How to Increase Online Sales with the Use of Social Media

With so many businesses going digital, it is important to to optimize the digital marketplace to help increase your online sales. We have some tips on how to optimize social media to help increase your online sales.

Social media is so impactful for businesses nowadays, so it is important to utilize these platforms when promoting your business online. Facebook is one of the most impactful social networks because it is the largest platform. This means you are going to have the most variety of customers and the most potential to reach those customers who are actually going to follow through and purchase.

Facebook as 2.2 Billion active users and 66% of those users check it daily. We know we check Facebook and other social media accounts multiple times a day for business and for personal use. Do you check social media at least once a day? Do you think your potential customers are checking social media at least once a day?

Well odds are... YES...

Facebook is such a vital tool for online sales because your customer target market is on the platform and most likely they are checking it at least once a day.

Facebook starts off as a free service. We suggest to sign up for a Facebook Business Page to get your business out there and post and promote your business directly though Facebook.

Facebook has a few options for you to market your business through the platform. First, you can use it solely for free and make posts to gain an organic reach. Organic reach simplified means that you are getting the customers to come like your page with no paid advertisements. The second way of using Facebook is through paid advertisements. There are so many different types of paid advertisements to promote your products or services through Facebook.

But don't forget about the other social media networks like Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Tic Toc, and Linkedin. Depending on what your target market is, you may want to get into a few other types of social media outlets.

Here are a few tips to help increase online sales with the use of social media. These tips are how you can benefit from the free posts on any social network, but can also be utilized for paid advertisements. These are some strategies to make those posts turn into sales.

TIP 1: POSTING SCHEDULE

With social media, you can post 24 hours a day, every day of the week which can seem very overwhelming to any business owner. Luckily we have some strategies about how many times a week you should post on a particular social net work but we have some tips on how to strategize how many posts a week is ideal for the particular social network. For example, we suggest to post one time a day for Facebook and 2-3 times a day on Instagram. (if you would like more information on posting suggestions, please comment or email us)

Additionally, make meaningful posts to both you and the customers. Yes, we want to promote our business all the time but for social media, it is not ideal to make every post a promotional post. If they are all promotional, this could actually push away our potential customers because they are thinking you might be all business and not really care to relate to our customers (which we know is not true). Our suggestion is to create a combination of promotional posts, as well as, posts that are related to your business and something that your customers are interested in.

For example, lets say your company sells cinnamon. A great way to create a post that is related to your business and is something that your customers are interested in would be to post a recipe that includes cinnamon. It could be a shared blog post of a recipe, or you could create your own recipe.

TIP 2: PHOTOS AND VIDEOS

Photos and videos are amazingly impactful in today's age. These are important in both the free posts and the paid advertisements. Make sure that your photos are absolutely great, professional looking photos.

So, what we are saying is don't stage a product on your kitchen table in a shadow and expect to get a ton of sales from that photo. You have to make sure that the photo is professional looking even if you take it at home with an iPhone. We suggest that you take the photo with a great background and setting, with awesome lighting, and in a manner that the product or service is clearly identifiable.

The photos are meant to grab your customer's attention and entice them to purchase that product. Which is why we suggest to have very professional looking photos for your business. If you feel that you cannot stage the photos on your own, it would be worth it to your business to hire a photographer to take your photos. (if you are interested in professional photos, please email us)

Videos are becoming increasingly popular on social media network because they really grab the attention of your customers. Videos help the customer relate to what they are seeing and help customers understand the product or service in a real life situation.

TIP 3: SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT

Social Media is meant to be social!

Engagement is extremely important to all social media platforms because your customers want to interact with you and interact with your brand. To engage with your customers, make sure to comment back to anyone who comments on your posts (both positive and negative). It would be as simple as just saying "Thanks!" or something more detailed like asking them a question.

The same thing goes for any messages or emails that a customer sends. Respond to all messages and emails and make sure to reply in a timely manner as well. This is important to the customers, as well as, Facebook has a response time tracker. You don't want to miss a sale over not responding quick enough

Good engagement with your customers creates brand loyalty! They will come back to your brand, engage more, and are more likely to follow through with a purchase.

We hope you learned some strategies on how to increase sales through social media. If you have any questions, please let us know.

ALSO, let us know if you have suggestions for upcoming videos/blog posts.