Globally, 2.6 billion people access Facebook every month. Twitter boasts 166 million monetizable daily active users (mDAU). Around 690 million users in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide have LinkedIn profiles. And we’d be remiss not to mention Instagram, with more than one billion monthly active users.
According to Statista, 80% of internet users in the U.S. have made at least one purchase online. Facebook has shared advertising success stories with organizations like Orlando Magic reporting 52 times their ROI on ad spend. Meanwhile, hotel chain Bahia Principe increased qualified site traffic 44-fold with retargeting ads on Twitter. LinkedIn also released its platform’s success stories, including Utah State University’s campaign driving a 20-to-1 ROI with a 71% conversion rate for information requests.
We’ve reached a point where social media marketing can’t be overlooked. If you’re already utilizing social media as a marketing tool, there’s always room for improvement. Social media platforms are constantly updating and changing, and that requires ads to evolve with the platforms to perform to the highest standards. How do you harness the power of social media to generate your own advertising success story?
- Establish a social media presence. Creating a social media account with a properly branded profile image, cover photo and description (don’t forget a website link!) is only the beginning. The easiest way to drive traffic to your social media pages and build your online following is to post relevant and meaningful content. And, most importantly, don’t assume a sales-driven tone in your social media copy is the right strategy — the voice on social media is often more informal than it is in deliverables like white papers, case studies and spec sheets.
- Determine which channels perform best. Use analytics to determine which social media channels offer the highest engagement and audience growth. This isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach; each industry, company and group performs differently on each social media platform. Invest your energy on the two or three highest-performing channels, but continue to maintain a presence on all social media platforms.
- Build a sales funnel. Use your highest-performing channels to build a sales funnel for generating leads. If you’re a service or product-based business, offer a free case study or webinar in exchange for a few pieces of contact information. Instead of asking a plethora of questions, keep it short and simple by requesting a name, company and email address. People will feel more inclined to enter their information if it takes 30 seconds rather than five minutes.
- Boost your sales funnel with ads. A lead-generating social media post will often reach your existing social media audience, but you can further increase the success of your sales funnel by promoting your post with ads. Similar to how the Orlando Magic, Bahia Principe and Utah State University harnessed the power of social media advertising, you can target specific organizations, age groups, genders, locations and other tactful categories to reach the ideal audience for your company.
A successful social media campaign will generate engagement — such as likes, follows, shares, comments, retweets and, most importantly, click-throughs to your sales funnel. Continue to mine your relationship with your newly generated leads by sending meaningful and informative content, rather than solely pushing sales. And continue to engage on social media with your growing audience by responding to their posts and messages. Your efforts should be designed to build new and better relationships with current customers and prospects.
If you’re looking for additional help in developing a social media sales strategy, rAVe [CREATE] has proven success in social media marketing for the AV industry.
