Can You Really Drive Sales Through Social Media?

Approximately 3.6 billion people are using social media around the world. This number is expected to rise to over 4.4 billion by 2025.

Social media users don’t just use these platforms to catch up with friends. They also use them to engage with brands. In fact, more users follow brands on social media than celebrities.

Social media is thus a great place to connect with your consumers and nurture leads. If you are struggling to make your social media strategy work, below is a guide on how you can drive sales through these platforms.

How to Drive Sales from Social Media

Evidently, your business can increase sales through social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. However, to be successful, you must implement an effective social media strategy.

1. Create High-Value Content without Sounding Pushy or Salesy

Instead of dispatching a series of “buy from me” posts daily, take your time to create smaller high-value social media content that touches on the pain points of your consumers. This is the best way to facilitate engagement and become a thought leader with your intended audiences.

Keep in mind that your social media users are very savvy and won’t engage with mediocre content.

Some of the best ways to produce high-quality content while still driving sales on social media include:

• Sharing images and videos of your customers using or engaging with your product/services.
• Posting tips for using your products/services.
• Creating images inspired by real-life situations involving your products/services.
• Having flash sales, discounts, and other promotions depending on the season.
• Ensure all your social media posts have strong call-to-actions that encourage users to buy from you.

2. Use the Shopping Features on Social Media

About 30% of consumers say they would use social media platforms like Instagram and Pinterest to make purchases.

Today, we have native social platform commerce — “in-app” ads that allow users to make purchases without leaving the platform. These are unlike traditional social media ads, which redirect consumers to your website.

For example, Pinterest has a “Buyable Pins” feature where users can buy products without leaving the app. Even better, Pinterest doesn’t charge any commissions for using this feature.

Another notable native social platform commerce feature is the “Instagram Shop.” This allows brands to turn their posts into shoppable posts from which customers can buy products in real time, shortening the buying cycle.

3. Accept Payments on Social Media

As stated above, your customers don’t want to leave your social media page to buy your products or services from another platform.

To solve this, you can start accepting payments via social media. For example, you can set up a Facebook Messenger chatbot payment option to streamline the checkout process. Since consumers already trust Facebook Messenger, they won’t have a problem using this payment option.

Accepting payments through social media also promotes conversational selling. You can ask relevant questions and collect vital information to improve your marketing strategies.

With the rise of mobile payments expected to continue at an annual growth rate of 26% between 2020 and 2025, it won’t be a surprise to see similar payment options crop up. Early adopters may have a competitive advantage.

4. Harness the Power of Social Media Influences

According to a recent survey, about 3 in 10 (34%) Instagram users buy goods and services endorsed by influencers. This means promoting your brand through influencers can significantly increase your sales. In fact, influencer marketing can improve ROI by up to 600%.

There are so many ways influencers can promote your brand, including:

• Telling a unique, engaging story about your brand.
• Giving honest reviews about your products.
• Strategically featuring your products in their videos or photos.
• Providing how-to content and tutorials for using your products.

However, one of the best ways to drive quick sales from social media through influencers is by having them promote unique discount codes for your products. This can also help you gauge whether you have the right influencer for the job because you can track their referrals.

5. Use Paid Ads

For businesses new to social media, posting often and engaging with customers may not be enough to drive significant sales.

While it’s not the cheapest strategy, paid ads can help you reach your target audience quickly and improve your chances of making a sale.

Today, nearly all social media platforms have paid advertising features that allow you to narrow down on your target audience.

Get More Sales from Social Media with Televerde

Nurturing multiple social media accounts is strenuous and time-consuming. To create a successful social media campaign, you need to know what social media platforms your target audiences use and focus on them.

Without a doubt, building effective strategies that enhance engagement, drive lead generation, and accelerate sales growth is no walk in the park. Defining market goals, getting authentic connections, creating high-quality visuals, and understanding your target market are all challenges you will have to overcome.

And that’s why you need a partner like Televerde. We are a sales and marketing company that helps brands all over the world generate demand among their audiences on a range of platforms, including social media.