When you look at how much time people spend online and on social media, you will understand how much potential it holds for your business. According to a 2021 report, the Philippines spends an average of 10 hours and 56 minutes on the internet daily via any device. We also spend the most time on social media, averaging four hours and 15 minutes一almost double the worldwide average.
How are you using this to your advantage? Although social media has long been used for promoting brands and expanding customer reach, it is also emerging as an independent online sales platform. Leading sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok, for instance, are frequently updating and introducing their latest features to create a more business-friendly vibe.
You need a solid plan to integrate social media into your sales strategy. Start with these steps:
You need to go where your customers are to determine which social media platforms can give you more product visibility. Monitor these to learn where they discover and engage with your brand the most. Then select the top sites where you can sell your products or services and increase your online presence there.
You can also survey your target audience on different social media platforms and find out where most online shoppers would highly make purchases. Once you have decided where to sell, maximize the social media platform’s features to improve your online storefront.
A shopper experience index in 2021 revealed that nearly a third of consumers rely on social media to learn about new products. This is why it’s important to provide relevant information that will help potential customers understand your products without having to go to a separate page to find what they are looking for. Indicate and update prices. Add short and snappy product descriptions about its features and uses.
Make sure to curate your photos and make them visually appealing as well, to entice others to purchase your products even more. Give them ideas by sharing practical tips on how to use your product. This type of shareable content will likely make its way to their friends’ inboxes, too.
Build the credibility of your brand by adding a star rating widget, and allow users to provide their feedback for social proof.
According to Hootsuite, 59% of customers expect to message businesses to make purchases.Take time responding to all customer queries as soon as you can. Likewise, humanize your replies with a pleasant tone to show your brand’s personality. This way, you can foster genuine connections with prospects.
Rather than giving a simple answer to a question, take the opportunity to recommend specific products, share a direct link to purchase, and offer a promo code as a way of securing the sale assertively.
The rise of social media as a direct selling tool is ushering in the development of multi-channel commerce platforms. Integration with the latter makes it possible for businesses to create a central hub for its various sales channels to streamline business processes, eliminating the need to transfer from different portals every now and then.
ChatGenie is a perfect example of a multi-channel E-Commerce platform. It is an all-in-one solution that provides businesses the opportunity to create their online store through social media. ChatGenie’s numerous functions help businesses sell products, automate orders, process payments, and track deliveries to provide customers a hassle-free buying experience with just a few clicks.
Social media analytics tools offered by Hootsuite, BuzzSumo, and Google are crucial in determining the best platforms that followers use to engage with your brand. These confirm the effectiveness of your strategy in selling products directly from social media by calculating the number of likes, shares, and comments about your content.
If necessary, analytics results could also suggest the need to adjust your sales approach and make your content more compelling to prospects. Take note that social media analytics can gauge customer behavior to understand the customer journey aside from measuring sales.
As more business owners realize how vital social media is to increasing sales, Globe Business sees the need to help MSMEs build their capabilities in social commerce. ChatGenie is among many digital solutions that help simplify the sales journey for both customer and seller, and give businesses the ability to make data-driven decisions. To help you set up your shop, Globe Business offers different payment options plus free onboarding sessions from our training experts.
Learn more about ChatGenie by talking to a Globe Business agent today.
Since consumers nowadays spend hours online, it’s easier for business owners like you to figure out if your social media strategy is working or not. Are customers engaging with your posts? Are they clicking on links and leaving comments? And the most important question of all — are you flooding them with too many posts? If you are personally experiencing social media fatigue, chances are, your business can suffer from it as well.
Techopedia defines social media fatigue as a user’s “tendency to pull back from social media when they become too overwhelmed with too many social media sites, too many friends and followers, and too much time spent online maintaining these connections.” For businesses with online platforms, this can also refer to oversaturating your audience with too many posts, resulting in low engagement.
Revisiting your social media strategy can help you work around social media fatigue. If the numbers show poor performance, here are some solutions you can work on:
While most brands have official Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube channels, you don’t have to be active in all of them. You can house your videos on YouTube and constantly update one or two channels where your customers are. Don’t spread yourself too thin, especially if you’re posting the same thing anyway. According to Econsultancy.com, Facebook and Twitter are the “can’t miss social channels” as these are two of the most-used platforms by customers.
Business accounts on Facebook and Twitter give you access to insights that help you get to know your audience better. These numbers give you a peek on what type of content they engage with, the demographics of your fan base, and the time they consume your content.
The most common and probably the most important of these metrics are:
Knowing these metrics is important so you’ll know if you’re talking to the intended market and clue you in if you need to adjust your social media strategy.
While posting every hour may not work for every brand, a better approach would be to contextualize and optimize your post scheduling so you have a better chance of getting your message across. Avoid saturating your audience with random content and develop a posting strategy which involves figuring out the frequency of posts, the best times to publish, and the consistency and tone of your content.
A single post or two that has content relatable to your audience or depending on your current campaign can go a long way. Brands pushing snacks and healthy meals can post in the afternoon, at a time when their audience are about to have merienda. Promoting coffee or breakfast oats? Try posting it early in the day.
Timing is also crucial. Based on your data, figure out what the peak hours are so you can schedule your content accordingly. As much as possible, don’t post during downtimes. Remember, social media fatigue syndrome works both ways — it can affect your audience negatively and cause them to disengage from you.
What kind of content do your customers engage with? Do they love watching videos or will animated images suffice? Are they okay with text or prefer infographics? Go back to your data and see how each post performed. Based on their performance, it’s best to devote your time to content that works to avoid fatigue from social media.
If you would like to experiment with new content types, go slowly and see the reception first. Set an experimentation timeline and determine if a new content type is worth pursuing or not.
Don’t just post on social media; talk to your customers by responding to comments and messages as well. Replying to consumers is an important part of your social media strategy as doing so keeps them engaged and feeling valued. Thank them for any feedback and welcome their ideas on how you can improve your business.
Plus, you can use customer feedback as content — think of it as a shout-out of sorts and they’ll be thrilled to share your post on their own timelines and feeds, for free!
Just like how you would take a social media break every now and then, don’t be afraid to practice the same habit when running the social media platforms of your business. Just because other brands are doing it doesn’t mean you need to follow suit. So if you feel that in the social media fatigue scale your business rates a 6 or more, take a step back and use that time away to see how you can improve your strategy and present fresh content to your audience.
Just because you’ve decided to pull back from social media doesn’t mean you have to go off the grid 100%. As mentioned, you can use the break to create better, more targeted content. You can also experiment with other sites and digital mediums, such as channeling your marketing and promotional efforts on email and SMS blasts, updating your official website and/or blog, and testing out new and not-as-frequented social media sites like Pinterest, Snapchat, or TikTok.
Social media advertising doesn’t have to be complicated. Find out how MSMEs can create their very own Facebook ads through Globe myBusiness and sign up here.
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