7 Ways Marketers Can Use Social Media to Drive Sales

Since the mid-2000s, social media has come a long way and has made major innovations. From MySpace to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and much more. Social platforms were once used to chat from time to time and share photos. However, now, these have become part of our daily lives. 

Moreover, modern-day social media apps are now even an integral part of how modern-day companies do business. Not only has it helped companies to reach a worldwide audience, but it has also allowed them to promote their products and services better. 

Well, let’s not waste any more time and discuss how you can use social media to increase your sales. 

Let’s dive right in!

7 Ways To Use Social Media to Increase Sales

1. Identify the Social Platforms Your Target Persona is Using

As a sales professional, it’s your job to determine where your ideal customer is active the most. If you’re focused more on B2B companies, we recommend you focus on the company's size that would benefit from your product or service and how much revenue they would gain.

If you are trying to sell to consumers, your ideal customer profile should include information such as how old your buyer is, what type of hobbies & interests they have, and what type of problems they are solving while using your product. 

Once you have set up your customer profile, use the information to identify which social media platforms they are most likely to be active on. For example, if you are focused on B2B, your customers will most likely be located on LinkedIn. However, if you are more B2C focused, you should focus your efforts on Instagram, Facebook, and even TikTok if you are into video marketing.

It is most important to not guess or assume where your target persona spends their time.  Research, survey, and find out where your future customers are, and focus your energy to set up the best social media sales strategy on those platforms.

2. Define Your Goals

Marketers can successfully improve their social media success once they are done defining their goals and objectives for the platform they are using. It’s best to align your strategic goals with the business goals. Having these types of goals written down and defined is easier for you to measure the success of your social media marketing efforts. 

If you aren't already, try using the SMART goals tactic, which stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. Write your goals down and use them to execute your campaigns. Here are some examples of achievable SMART goals: 

• Increasing your social media traffic by 15% in the next three months; 

• Increasing lead generation by 20% on the social platform you are using; 

• Gaining 500 more followers on social media in the next three months. 

Ensuring your goals align with your market strategy will help you showcase if your social media strategy has an effect or not.

3. Use Video Marketing

Video marketing is another effective way to promote your brand on social media. Popular social media platforms for video include TikTok and YouTube. Only last year, TikTok managed to reach one billion users on its platform!  However, you can (and should) use video on any social media platform.  Stand out on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter with videos.

Did you know that 92% of video consumers watch videos without sound? Because of this, you need to keep your users interested and ensure you incorporate a subtitle generator to allow users to watch your videos even without any sound. Subtitle generators have up to 99% accuracy and don’t take long to complete. 

Help your content on social media get noticed by presenting it via video!

4. Use User-Generated Content

When purchasing a new product, buyers will feel more confident in their decision when they know the product is also commonly used by other users. According to a previous study, more than 80% of users claimed that word-of-mouth was one of the main reasons they bought a product, and this percentage is only growing year over year. 

So, what is the best way to include word of mouth in your social media marketing strategy? 

It’s to include user-generated content, aka customer stories, in your content. Posting positive reviews from customers and clients will make others feel more comfortable buying your product or taking the next step in their buyers' journey to talk to a salesperson. 

5. Publish Consistently 

One of the worst things a social media manager can do is not publish consistently on social media. You should take your social media content seriously and ensure that you are constantly posting. Moreover, the worst part of social media is that if you don’t post consistently, your content will be less recommended and not appear in search rankings. 

People follow a page or brand because of the content they find there. Posting consistently won’t only strengthen your brand but also build customer loyalty in the long term. Followers will talk more about your brand and create a word-of-mouth marketing world around your business. if you stay top of mind with consistent publishing it will directly affect the number of sales you get. 

You may be asking yourself how much is enough?

According to research, it is recommended that you post no less than three times per week. On the other hand, it isn’t a smart move to post too many times per week either. Instead, balance things out and post three to six times per week. Consistent publishing will help your content stand out.

6. Track Metrics

As a sales professional, you should prioritize tracking metrics above anything else and the average length of sales per cycle, lead response time, and understanding of how your business is performing. If you aren’t ready, it’s time to include social media metrics in your daily, weekly, and monthly reports. 

Have you ever identified how many leads come into your social media? Or, how many of those leads convert? What percentage of total sales do you get from your social media leads? Or to identify how helpful it is to understand how you can continue integrating social media into your sales strategy. 

Alternatively, above quantitative measures, you want to consider tracking some qualitative information. For instance, identify which post on your social media converted the most or got you the most sales and shares. This way, you are finding out what works best for your strategy and what helps you increase sales.

7. Create Relationships

Followers will want to engage with brands they think to understand them the most. This is an excellent opportunity to engage and create relationships with your audience. Sometimes, consumers may reach out with negative reviews, but this will only become positive if you undertake measures and listen to them. Brands will be respected more often whenever the experience is personal. 

Moreover, you can consider using social listening to track and analyze conversations online. Users won’t directly message and write to a brand all the time, but they will have comments about a brand all the time. It’s helpful for the business to have social listening tools and find out what people have to say about them and respond quickly.

A few helpful tips you can consider using for building these relationships on social media include: 

• Responding directly to comments and direct messages; 

• Reposting user reviews; 

• Quickly trying to address complaints; 

• Speak authentically & humanly - people connect with people so show personality;

• Responding within a working day.

Wrapping Up

These are our seven ways to use social media to increase your sales. Social media started anywhere in the mid-2000s, but back then, it wasn’t the same story as it is now. When social media began, it was more of a platform for private messaging and posting photos, but now, you have many options available to choose from. 

Social media has transformed into a platform used for connection, business purposes, communication, and so much more. We don’t know which way we are heading with social media; in the future, there may be many more new things to come, but we do know that social media is an excellent way to drive up your sales.  Reach out to us at LeadG2 to talk more about your social media strategy.