is hard. 
When your brand or company becomes a real live human in the minds of your customers, it becomes easier for you to build trust.
Reminding your customers that there are real live humans at the end of the phone or email that understands your customer’s problems is really a great way to gain long lasting clients/customers.

We talked about getting social proof in a previous article but let’s quickly touch on this again. 
Social Proof is the psychology of basing a judgment toward a person or business based on the actions of others.  Even if you knew nothing about a business but you witnessed a long line out front, you would make assumptions that the business must be reputable and have something worth waiting for inside.  You find yourself thinking that if all these other people are finding something interesting there then I should check it out as well.  This is an assumption that is made every day because of social media buzz and activity. 

When you take social proof and drop it on the internet it translates into social shares, we have a tendency to look at shares as a type of vote.  Sharing content is saying to your circle, “hey, I like this and you should check it out”.
Google is not immune to social proof.  The amount of shares and tweets are a factor in ranking with Google. 

Without great content, social media is nothing

If you post and tweet all day without including a link to point people to this great content just won’t work.   So you really do need to have a strategy.  Let’s talk more about this.

Social engagements Strategies: Reasons why you must have one
Blasting out random content is not the way to go.

Instead, we want to get the right content in the right places for the right people.  You want match your content with the needs of your idea buyers, your perfect customer persona. 

Using social media to get the right content to the right people in the right ways
You must target the Right people.  Sending your content out to people that are not interested is not going to help your overall strategy. 

Personas are really the key.  They are what you will use to determine how to tailor your marketing to attract your idea customer as well as what social networks we should be focused on for the posting of this targeted content.
Your customers are out there right now talking about your product or service.

By understanding who your customer is and where they’re spending their time, you can make the most out of using social media and create a stream of new customers.

One easy way to find out where your idea customer is spending their time is to ask them.

Take a survey; ask people where they spend most of their time.   Instead of making your customers try to find you, you should be showing up where they are hanging out.

5 ways to find your buyers
     Search for your topic or keywords on the various networks, find out who is talking about your business and join in on the conversation.
     Who else might be interested in your type of content?  Other industry leaders or contacts that could be interested in your product.  Where do they spend their time?
     Are you involved with industry or related blogs? 
     Comment!  Give your expertise opinion; let people know you have something to say about the topic
     Link back to your own content, if you have a good article about the topic then let people know where they can read more about it

When you find the people that you are interested in, they will stand a better chance of being interested in you.

Using a little common sense you will find your idea customer.

If you sold the best cuts of meat in the nation you would not focus your marketing efforts in vegan or vegetarian communities; no matter how amazing your knowledge about beef or the great content you could write about the subject, you will be talking to deaf ears.

Should I put my content on all the sites?  Should it be the same content on each site?

No, and let’s explore the reason why.   People spend time on different networks for different reasons.  Are they there to work or there to play?  Just like you, your customers have different mind sets for the type of content they are looking for.  This brings us back to the personas, what does your idea customer do when they’re not in the work mind set?  Get into the mind set of your customer and give them content for that mind set.

Consider yourself attending a convention for your industry.  The people you are surrounded by are in a mind set to learn and interact in a strictly business oriented manner.
Now move those same people into the after cocktail party.  Same people, different settings, different conversations.  Getting the picture?
Twitter – Generates Buzz

     Not great for long content
     Less rapport
     Great for reach a lot of people
     Informal
Facebook – Human touch

     Most personal network of the top 4 sites
     People expect a more personal interaction on Facebook
     People want more value in the updates from business and not as many quick facts that link to another site.
LinkedIn – Professional

    Formal   
    Very focused on industry information
Google+

     Great for search optimizing
     Users are less active but the +1 buttons showing up next to results can improve click through rates.
     Seems to be very good for the local search

Increase your Sales
Great but how do you take all this knowledge and really use it to get to the right people in the right ways.

The basics to building your reachConnect, follow and friend

• Share links
• Think about automatic publishing to make it easy to post consistently
• Promote your own content 50% of the time
• Use your existing contacts
• Use visual content. 
• Comment back to your users, be social with them
• Include keywords to make your posts more searchable
• No matter what you post or share – always make sure you include a link
• Be consistent and post frequently

I want to talk about this a little more.  Think about the commercials you see on TV.  Let’s take a Snickers commercial and break down the whys and goals of this commercial. 

Q) Do you know anyone that has not heard of Snickers?  This brand has a tremendous name recognition attached to it.  Why would they spend the time and money to put commercials out about their product?  

A) The world is a very noisy place and consumers are bombarded with tons of information and stimuli all day long.  Snickers know that you know their name.  They are aware that you have probably eaten a Snickers more than once in your life.  They know that most people find Snickers a yummy treat.  They also know that you have a whole isle of other choices to make when you are looking to treat yourself and by consistent and frequent reminders that they are available you will hopefully land on their candy bar as you stand in front of those aisles.   The consistent and frequent reminders will float up to the top and when your eyes hit that familiar wrapper it will feel so familiar and comfortable that you will go ahead and pick up their candy bar.  This is the reason; if it didn’t show a ROI I can assure you that they would alter their methods.

Q) Are they selling you on the quality, price, convenience?

A) Think about what the Snickers commercial is really trying to impart to the viewers.  They NEVER talk about the price, they never compare the Snickers to a competing candy bar.  They are selling you a promise of the feeling you will get after you eat that candy.  They are selling you on how it will make you feel.   Again, people will forget what you say, they will forget what you do, but they always remember how you made them feel.

Q) Do they anticipate a huge jump in the sale of snickers after each commercial airs?

A) No.  Let’s face it.  We are not always in the mood or on the search for a candy bar.  Snickers does not expect to wake up to a rush on their product after a commercial airs.  They are working along the long term goals.  They are always associating their brand with a feeling you can get when and if you find yourself ready and willing to grab a candy bar.

My guess is that they didn’t just wing it on this concept.  I am willing to bet that a lot of research and time went into the creation of and implementation of their type of marketing. Brilliant right?  If it’s good enough for them then it just might be worth considering when you are planning your marketing strategy.

Use these guildlines for your content

Type of content to post

•  Links to new content
•  Links to others educational content – this is building trust and showing that you are helpful
•  Post lead generation offers
•  Contest and promotions
•  Pay attention to breaking news in your industry. 
•  Funny content, use humor to increase your share rate, helps to let your customers know you’re human
•  Visual content – I can’t stress this enough.  People love to be visual stimulated
•  Answers to questions people ask you.

If you take the time to clearly understand who your customer is, then build your content around the needs, desires or interest for those customers, you will really start to see the benefits of Social Media and the power it will have over your sales and visits.

Want to talk more?  Complete Web Solutions is located in the United States.  Our team is consists of highly trained professionals.  We approach each new project from every angle, our design team works hand in hand with our graphic and marketing team to deliver the results that business owners are seeking.

We'd be happy to begin a relationship with you.  Call our office at 719 302 5029 today.