Even though gaining a large number of followers on social media is a great goal that looks good for a business, the truth is that just because people follow your business on social channels doesn’t mean that their follow translates into conversions or sales. Don’t get us wrong; we know the influence social media has on a business. Social media is useful for reaching the masses and raising awareness for businesses. However, if a business’ social media efforts never turn into leads or sales, they miss an opportunity to capitalize on the power of social media. Here at Snapshot Interactive, we know how difficult it can be to make social media efforts turn into conversions (in fact, we have an entire digital strategy team knowledgeable about the best practices for social channels). From our past experiences, we have a few suggestions for businesses wanting to turn their social media presence into conversions.
It’s Not One Size Fits All
It’s important to remember that not every social channel is meant for every business. Some businesses will have more of an audience on one channel over another. In addition, certain content may be more appropriate for Instagram over LinkedIn. If you understand who your target audience is, then it will help you to determine where your audience lives online. For example, a manufacturing company may not need to be on Instagram, however, they may benefit quite a bit by being on LinkedIn and posting relevant content there. It’s also important to be active on the social channels your business has a presence on. What we mean by this to maintain a healthy and vibrant social media presence. Depending on the channel, you could post multiple times a week to just once or twice a week.
Know Your Audience
Every social platform holds importance for businesses, and each platform attracts different people. To be successful in social media marketing, you need to know your audience; have a clear idea of who you want to draw to each post you publish. That way, if you have a clear idea of who you want to sell to, you can directly tailor the messaging and image to fit that user persona. Furthermore, the popularity of different social sites varies across ages. For example, Instagram and SnapChat tend to be popular with a younger demographic, while LinkedIn tends to attract people for business purposes only. Facebook has users across all age ranges these days. That said, it is important to know your target audience because your target audience determines how much emphasis you need to place on each social channel and determines the type of content you create to resonate with your followers. When content resonates with your followers, it can lead to conversions.
Create Mobile Friendly Landing Pages
Nothing is more frustrating than going to a website interested in a company or what a company sells and then leaving the site because it is not optimized to work on a mobile platform. Several social media users use their mobile devices to find and view content. This is an important statistic to pay attention to because now companies know they need to optimize their landing pages for mobile use if their goal is to convert followers into customers. After all, if customers do not have an interface in which they can adequately interact with your company, they will never be able to buy from your business or give you their information.
Create High-Quality Content
Use high-quality images and videos on your social channels. We tend to think of captions as the most important attention grabber in the social game, but our world is saturated with images; the only way to compete in a saturated online space is to create quality images. Images attract people. Everything a business publishes on their social channels represents their brand. If you post content that is not high-quality, that speaks volumes about your brand and its credibility. Also, do not post the same size image on all of your social channels. If you are creating your own content to post on social media, pay attention to the sizing of images; people on social media already are not in a “selling” type of mood. If your company publishes a post with images that are not optimized for that specific channel, your followers and potential customers can be turned away by your content. Producing content with high-quality images bespeaks credibility about your brand, and increases the chances of grabbing your follower’s attention. You cannot convert followers into customers without first catching their attention.
Follow Social Trends
Social trends evolve. The social network powerhouses always update and fine-tune their platforms to improve their user’s experience. Businesses can capitalize on these updates by creating different strategies to interact with their followers. When businesses stay current on the latest social media trends and find clever ways in which to engage their followers, their followers notice.
Businesses need to actively concentrate on turning their followers on social channels to customers if their goal is growth. This can be a difficult task to accomplish. This task takes time, energy, and strategic planning. Hopefully, these few pointers can offer you guidance in optimizing your social channels to be powerful marketing as well as a branding tool for your business. Want to learn more about how your social media presence can turn into conversions? Let us know!
