Growing your social media profile shouldn't just be about seeing an increase in the number of your followers — it certainly shouldn't be the scope of your social media strategy.
If you're investing time, effort and money into your social media presence – regardless of the platforms you use – you should try to take full advantage of it.
The crucial question you should ask is:
How are you going to turn giving your followers into customers?
Read the 9 tips below to help you turn on your social followers now:
Review your social profiles
What are you already posting? Reviewing your social media profiles will help you consider the type of content you share, how customers engage with it and whether it actually drives traffic to turn. Ask the questions: do your posts reflect your brand, do consumers truly understand your products and services, and where do you drive potential customers – if you do at all.
Find the balance between advertorial and dengar content
The answer is not to drown your social media accounts with advertorial content. While you will pass on your message, this is more likely to make potential buyers lose interest and cause you to also lose your followers. Your main focus should be on engaging content, such as blogs, articles, posts, photos and videos that will be of interest to your audience. You can then consider sharing news, information about products and services and relevant sales or discounts.
Make the customer journey an easy one
Simplify the process of taking customers from the social platform to your website. This could be as simple as ensuring you have clear links to your website, direct links or relevant information in the posts you share, as well as ensuring your website is phone-friendly and loads quickly.
Calls to action
While it's important to maintain a good balance between sales-led and value-based content, it's important to include clear calls to action on your posts. Whether you're driving potential customers to your 'homepage', to a specific landing page or a blog, it's important that your calls to action inspire action. Read our blog on how to take full advantage of your call to action.
Sharing customer reviews and user-generated content
Social media is an excellent platform for two-way conversations with your customers. Emphasize the value you already offer current customers by sharing customer photos, reviews, feedback, blogs and any other user-generated content (WPL). Help potential customers understand more about your products and services with real feedback.
Interacting with your customers
Potential customers may measure how you interact with current customers, to find out if you're a brand they're looking to invest in. Your social profiles should show, in a positive way, how you value customers, respond to their queries and take time to listen and respond.
Expert offers e.g. on Instagram stories
Give something back to social followers – not only can this help your customers feel valued for using your business, but you can help drive more social followers and encourage new customers. Consider sharing expert codes for Twitter or hidden discounts in your Instagram story, as you'll also be able to track purchases driven by these specific discounts.
Create custom landing pages
Track the traffic driven from your social media with a dedicated landing page. You'll be able to measure how many people are making the journey from the social media platform to your website – and how effectively you're driving traffic through the buying process.
Analyses
The glory of digital marketing is the flexibility to make changes and improvements when necessary. Take full advantage of analytical tools to understand how your followers engage with your posts. By understanding what succeeds and what fails, you can begin to tailor your efforts to see a better turnaround process.