Social media is just a place where companies post about their latest products and company events, right? Wrong. Thanks to its billions of daily users, social media has become a key battleground for companies looking to acquire new customers. Follow these 10 tips to conquer the brave new frontier that is social media selling and learn how to strategically acquire new customers.
Why Bother with Social Media Selling?
Social media is a dream for sales reps and marketers. Just some of the benefits of selling on social media include:
Detailed targeting thanks to extensive user information.
Groups and hashtags means user demographics/ interests are already segmented.
Social interaction is much more personable than cold calling or emailing.
Ready to make that first sale using social media? Let’s dive in.
1. Choose the Right Social Channel to Maximize Efforts
Ok, so this tip won’t get you new customers directly. But you need to ask two key questions before in order to pick the right social channel for your business:
a) What social channel are your potential customers currently using?
Check your analytics data, social share data and CRM data and identify on which social channels your preferred potential customers are most active. These insights allow you to target similar users interested in your product.
b) What are the demographics of your customers and of each social channel?
Whereas social channels like Instagram or Snapchat have a much younger demographic, LinkedIn is the domain of higher income users with more work experience. Matching your customer demographics with social media demographics helps you to identify your target channel.
By researching and answering these two questions, you can maximize your chances to find the right social channel to acquire new customers.
2. Earn Referrals Through Great Customer Service on Social Media
While every brand strives for exceptional customer service, the advantage that social media offers is the referral. Great customer service is immediate and personalised – a recent report found that 80% of global business buyers expect companies to interact with them in real time.
Social media offers the perfect opportunity to both highlight your great customer support publicly and meet this need for immediate interaction. Happy customers share experiences and those experiences boost interest in your product or service.
3. Turn Social Media into a Lead Generation Machine
When it comes to lead collection, LinkedIn is the platform of choice for many businesses. LinkedIn Sales Navigator, a feature available to LinkedIn premium users, allows you to perform filtered searches, group your prospects and even pipe them straight into your preferred CRM platform. Once the leads are in your CRM you can choose an appropriate strategy to reach out to these new leads.
Twitter is also an excellent platform for sales prospecting. Tweet often and try to react to trending hashtags. Retweet tweets from key influencers to share with your followers. The more relevant and informative content you provide, the more followers and potential leads you will gain.
4. Nurture leads, Don’t Hard Sell
On social media the main goal should be to inform, educate and entertain. Apply the 80/20 principle: 80% of your posts should be educational and/ or entertaining and 20% should include a brand promotion or spotlight a product. Aim to be a credible source of industry information. This means sharing useful content, answering questions, and commenting and replying to interesting posts from other users.
5. Spotlight Company Figures & Thought Leaders
Personal posts from CEOs or CTOs often perform much better than a generic company account, because the audience is genuinely intrigued to learn what that thought leader has to say.
Also, this massively boosts engagement as users have the chance to interact with a leading figure in the industry and hear their opinion on key questions. The more user engagement, the more potential prospects to target.
6. Post User-Generated Content
User-generated content performs well, because it is highly relatable. Brands like Airbnb regular get customers to send in their best holiday pics which are then shared on the company social account. Encourage users to share how they use your product on social media – competitions and giveaways can incentivise users to send in their testimonials, pictures or videos using your products. This type of content attracts new users to target.
7. Use Retargeting Campaigns to Convert Cold Leads
Leads can go cold. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t be converted with a successful social retargeting campaign. Particularly on Facebook (and Instagram) it is pretty easy to target users who have taken a specific action on your social presence. Social analytics allow you to see who has liked your profile, attended a company event or liked a post. Target these users with a discount code, giveaway or special offer to encourage them to convert.
8. Connect with Brand Advocates and Influencers
Who are the key figures in your industry? Who do your clients admire and where do they go to to get their industry knowledge? Social media is a great way to connect and interact with these brand advocates. Reach out to key influencers on a regular basis. Getting brand endorsements can be a great way to acquire customers, as with their stamp of approval, your brand becomes credible.
9. Paid Social Campaigns Widen Reach
All social platforms offer a paid option to boost content reach, shares, comments and likes.
To find out which content to promote, look at your organic content that is performing the best. Next consider how to distribute this content appropriately on each network.
Above all, don’t be boring. If you are promoting an article on your blog , consider for example summarising the key insights into an attractive infographic – infographics tend to perform well across all social channels, as they are both visually appealing, informative and easily “shareable”.
10. Use Social Media Tools to Make Your Social Life Easier
If you’re serious about social media, you need tools to measure, analyse, report and post. Social media tools can bring all of these efforts together, allowing business users to view social acquisitions from all channels in one workspace. In addition, content can be scheduled and monitored from one place, making it much more efficient to make the most of your social media effort.
Master Social Selling to Boost Customer Acquisition
Use these tips to master customer acquisition on social media and take your social media game to the next level. Become a useful member of the social community where your target audience interacts and reap the benefits.
Get must-know tips for social marketers in our 50 Social Media Best Practices e-book.
This post is part of our Navigating the Sales Cycle series. Download the e-book and discover the 7 steps to sales success.
