How to Use Social Media to Increase Sales

Join a community and create a persona:

Companies needs to spend time with the tool they plan to use, whether It's Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc. It’s important to build up a personal account, have conversations, and become acquainted with the norms and expectations of the community. Companies needs to keep in mind that their brand image needs to be a likable and trustworthy within social network communities. It’s effective when companies comment a lot to get people to go to their site. Once you have a lot of traffic and a live feed then the network will consider your company to be a trustworthy resource.

Determine the best way to connect with prospects:

• Facebook is the popular place for a business to drive consumer sales.
• Linkedin is a platform for sales of business to business products or services.
• Twitter can be employed for all kinds of sales.
• Blogs ignite all types of live chats and encourages for live comments.

 

Connect:

Friend, follow, or connect with individuals with profiles that match your clients. The company can conduct a search on each social networking website to find people who are talking about their industry or using their products and services. Companies can drive consumers to their site by encouraging consumers to “retweet” a comment.

Build a relationship:

Companies need to develop relationships more than they need to develop leads. Relationships go a long way and will then create leads. After establishing the relationship, you can tell if the prospect might want or need your product or service.

Engage in a conversation:

As recently discussed in my interview post, Interview with David Prince, VP of Marketing at CQ Fluency, you must be sure to engage your readers. Don’t just post a message with a pitch, because that will not interests your potential consumers. If you really listen to what the prospects are saying online, you can open doors to conversation without having to force it. Encourage consumers to contribute to a conversations and share content, it will increase awareness. Their friends will see it and their friend’s friend and their friend’s friend friend will see it.

Social media is about being social but most importantly it’s about building relationships between consumer and companies. People buy from a brand they live and trust. The questions is, how do companies build relationships and eventually increase sales? The preceded were ways to increase sales. The above are simple strategies that companies can implement to help them closer to the goal of increased sales. It’s not difficult, it’s about building rapport and connection with your desired audience.

10 Ways to Utilize Social Media

Have any of you thought on how to really use social media? Most of us just use it to use it. Or we primarily make accounts to keep in contact with friends and family. We’re constantly plugged-in, because we want to always be in the know of things and be the first ones to get the scoop. But there’s more to social media. It can be about relating meaningfully to other people.

          Here’s a list of 10 tips to use social media mindfully:

1. Know your intentions: Think before you post! Ask yourself if you’re posting to be seen or validated by your fellow followers or friends? Is it constructive or is it negative?


2. Be your authentic self: Social media are a way of personal branding. You have your image and reputation to maintain. You should want to post comments and tweets that are related to you. They should communicate the person you are.


3.  Before you tweet or post, always ask: Is it true? Is it kind?: Sometimes we get too caught up in emotions and forget to filter our thoughts. We must be considerate when making posts. You must not forget that potential employers may read your profiles. You want to make a positive impression oppose to a negative one.


4.  Offer posts of kindness: Use social media to extend a helping hand to those in need, without expecting anything in return. You may create a connection that will help you later down the road. A simple tweet might consist of, “Is there anything I can do to help you?”


5.  Experience now, share later: It’s common to take a picture and upload instantly to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. It defeats the purpose of living in the moment. You shouldn’t want to share everything in real time with your audiences. Enjoy the moment and share later. That’s the beauty of technology today. Photos or videos can be stored and uploaded later.


6.  Be active: I know some of you may have your e-mails and social media accounts linked to your phone, so it's set to give you alerts. You may feel the urge to answer immediately but you have the choice to indulge in that conversation later. You may want to enjoy your free time to truly appreciate it.


7. Respond with your full attention: When your friends or followers share links, it’s good to fully read it and respond. You may not be able to respond to everyone but at least respond to those thoughtfully.


8.  Use mobile social media sparingly: I know many of you may be plugged in at times but it’s up to us to decide how much time we truly dedicate to social media. I know as college students we tend to check into your social media several times a day. You may miss what’s happening online but you won’t miss what’s in front of you (good company).


9.  Let go: It may come off as rude when if you ignore a tweet or post but we need to ensure we have downtime. It’s important to just let go sometimes and relax. Rather than catching up on updates you may want to catch up with an old friend and have lunch.


10.  Last but not least, enjoy it: The above are ways to get the most of social media. Follow your own instincts and have fun with it.

As mentioned, the above tips are just a few ways to utilize social media to its advantage. However, you can feel free to do as you feel. Just remember that it’s okay to be disconnected from technology. Just don’t lose the focus of living in the moment. Don’t get too caught up in uploading every time something happens. Also, remember to respond thoughtfully. You want to establish and maintain relationships you build online.

Trending Sites?

Social Cam “The Instagram for Video”:

Unlike Instagram or Twitter, Social Cam is a free app that allows you to shoot and share video files with friends and family. Social Cam Video app might be just too social. The Social Cam network connects with your facebook friends and adds them automatically. The app can also be annoying because it requires anyone who wants to watch your social cam video to sign up for the service before watching it. Although the features and tools are easy to use the option to watch isn't as easy. The connection to Facebook may be aggravating because maybe some users don’t want their videos to integrate with Facebook. Once a video is made it will be automatically posted to their timeline… doesn't sound too good, now does it? You have to use Social Cam with extreme caution and not activate your automatic sharing on Facebook unless you want everyone to know every video you just recorded.

But for the most part Social Cam is just like any other social site and it requires your e-mail to sign up. The easy to read and navigate labels include: Videos, Popular, The Red Dot (launches video camera on), Friends, and Activity. Similar to recording on your phone, you are to press the red record button on the screen to start shooting. But what I love about social cam is the various filters by simply swiping the screen. The filters include: Electronic, negative, Kodak, noire, grunge, action, bleach, rouge, vice, and 1970s effect. The filter and other effects are added as soon as you begin recording. It provides the users with a fun experience when recording. After you finish you have the option to add a “theme” and which style title you want. You can also add music to the background! How cool! But that’s not all! You even get to control the volume of the music by using the slider. Yeah, I know- pretty awesome.

BUT- when you’re finally done with your recording and editing and feeling like Spike Lee you get to save your video public or private. You can publish your video to the Social Cam Feed in which other Social Cam users get to view the video.

Path Changes the Game:

Now, on another hand there’s another app called Path which aims to make social network more personal. Path is an app that is interested in sharing personal moments with a smaller network of friends rather than a large one that you would find on Facebook or Twitter. But this app isn't your ordinary social network. Path is a place where you post photos and videos for your (inner circle). It’s like a diary in which you share more personal things. Because of that close and intimate connection, people are bound to share more as a result of that.

The unique thing about Path is that it picks up the users habits quickly. It registers and saves their favorite places and broadcasts it to their fellow path “followers”.  What others may find to be either an upside or downside, is that Path only allows up to 150 connections.  That is considered to be the upper limit of trusted relationships a person can have. This is the true beauty of Path. Just like other social sites it too integrates with Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and Tumblr to allow cross-posting.  At the pace we're going, who knows if the next generation of social media is going to get personal.