Ah ha! I knew that would get you clicking! This is THE question everyone wants answered
So how to answer it.
Social has two distinct elements: advertising and connecting. They are distinct BUT they cross over too.
When you’re running a social media campaign, you’re aiming to do both.
Combining the two (well) WILL get you business from social media.
What can social media do for your business?
- Whether you’re B2B or B2C, social media connects with potential customers (vital!), existing customers (even more vital!), and other businesses (potentially business-changing)
- Social moves you up search engine rankings (reviews are pulled through from social to Google and Bing uses social rankings)
- Social directs traffic/people to your website in the cheapest way – social traffic can cost far, far less and is far easier for you to manage than eg Google Ads (although Google ads are very effective, which is why we like to run them too, depending on the business)
- Social works off recommendations –
84% of consumers and 91% of B2B companies will buy a product or service if it has been recommended by someone they know
- Social keeps you top of mind with your customers – loyalty is priceless Social helps build your email database – an email address that people use daily is precious to your business and social has various methods for helping you build it
Notice how I didn’t write ‘Social gets sales for your business’? Social is the VESSEL for your sales.
Do it well, have a good website, a decent email marketing campaign, and the sales WILL follow.
FORGET BEING BORING on social
– it doesn’t make you money
When you’re on social you can’t be boring.
You can’t just shout about your business.
You’ve got to think about your followers and how you’re filling up their newsfeed.
What would YOU want to see in your newsfeed? This applies to: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram…
If I post on social media with a mix of content that’s engaging and informative, people are going to want me in their newsfeed a lot more.
So just like this blog: people WANT TO KNOW how to get business from social media.
I’m going to tell them how to do it.
What do your potential customers want to know?
EVERYONE in business knows that it’s your existing customers who are the most valuable.
It’s the connections that you build and encourage, which can have the longest-lasting impact for your business. So keep them happy.
Be generous with your knowledge and your engagement: if they comment, reply. If they leave you a review: most definitely reply!
And collect email addresses. Make sure you’ve got an email marketing campaign going: a GOOD one: not one that just says how great you are all the time – give them information, stories, entertain them.
Give your loyal customers good content and they’ll stay with you: you’ll stay top of mind for them.
Engagement leads to sales
ENGAGE, ENGAGE, ENGAGE!
You’re looking for a solicitor: you search and are considering two different firms. You can see that some of your friends like one of the solicitor’s social pages.
You ask your friends if that solicitor’s firm is any good – they say yes. The firm responds when you ask a question on social media.
The other solicitor’s firm isn’t on social media.
Who are you going to buy from?
You’re looking for an accountant. You go to some websites and then check out their social media to find out more about them.
One of them posts free information but without personality and there are very few reviews.
The other posts free information, shows some personality and values, and has a lot of good reviews.
Who are you going to buy from?
If you’re a local business: these stats from Bright Local are essential reading.
- 97% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses in 2017, with 12% looking for a local business online every day
- 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations
- Positive reviews make 73% of consumers trust a local business more
- 49% of consumers need at least a four-star rating before they choose to use a business
- Responding to reviews is more important than ever, with 30% naming this as key when judging local businesses
- 68% of consumers left a local business review when asked – with 74% having been asked for their feedback
- Yelp & Facebook are local consumers’ most trusted review sites, followed by Google & BBB.org
- People are becoming less likely to visit businesses’ websites after reading positive reviews – a 17% drop from 2016
- 32% of consumers read local reviews on mobile apps this year (a growth of 14% from 2016)
- Consumers read an average of 7 reviews before trusting a business – up from 6 last year
Target the right people with the right content
By now, I hope to have convinced you of the importance of engagement and personality on your social media.
Those are the basics and can persuade someone to buy from you without the need for advertising.
BUT without advertising, social media can be a very slow burn. Advertising speeds up the process, and targets the people who are MOST LIKELY TO BUY from you.
All you need is some time to create the right audiences and sell to the people who want to buy from you.
Find the WARM leads
These are the easiest types of audience to convert into buyers.
They may have bought from you in the past, visited your website, interacted with a video or some content you created on Facebook or Instagram.
You can create an audience of all those people and advertise to them
You’ve written a brilliant blog and sent people to your website to read it (just like this one!)
You can advertise directly to all these people.
And then you can create an audience (or several!) who ‘look’ like these people.
You can send them a little advert too: maybe start by sending them your wonderful blog to get them interested… Or you could offer them an irresistible download…
Create your sales funnel
These are all methods of feeding into your sales funnel. You’re drawing people in with your adverts and your organic posting, and that’s how you get business from social media.
I’d love your comments: this is a huge subject and I’ve tried to condense it as much as I can.
What I do, along with my amazing team, is the above:
- we create the posts, the content, and take care of the engagement.
- we represent you and your team.
- we design the adverts, create the strategy, and we reach the people who are most likely to buy.
Oh, and we can also teach you how to do it the social for yourself (we don’t teach PPC, yet!)
Thank you for reading!
Susie