How to Grow Your Social Media
Did you know...
“Social media" is just that: a form of media that is based on social interaction. Hiring a social media company won’t work to boost your company’s leads and sales if you’re not engaging with your audience!
How $99 Social Can Help You Boost Sales
If you’re ready to improve your leads and sales using social media, you’re in luck! Social media is one of the easiest and most effective ways to grow your customer base in this day and age.
The only drawback? It takes a lot of time. And, as a successful business owner, you don’t have much of that to spare.
Here’s where we can step in to help.
The first step to your triumphant social media takeover is to hire a management company that, like us, can help take most of the tasks off your plate, such as:
But these services alone will not boost your sales! Remember, social media is a social platform. Engaging with your audience is the only way to help your social media pages grow and thrive.
Why You Should Be the One to Interact with Your Followers (Not Us)
Think about this... who knows your business best? Who is in-tune with your mission statement, and who has your written voice? It’s you, right? Because of this, you are the absolute best person to interact with your social media followers because they will know, without a doubt, that they are interacting with the person who knows this business inside and out.
Your Checklist
Just like in customer service, it’s easy to tell on social media when someone isn’t 100% intertwined with all aspects of a business. And because we aren’t an employee at your company, we aren’t able to get a good picture of the full ins-and-outs of your daily business workings. This makes us a poor candidate for responding to DMs and comments on your social media pages, and we don’t want that for you!
Your Part in Boosting Your Social Growth, Leads, & Sales
You’ve heard of “social media engagement”, but what does that mean? Let’s break it down. At the very minimum, you should:
1. Respond to all direct messages (DMs) on each of your social media pages as quickly as possible, ideally within 1-2 hours. This is so important! Many people consider social media a customer service channel, so overlooking your DMs is a huge no-no.
2. “Like” or reply to all comments on your social media posts so that others can see you are interacting. This helps you look like a legitimate business that cares about your customers.
3. Reply to all reviews on your social media pages, whether negative or positive. This is an easy and effective way to show that you care about your customers’ satisfaction.
That’s it! Depending on how much engagement you have on your pages, this could take just an hour a week or a handful. But remember that an increase in engagement means an increase in leads and sales.
Other Ways to Improve Your Reach
SPREAD THE WORD AND ENCOURAGE OTHERS TO DO THE SAME
Telling others about your social media efforts can make growing, especially in the early months, so much easier. While these things aren't required, doing even just a few of the things listed below can help you optimize your pages' growth and engagement.
FOLLOW POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS AND “LIKE” THEIR CONTENT
Don’t sit back and wait for customers to come to you! A big part of sales is reaching out to “cold leads”, meaning people that aren’t already familiar with your business. Social media makes this incredibly easy to do, and if you aren’t already taking advantage you are really missing out.
Use hashtags that relate to your business to search for potential customers. Something like #toddlermom if you’re selling kid’s clothes or #iloverock if you’re a rock band can help you find people that might like your brand. You can use Google to find popular hashtags on each network.
Check out some of the person’s posts and see if you think they would be a good fit. Yes? Follow them! And don’t forget to “like” or comment on a few of their posts so they know you’re not a robot.
HOLD A SOCIAL MEDIA CONTEST
Although this sounds daunting if you’ve never done it, contests are actually easy!
1. Pick any social page you’d like to grow. It can be one with a larger following to guarantee lots of entries, one with a smaller following to help your page grow, or one that makes contests super easy, like Instagram or Facebook.
2. Choose a prize. Great prizes can be a free product or service from your company, a popular unrelated prize like an iPad mini, a collaborative gift from you and other small businesses, or whatever you want to offer. Just make sure it’s exciting so people will want to enter your contest.
3. Choose a timeframe. Popular choices are between a few days and one week. Too short and you won’t get many entries, but too long and people will forget about it.
4. Create a handful of promotional posts. This is something we can help with! Give us the details of your contest and we can put together some posts to get people interested. The only thing we can’t do is create the imagery, but that’s easy for you to do with some quick snaps of your products or a solid photo of your service. Google and Pinterest can be helpful for inspiration.
5. Choose a winner. Do this in whatever way works for you; there’s really no “right” way. Make sure you announce the winner on your social media page and reach out to them promptly about their prize!
The Bottom Line
Social media is about so much more than posting regularly or promoting your brand. Engagement is a huge and necessary part of success in the social realm. Make sure you’re ready to take on the task and you’ll grow both your following and your sales. Happy socializing!
Heather Hart
OPERATIONS MANAGER AT $99 SOCIAL
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