There are 2 things I love about it:

Anybody can do it. 

There is no one way to do it which means anyone can do it their way.

Not to mention that its either free or at least can be affordable for any budget.

That is the beauty of social media marketing! 

Earlier this week in this post I spoke about what I love about selling direct to customer on your website.

Since social media can play a big part in the success of this selling model below are 5 powerful tips to help you leverage your social media impact and improve your branding and sales conversion.

1. Have clear goals - Knowing what you are trying to achieve will get you there quicker with the lease amount of time and cost. When it comes to social media (and marketing is general) you should always have clear goals as to what you are looking to achieve. The goals can be whatever you want them to, they can be about getting more sales, building your mailing list, building brand awareness and brand message or just getting more traffic to your site. Whatever your goals are, once you are clear on them create a marketing plan that supports that and put it to action. Knowing your goals will help you decide what language/content to use as well as what platform to use.  

2. Track results - This part is what most brands lack in (if they do it at all). How would you know what works if you're not tracking the results? All social media companies that I spoke with start with testing few directions and platforms to see what works for that brand and then focus on that. There are many tools (most are free or quite affordable) that you can use to track and analyze that. This will save you Time - by spending time only on what works, Frustration - by not getting discouraged for putting lots of time and effort and not getting results and Money - if case you decide to spend on ads.

3. Know who you are talking to - The better you know your target audience the better you'll know how to communicate with them and get them to be engage. As I mentioned many times before, knowing your target customer well, and by knowing I mean their demographic and psycho-graphic, is key for the success of your business, because every part of your business concept and decisions will be based on that especially when you are talking to them directly on social media.

4. Encourage engagement  - Engagement is the number one key for social media impact! The number of followers has a value but if their engagement is low than the impact is useless. When your audience is engaged that means they are reacting to your brand. That engagement will lead you to better understand what they need/want from your brand which will then help you target your product and message to that. As for what is a good engagement rate here are some numbers just to give you an idea. Generally speaking engagement of 1% is considered good. This is especially true for platforms like Facebook and twitter, however for Instagram due to the nature of the platform, the engagement rate is higher and the average is 3-6%. The highest rate is usually in email campaigns where the average open rate is 15-20% which makes that platform the most effective. In case you wonder, here is some info on how to measure engagement rate.

5. Consistency- I'm sure you heard that a lot before, its about being consistent in your engagement and content rather than the volume. When planning your marketing make sure that you are producing content on a consistent basis, whether its once a week or once a day it doesn't matter as long as you stick to it. As you'll see results you'll organically add to it. More so, the consistency of your message across platform is very important for your branding. Make sure you are using the same key words and the same visual look. Create your own templates so it can be easier for you to create content while at the same way the outcome is consistent (you can change this every season to match your story for the season). Also, make sure to have your logo featured across platforms as your profile photo and the same image for your cover photo. And lastly your about info on your website and across platforms should also be the same. Doing that will enhance the message of your brand brand.

As i said above, its not about quantity, therefore you don't have to be active on all the platforms (It is time consuming) and you also don't have to follow what works for others.

The most important thing is to find the platform that works for your business and your goals! 

Twitter and FB are usually best for customer service, Snapchat is good for behind-the-scenes looks while Pinterest and Instagram are normally geared for driving traffic for e-commerce, but test these out first and once you track the results you will know which one works best for your brand and stick to that!

Need help building your sales and marketing strategies? Get in touch and let us help you.