Shopping on social media

5 Pro Tips for Improving Sales on Social Media

by with 31 Comments BlogSocial Media Marketing

So, you’ve done the smart thing and opened a social media account(s) for your business. You’ve been putting out some great content and getting some engagement but still aren’t raking in those mad sales as expected. 

Well, generating leads on social media is one thing. Driving sales is another. Even with good social media marketing strategies, many businesses still struggle to convert leads into customers. However, some businesses are making it on social media. As per Statistica, social commerce generated $475 billion in sales in 2020 and will generate $3.37 trillion by 2028, growing at a 28.4% annual pace. 

If you are wondering what else you have to do to get a piece of this pie, there are lots to consider. Let’s walk you through some pro tips that can help you convert those leads into loyal customers. 

  1. Sell Directly from Your Social Shopfloor!

In today’s fast-paced world, attention spans are shorter than ever, and the journey from “ooh, fancy widget!” to “purchased and paid for” needs to be smoother than a freshly buffed dance floor. That’s where the magic of social commerce comes in, letting you transform your social media pages into bustling shopfronts where people can discover, fall in love with, and buy your products directly, without ever leaving the platform. Popular social commerce platforms include Facebook Shop, Instagram Shopping, Pinterest Product Pins and TikTok Shop.

Imagine this: a potential customer scrolls through your captivating Instagram feed, mesmerized by the sleek lines of your new gadget. They tap the product tag, learn about its mind-blowing features, and BAM! A seamless checkout pops up, no need to navigate away to some mysterious website. With a few clicks and a happy wallet, that gadget is on its way to their doorstep, all within the familiar (and frankly, addictive) confines of their social bubble.

So, here’s why selling directly on social media is a game-changer:

Frictionless Flow: It’s all about convenience! The easier you make it for people to buy, the more likely they are to convert. Who wants to hop ship mid-purchase, chasing down your website through a maze of clicks? Social commerce keeps everything smooth and satisfying, like a perfectly buttered croissant.

Impulse Power: Social media thrives on instant gratification. By letting people buy on the spot, you tap into that impulsive “gotta have it now” energy (we’ve all been there). No time for second thoughts, just instant shopping bliss!

Brand Storytelling: Remember, social media is all about connection. Selling directly on these platforms allows you to weave your brand narrative right into the buying experience. Showcase product demos, answer questions in real-time, and build relationships with your customers all while they’re adding items to their carts. It’s like a personalized shopping spree with your coolest friend (who also happens to sell awesome stuff).

Of course, there’s more to social commerce than just slapping a “buy now” button on everything. Here are some bonus tips to make your virtual shopfloor sparkle:

High-quality product visuals: Think drool-worthy photos and captivating videos that showcase your products in action. Remember, you’re competing for attention in a sea of content, so make your visuals pop!

Engaging product descriptions: Don’t just list features – tell a story! Highlight the benefits, solve problems, and inject some personality to make your products irresistible.

Interactive elements: Poll your audience for their favorite color, host live Q&A sessions, or offer exclusive discounts for social media shoppers. Make them feel like part of the experience!

So, ditch the website detours and embrace the power of social commerce. Turn your followers into instant fans (and paying customers) by creating a seamless, engaging shopping experience right where they’re already hanging out. Remember, in the digital world, convenience is king (or queen), and the closer you make it for people to buy, the more you’ll watch your “sales” notification sing sweet symphonies of success.

  1. Offer Exclusive Deals and Promotions

Exclusive deals, discounts and promotions are secret weapons to capturing and retaining customer attention. While captivating content and compelling product stories are undeniably crucial, there’s a potent secret weapon in your social media arsenal: exclusive deals and promotions.

These targeted offers serve a dual purpose. Firstly, they act as irresistible magnets, drawing customers deeper into your social shopfloor. A “flash sale” banner announcing limited-time discounts can instantly transform a casual scroll into a shopping spree. The lure of scarcity triggers the “gotta have it now” impulse, turning passive viewers into active buyers.

Secondly, exclusive promotions cultivate a sense of loyalty and community among your social media audience. By offering deals specifically on your platform, you reward your followers for their engagement, fostering a feeling of being part of an exclusive club. This incentivizes them to keep returning, eagerly awaiting the next surprise offer.

The possibilities for crafting enticing social media exclusives are endless. Consider limited-edition product bundles, early access to new launches, flash discounts on popular items, or even personalized coupons triggered by specific actions or milestones. Each offer can be strategically tailored to your target audience and brand identity, creating a dynamic and engaging shopping experience.

Remember, exclusivity fosters a sense of urgency and desire. By offering deals unavailable elsewhere, you not only boost immediate sales but also encourage brand loyalty and long-term customer engagement. So, unleash your inner dealmaker and turn your social media shopfloor into a treasure trove of exclusive offers – watch your audience come alive with excitement and your sales figures soar!

  1. Engage Directly with Your Social Media Audience

To truly thrive, businesses need to ditch the one-way street and embrace genuine engagement with their audience. This means diving headfirst into the comment sections, responding to mentions, and fostering a two-way dialogue that strengthens relationships and fosters brand loyalty.

Why is this direct engagement so crucial? Here are just a few reasons:

Building trust and transparency: Responding to comments and questions demonstrates a genuine interest in your audience’s feedback and concerns. It shows you’re not just a faceless corporation, but real people who care about their customers. This transparency builds trust and strengthens the brand image.

Uncovering valuable insights: The comments section is a treasure trove of real-time customer feedback. By actively engaging, you glean valuable insights into their needs, preferences, and pain points. This data informs product development, marketing strategies, and customer service, ensuring you’re always aligned with your audience’s desires.

Fostering a community: Social media is about connection, and what better way to connect than through direct interaction? Responding to comments creates a sense of community and belonging, where your customers feel valued and heard. This fosters brand advocates who are more likely to engage with your content and spread the word.

Turning detractors into advocates: Let’s face it, negative feedback can happen. But by addressing concerns head-on in the comments section, you can turn a potentially negative experience into a positive one. Show your audience you’re listening and willing to work to resolve issues, and you might just convert a disappointed customer into a loyal fan.

Remember, engagement is a two-way street. Actively participate in conversations, respond promptly and professionally, and show genuine interest in your audience’s thoughts and opinions. By investing in this direct dialogue, you’ll build stronger relationships, gain valuable insights, and ultimately, cultivate a thriving online community that fuels your business success.

  1. Be Consistent with Your Posting Schedule

Imagine strutting onto a bustling market square, setting up your wares with vibrant banners and captivating music. But then, you disappear for days, leaving your stall bare and dusty. Would customers flock back when you finally return? Probably not.

The same principle applies to the ever-shifting marketplace of social media. While your content might be the most dazzling treasure trove, inconsistent posting leaves potential customers bewildered and disengaged. Here’s why consistency is the key to unlocking your social media kingdom:

Building Brand Recognition: Think of each post as a brick in the foundation of your brand’s online presence. A steady stream of content strengthens that foundation, ensuring your brand remains a familiar and welcome sight in your audience’s feed. Inconsistent posting, however, is like taking out those bricks at random, leaving your brand’s image wobbly and unreliable.

Staying Top-of-Mind: Social media algorithms favor active accounts. Consistent posting keeps your brand in the algorithm’s good graces, increasing the chances of your content appearing in your audience’s feeds. Conversely, sporadic posting pushes you further down the algorithm’s ladder, making it harder for potential customers to find you.

Nurturing Engagement: Building relationships with your audience takes time and effort. Consistent posting provides opportunities for regular interaction, fostering trust and loyalty. When you go silent for days, however, you break that fragile thread of connection, leaving your audience feeling abandoned and less likely to engage with you in the future.

Capitalizing on Trends: The social media landscape is a fast-paced river, with trends swirling and surging like rapids. Consistent posting allows you to ride these waves, keeping your brand relevant and capitalizing on trending topics and hashtags. Inconsistent posting, on the other hand, leaves you stranded on the riverbank, watching the exciting currents pass you by.

The Numbers Don’t Lie: Studies have shown that brands that post consistently see a significant increase in engagement, website traffic, and ultimately, sales. A Sprout Social study revealed that brands that post at least once a day experience a 49% higher follower growth rate than those that post less frequently.

Remember, in the bustling marketplace of social media, attention is a fleeting butterfly. Consistent posting ensures your brand catches its eye, while inconsistency risks leaving it flitting to the next shiny post. So, go forth, social media entrepreneurs! Cultivate the habit of consistent content creation, and watch your brand blossom into a thriving hub of engagement and sales.

  1. Share user-generated content

Forget polished marketing campaigns – the real showstoppers in the social media marketplace are your customers. User-generated content (UGC) is raw, authentic, and resonates like word-of-mouth on steroids. When real people share their experiences with your brand, it builds trust and credibility that your ads can only dream of.

Think of UGC as a window into your audience’s world. You understand them, but they know themselves best. Sharing their content shows you’re not just listening, you’re actively engaging with their lives. The result? Deeper connections, stronger communities, and a brand that thrives on shared experiences.

But UGC isn’t just about heartwarming stories. It’s a goldmine of inspiration. Seeing how customers use your products sparks fresh campaign ideas, refines your messaging, and keeps you in tune with what they truly desire. Plus, social media algorithms love UGC. Every share is a ripple, carrying your brand beyond your current follower base and into exciting new waters.

So, embrace the buzz, amplify the voices of your community, and watch your brand transform from a performer to a conductor, orchestrating a captivating symphony of shared experiences and social media success. Remember, in the digital marketplace, authenticity is the currency that buys loyalty. And UGC? Well, that’s pure brand gold.

Remember:

In the ever-evolving digital marketplace, social media is your vibrant storefront, your captivating performance space, and your bustling community hub. By mastering the art of consistent posting, amplifying user-generated content, and tailoring your message to specific platforms, you unlock the true potential of your online presence. It’s not just about broadcasting – it’s about engaging, connecting, and fostering a thriving community around your brand. 

MevNet Studios is your strategic partner in this digital journey, ready to equip you with the tools and expertise to build a social media empire that resonates, converts, and inspires. 

Reach out today and let us help you orchestrate a symphony of success in the vibrant digital landscape.

social media marketing_MevNet Studios

How to Build a Social Media Marketing Strategy: A Step-by-Step Guide

by with 3 Comments Social Media Marketing

Have you been active on social media and still aren’t generating enough leads for your business? Well, you thought right – social media marketing (SMM) is much more complicated than most people think. But, it doesn’t have to be. 

Social media marketing is crucial in today’s business world and can be a great way to drive business growth; if done properly. Yep; it requires a lot of time and effort. But, most importantly, it requires an informed strategy that is ideal for your business. 

A good social media marketing strategy is the bread and butter for attracting new followers, driving traffic and generating leads and revenue for your business. With the explosion of content and competition across the numerous social media platforms we have today, having a strategy for SMM will ensure you stand out and avoid efforts that do not serve your business goals. 

A social media marketing strategy is a structured plan to engage, target, and convert your audience effectively on social platforms. The specifics of a social media strategy will look different for every business. However, in this post, we’ll walk you through the essentials for building an SMM strategy that works for any business. 

Step 1: Set goals that align with your business objectives

It all begins with setting the goals you want to achieve with your marketing tactics. These goals must align with your business goals and objectives. These of course will change over time. For instance, a small local business looking to build a digital presence, its goal can be to increase local brand awareness and community engagement. Whereas for a larger enterprise looking to scale, its goal may be to build a national audience. Other social media goals include generating leads and sales, providing customer care or driving traffic to your site or onsite stores.

For whatever your goals are, they have to be S.M.A.R.T: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. SMART goals provide metrics that allow you to track your success. The ‘SMARTer’ your goals are, the more likely you will achieve them.

Step 2: Define and Understand Your Target Audience

There are 4.8 billion social media users globally. Your business is relevant to only a portion of this massive audience and you need to determine who they are and what they want. You need to know where to find them and how best to engage with them.

Your audience is real people with real needs. Although it’s impossible to factor in the uniqueness of every individual, defining your audience involves creating buyer personas or customer personas. A buyer persona is a detailed description of someone who represents your target audience. Defining buyer personas enables you to execute a social media marketing plan that targets them specifically. For instance, the target audience for a weight loss brand may differ from that of a beauty and high fashion brand. There may be some overlap, but there will be more differences than similarities. 

A buyer persona consists of a number of factors such as demographics (age, gender, marital status, location, children, income, and education); job title or industry; values and fears;  goals and challenges etc. 

Some of these factors, especially demographics, account for the particular social media platforms in which you can reach them. If your audience is a younger generation, you are less likely to find them on Facebook and more likely to find them on Snapchat, Instagram or TikTok. The type of content that drives higher ROI differs between these platforms. 

Step 3: Know what your competition is doing

Your audience is not the only people you need to study. You must investigate what your competition is doing and not doing on social media. Since you have the same audience, understanding how they have engaged with your competitors provides valuable insights into what you should include in your social media marketing plan. 

A competitor analysis will provide insight as to who your competition is, how your audience has engaged with them, as well as their areas of weakness. By identifying these, you will know where to optimise your content. For instance, if certain types of content have shown higher engagement rates, then you know what to focus on. Again, if your competition is more active on Instagram and less active on TikTok, provided there are potential customers on TikTok, you can capitalise on this information by ensuring you have a stronger online presence on TikTok. 

Step 4: Create Engaging and Strategic Content

All your research and fact-finding will mean nothing if you do not post great content. We have already provided some tips on figuring out what great content should be. Identifying what your competition is posting about doesn’t mean you have to replicate the exact post. Customers love authenticity! However, if your competitor has been successfully using short Instagram to advertise certain services, then short reels may be to go as well. Find the balance.

As to the actual content, you must be intentional about what you are trying to say to your audience. This is where a content strategy comes in. A content strategy is like a roadmap – it outlines what to post, when, and why, to engage and connect with your audience effectively.  A common mistake businesses on social media make is to focus more on promotional content. We want to sell and only sell. But we forget that social media is meant to be social. 

There should be a balance between content that engages, informs and promotes your products and services. Marketing experts recommend the 80:20 Rule. That is, 80% of your content should educate, inform and entertain your audience while 20% can be to promote your products and services. Some break down the 80% into 50% for engagement or entertainment and 30% for keeping them informed. This may however be varied or broken down further. It comes down to understanding the needs of your business at a given time while balancing the interests of your audience. 

Step 5: Create a social media marketing calendar

Managing social media platforms can be really demanding and a huge part of succeeding at it involves being organised. Your audience craves a steady diet of engaging content. A content calendar ensures you serve them regular, delectable bites, keeping them coming back for more. Items to consider include the creation of content, reviews, posting schedule, response to customer engagement and so much more. A content calendar helps you manage it all.

By posting when your audience is hungry for your message, that is, at peak engagement hours, you will be able to maximize your reach and impact. Like most content creators and social media managers, inspiration is not in constant flow. Having a content calendar that details all you intend to post within a period, you have a varied menu of flavoursome content that your audience can consume. 

Step 6: Track performance and adjust where necessary

The world of social media is very volatile and there’s no telling what will happen. Monitoring and evaluating your social media campaigns is necessary. By evaluating your engagement insights, which shows the reach of your content, you will see what worked and what didn’t. Various social media platforms have different metrics that track how users engage with posts. By analysing the data provided on engagement with your posts, you can make necessary adjustments where necessary.

Sometimes, certain posts do not do as well as expected not because your audience preferences have changed or because you didn’t understand them well enough. Rather, it may be due to changes in the algorithm of these platforms. The algorithm used determines what pops up on the feeds of your audience. Typically, you cannot look up exactly what the algorithm changes are, so it means you need to analyze each and every post and see if a pattern develops that indicates a change has been made.

Take Action

Investing in social media marketing can be the next best decision you will take for your business. As your business grows, your social marketing strategy will evolve and become more complex. Although it seems like a lot to deal with, it’s a worthwhile puzzle to unravel. But it doesn’t have to be an issue. With MevNet Studio’s social media marketing services, you can be sure of a social media marketing strategy that is tailored specifically to your business and drives consistent revenue and growth.

Ready to take your business to the next level with social media? Contact MevNet Studios today and let’s get you going.