Actionable Social Selling Tips for 2019
A business’ social presence expands its reach and increases sales. If you want to promote a brand and succeed in an online market, you need social media. Even if your business is doing relatively well and you aren’t quite lagging behind, it can always get better. Without a doubt, one of the best places to make this happen is social media, especially in 2019.
The online world makes it possible for every business to grow even further, increase sales, and capture the interest of an entirely new set of potential customers. Ideally, a good social media strategy will reach these people and convince them to make a purchase, turn them into regular customers, and help spread the word of mouth.
There are plenty of things you can do with social selling. But, you need to know how to do it right. This is where our tips for 2019 can help.
Make Plans Ahead
Social media campaigns aren’t built overnight, at least not the good ones. An ideal campaign for business will combine both social selling and marketing. As such, you must plan ahead to create a strategy that presents the identity of the brand. You need to find ways to communicate with customers via social platforms. You need to know what story you’ll tell, how and when you’ll tell it. Moreover, you have to make a decision on how you’ll present the product and service, as well as convince people to buy it.
With a good plan, you’re eliminating many risks and making selling online possible. This was and remains the first and greatest tip you can get in terms of social selling.
Rely on Facts, Not Assumptions
One of the biggest errors entrepreneurs have made in the past decade is that they rely on assumptions when they opt for social selling. Your assumptions may be true once or twice, but if you want to provide customers with what they really need and create continuous and growing conversions, you need facts, not guesses.
So, learn more about the target customer. Ask them questions, quiz them, and analyze your current social marketing strategy’s success. This is the only way to maintain an excellent social selling strategy. If you base it solely on luck, you won’t last long on the social market.
Make Amazing Content
In the end, what defines your brand and sets your tone is the content. This is the thing that will convince people to buy from you. Whether it is the description of your products or services, a guide that you provide them, or the statement you use to offer them a coupon or a discount – it all requires content.
What people often fail to recognize is how important content is – in everything. Special offers, discounts, and coupons may attract customers, but you can’t just put one of these offers out there and expect many customers. You need content to entice them. And when you create chatbots to instantly respond to messages and keep customers happy, it is the message that should do the business, not the actual bot.
Content is everything. Don’t ever forget it.
Stalk Your Audience
Not literally, of course. On social media, you need to be wherever your audience chooses to be. Right now, there are more social media platforms than there has ever been. This number is only going to grow and with it, so will the changes in terms of platform preferences and the number of users.
Stalk the audience in the sense that you always know where they hang out. If your target audience moves to Instagram after using Facebook as their favorite platform for years, move with them. Tweak your strategy accordingly. You can’t possibly use the same strategy on all platforms – not if you want to succeed.
So, you’re safer using one or two platforms for promotions with tailored content and strategy, than using all platforms with the same message and approach. After all, different platforms mean different active times, post requirements, image requirements, and even marketing tricks.
Use Customer Generated Content
Influencers are the latest and greatest and at this point, the strongest marketing trend for you. Every customer who’s created something that can help you with your business is a potential influencer. So, don’t be afraid to share. According to Business Insider, 97% of shoppers are more likely to convert after being exposed to customer generated content.
People are more likely to trust your business if they hear and see words of appraisal from people who already trust you. You can use the words, photos, shares, and mentions of your existing customers to show others that you are worthy of their consideration.
Of course, this also means that you should proceed to use influencers – the people who have many followers and will share your brand with the world. People follow and trust these people and, if you want to beat the competition today, you better start choosing your influencers.
Increase the Number of Pictures
Pictures are the trend nowadays. People love visualization and respond very well to it. They won’t like it if you post too much content for them to read. If you want to get their attention, use more pictures – and good ones.
As you know already, pictures are the most frequent message type across most platforms today. Instagram is pretty much based on pictures, and Pinterest is all about them. Facebook combines pictures with posts, and Snapchat uses them as their core.
Pictures can say thousands of words. Instead of telling those words, choose a few words and an excellent picture. It should do the trick for you.
The Bottom Line
These six social selling tips are just the tip of the iceberg to selling on social media today. People use social media so frequently and passionately, you are very likely to make most of your sales through these platforms, provided that you’re doing it right. Start here and move forward with your social selling marketing. If you dedicate enough time and skills into it, you are bound to experience an increase in conversions and sales for your business.
