7 Amazing Ideas For Smart Social Selling

Over the years, social media has transformed from something that was trendy for the younger generation to a medium that is used across every age group and demographic. From small business owners to startups to large corporations, social media marketing has become one more way to drive sales and impact bottom-line results.

But many companies are still unsure about the best way to use social media platforms to get people interested in their brand and ultimately buy their products.

Here are 7 Ideas for Smart Social Selling

1. Be Where Your Target Audience Is

Before you make another move with social media, it’s important to ensure that your company is using the same platforms that its desired audience uses. If you are a B2B company, you probably won’t find a majority of your customers on Snapchat.

Instead, platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are going to be better suited to your needs. According to Sprout Social, all of the social media platforms (including LinkedIn) are currently dominated by the 18-29 age group.

Another way to see where your audience is active is to take a look at what your competitors are doing on social media. Which sites do they post on the most and are they having success? Once you know where your target audience resides, half of your work is already done.

2. Embed Social Media Feeds On Your Website

Your brand’s official website is where most of your aspiring customers come searching for you or the services/products that you provide. So, their first experience on your website must be long-lasting and impactful enough to make the conversion from being a visitor to being a user.

Embedding social media feed on a website is a great trick to do that. It not only provides social proof for your brand’s credibility but also improves the overall user interface of your website. This social media feed works as shoppable content for your website. It also helps to improve the overall performance of your website. The embedded social media wall is not only attractive but also engage users on your website for a longer period of time, thereby retaining their full attention on your website and its content.

More the engagement, better is the awareness about your brand among your users. All of these finally help you to drive more sales to your online business.

3. Make Your Social Feeds Shoppable

Retail sales driven by social media are growing faster than any other online channel, so it makes sense to give followers the opportunity to “buy” directly on your social media profiles and posts. This reduces what would normally be a multi-step process into just one click.

One way to accomplish this is with Shoppable Images tool which allows you to embed shoppable posts on any page of the popular site builders such as Wix, Weebly, Shopify, etc. You can include a call to action button to increase conversion rates, and the plugin has different themes so that you can customize it to fit your brand.

4. Share User-Generated Content

One of the best ways to drive traffic and increase sales is to use social media to tell your brand’s story and have engaging conversations with other users. This is just as difficult as it sounds. Sharing user generated content can be one way to engage your customers and using the best social media aggregator tool like Taggbox is the best possible way to do so!

You can also encourage customers to post photos or videos. Burts Bees, with over 400k followers on Instagram, encourages user-generated content and provides followers with directions to get featured.

In addition to those posts that “tag” your company, there are other ways you can use content generated by customers to boost conversions. According to Bizrate Insights, nearly a quarter of people in a study always look at reviews before buying, and 40.8% often do this.

Allowing reviews on your website or social media profiles puts this content directly out to your followers. Another option is to curate reviews from major sites such as Yelp and Trip Advisor and re-post excerpts or links on social media.

5. Work with Social Media Influencers

Influencer marketing has taken off over the past several years. In short, these are successful or famous people who will promote your brand. They often do this simply by posting images and videos of themselves using the product with a hashtag, link, or shoutout to your company.

In the days leading up to Super Bowl LII, American actor Chris Pratt posted on Instagram to his 25.9 million followers tagging @MichelobULTRA. This Instagram post was a teaser to his upcoming Super Bowl commercial. The post alone received over 1.1 million likes.

It goes without saying that influencer marketing can be profitable when approached correctly. Annalect and Twitter discovered that 40% of Twitter users are compelled to buy after an influencer’s tweet. One study found that the ROI from this type of marketing can be as high as 600%!

6. Turn Customers Into Brand Advocates

One of the best ways to influence sales on social media is to get your current customers to do the work for you. Your regular customers can be your strongest advocates.

Social media influencers are well and good, but there is a portion of your audience that is going to view that type of marketing with suspicion. Are they being paid? Sometimes they are! Customers are curious about the opinions of the fellow users of a particular product they intend to buy. This shows the weight of customer feedback in generating user trust.

Assuming you own or sell Osprey backpacks. A search for #ospreypacks on Twitter brings up this post from a user that is getting reading to take an epic trip using one of these backpacks. She also has nearly 2.5k followers who are highly engaged.

This is something that your company may want to share, while also wishing this customer a safe and fun trip.

7. Use Social Media Advertising

A common complaint from local business owners is that the social media views and traffic isn’t targeted. In other words, your restaurant in downtown Nashville isn’t going to benefit much from its 5,000 followers in Australia or Europe.

Fortunately, social media allows you to target paid ads geographically. You can not only geotarget your ads but also choose other filters, such as interests and demographics, to reach your target market.

Over To You…

While your company still has other marketing initiatives, social media has the potential to boost your profits when approached correctly. The best news is that your customers are already on these platforms, and your business needs only to use these methods to make the connections that will drive more sales.