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Social media has transformed from being simple platforms used by friends to connect with each other into powerful marketing tools. It’s an essential part of sales and marketing today, making it an indispensable resource for businesses. In fact, 41% of businesses depend on social media for marketing to drive revenue. This influences strategies that professionals in sales can use to achieve their targets. There are many ways you can utilize platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter to drive results:
Increasing sales starts with understanding your prospects’ needs. While traditional marketing methods have achieved this through feedback surveys and similar tools, social media gives salespeople unique insights into what prospects and existing customers are saying about your brand and your competitors, too. This valuable information allows you to provide your audience with solutions tailor-fit to their needs.
By understanding their pain points, you can position yourself as the brand that can solve them. Your prospects will learn to trust your brand, which leads to better sales when they choose your products and services over other markets. By maintaining the relationships between new and existing customers, you’ll also be able to build brand loyalty among your following.
There are many active communities on social media, ranging from structured groups to hashtags for shared interests on various platforms. Salespeople can target these communities to maximize an already captured market. In this guide to social selling, it demonstrates how salespeople can bypass traditional e-commerce strategies, such as Instagram Shopping or Pinterest Shopping Pins, when they engage users where they already are. Connecting with the audience this way has higher chances of turning social media engagement directly into sales, rather than simply attracting them to your profile where they don't follow through on purchasing.
Start by finding these communities on their respective platforms. If you’re hoping to boost sales through Facebook, then looking for groups dedicated to similar products and services is your best option. Engaging with audiences on Instagram is best done through community hashtags, while TikTok communities will show you content from the same online circles with similar interests.
When creating a strategy to boost sales, it might make sense to cast a wide net and target as much of the available market as possible. However, this can also lead to an unfocused message that doesn’t resonate with any particular audience. Targeting specific demographics is a better strategy. It does not necessarily exclude people who do not fit your criteria; rather, it allows you to speak to people that are more likely to buy from you. This is a more affordable and effective way to generate sales.
To determine your target demographic, identify the common attributes of prospects and customers in your current customer base; it won't hurt to look at your competition's audience, too. Professionals in sales should also analyze the product or service being offered and assess who it’s catered for. Understand your audience further with this information by going beyond the demographics to create a buyer persona with psychographics, attitudes, and behaviors that paint a detailed picture of who you’re selling to. Doing so will allow you to further understand your customers and cater your social media strategy to bridge what you offer to their needs.
Customers are more likely to buy and help you generate sales when they know where to go. By creating a destination for your prospects, you are giving them a go-to hub for all their social media activity related to your brand. This destination is where your content should be published and curated along with your calls to action and further engagement opportunities.
When creating destinations for social media, audiences should find your most recent products, services, or promotions with ease. Facebook business pages are dependable destinations that allow you to pin your most relevant posts. You can do something similar using your Instagram profile by placing a link to your latest product in your bio, story, or most recent post. This way, customers won't have to worry about looking for your brand's latest updates since they have a set destination in mind.
Social media has proven to be a powerful tool in business strategy. By employing both social media marketing to boost brand awareness and social selling to further drive revenue, sales professionals can steer sales outcomes to positive results.
