With the advent of social media, the method of sales has changed. People are no longer swayed by hard sales tactics but prefer a softer approach. How can you use social media to increase your sales? And what is social selling?
Social selling is the precursor to closing a deal online. It is answering questions, offering valuable content, retweeting a potential customer or sharing their blog posts until the potential client is ready to buy. It is seen as nurturing a relationship between potential customers and your brand. It is therefore important to ensure that your brand message is unified over all your social media platforms.
What are the benefits and challenges of social media?
For any salesperson, social media has some great benefits. No longer do you need to befriend the CEO’s receptionist to get their details. You can just go on to LinkedIn and search for your target customer’s decision makers and make direct contact with them. Furthermore, you can look at your prospect’s twitter account and Facebook account to see what their pain points are and how your product can solve their problems.
A challenge of social media is that customers have a lot more power over a brand. They can rate and comment on a brand online whether they are happy or disgruntled and therefore it is important to manage your brand on all the social media platforms that you are present on.
How to use social media networks for selling
Visuals are important
Social media is run by images and videos. If you want someone to click on your post or view your content you need to ensure that you have great visuals. They will be attracted by the visuals and if they find the content useful they will be willing to share it with their fellow friends and family.
Videos for promoting your products
It is important to use videos to show how your product can be used by your target customer to cure their pain point.
Instagram for visual sales
Many people use Instagram successfully to make sales. They post well-choreographed images of their goods and people are keen to purchase them. Photographers and artists benefit the most from using Instagram for selling their products.
Be the all-in-one deal
Don’t only use social media to sell your product but use it to show your expertise in your chosen field. When you build trust and relationship with your customers they will be more keen to buy from you then someone else. If you are a print shop you could put content out on how to design the perfect business card or how to choose the ideal paper for their print project.
It is time to embrace social media and use it to increase your revenue. By building relationships and trust with your customers, they will share your posts with their like-minded friends and your market share will grow as well as your profits. Get social today.
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