Here’s one of the most common misconceptions around using social media in business: That you can just throw money at a strategy and be guaranteed sales. I’m a huge advocate of using social media in business; in fact, I believe that it’s an absolutely vital tool for businesses. It can be the difference between success and failure. But the reality is that having a great social media presence won’t necessarily guarantee that your business will sell products or services.
So, what is social media used for in business?
Just because social media’s not always a great platform for generating sales, doesn’t mean that it’s not possible to get a great return on investment from it. I’ve worked with clients who have used a social media strategy and seen their profit increase by $300,000 a year. In this article, I’m going to tell you what social media is often best used for, and how it can help you and your business.
Industry to industry
First of all, it’s important to mention that social media strategies will differ massively depending on the business using them. When I work with clients, I set about creating bespoke plans for them based on what they hope to achieve and their specific branding. It often depends on whether their model is B2B or B2C, as well as the pricing of their product. However, there are some key roles that a good social media strategy can perform in business across the board.
Generating leads
One of the key aspects of using social media in business is bringing traffic to your website and/or LinkedIn page. Now, this isn’t about having thousands and thousands of followers and likes. Instead, it’s about targeting the right clients and bringing them to you and your business. In order to do this, you need to first figure out who your target audience is and which platforms will be the most effective in reaching them. Bringing traffic to your website and LinkedIn page is likely to result in direct sales, but it’s also likely to create more interest in your brand, which in turn will ultimately lead to a healthy ROI.
Positioning yourself as an expert
In my experience, a social media campaign is often less about simply promoting a business and more about building a brand. This can be done by positioning an individual within that business as an expert within their field. This strategy can be done by showing the world just how knowledgeable that individual is, by getting them to speak at events and write industry articles. This is a great way of getting content out there into the world which will be aimed at the right audience. Once the individual has reached this position, it’ll be easier to reach out to other industry leaders through LinkedIn.
Building partnerships
After an individual within a business has been positioned as an expert, it’s important to start leveraging that position… but not necessarily to target clients. As I keep saying, social media strategy is so much more powerful than simply going for route one. Using an individual’s position as an expert in their field, it’s then easier to begin building partnerships with other influential businesses and individuals. I’ve worked with clients who have seen a huge increase in their profits after implementing this strategy, just from reaching out to the right people and companies who are able to take them and their business to the next level.
Go out and build your brand
All of the above steps are about how social media can help you and your business to build a brand rather than directly sell a product or service. I’ve seen in my career as a social media strategist just how much more valuable this is in the long-run than chasing followers and direct sales.
There are plenty of other articles on this blog about what a social media strategy can do for you and your business, and how you can start thinking about which social media strategy would work best for you. Go ahead and check out the services offered by Web Traffic That Works to see how we can help you harness the power of social media.
Here are a couple you might like to check out, just click the image to view
