Doing business in the modern era isn’t quite as challenging as in previous years. As much as competition rates continue to soar, businesses can attain an added advantage through a range of mediums like social media marketing. Over the years, the number of businesses flocking to social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest among others has drastically increased.

As of 2022, there were over 200 million businesses on Instagram alone and the number is expected to increase annually.  Social media is the buzz today! Whether it’s millennials, Gen Z, or the baby boomers, social media platforms have a place for every individual and business as well. In fact, 4.76 billion people (59% of the world’s population) are social media users.

This presents social platforms as an ideal avenue for businesses to connect with target audiences, build brand awareness and sustain themselves in the marketplace. However, not only that, brands can also leverage social media for selling. In this piece of content, we’ll explore what it means to sell through social media and the key strategies for businesses across industries.

Selling Through Social Media

Unlike before, brands can now sell products on social media. Merchants can now go as far as adding products to their social media shop, allowing customers to enter their details and check out. However, this creates a twist between two dimensions of business social media use. Social selling and social commerce.  

Social selling generally refers to the act of selling indirectly on a brand’s social media channels. It precisely involves promoting products, cultivating networks and reaching out to potential leads. Social selling tactics indirectly boost business sales and return on investment and above all, helps a brand stay relevant.

On the other hand, social commerce involves selling products directly to customers on social media. It is completely different from social selling. Social selling is an indirect approach to getting people to buy your products or opt for your services but social commerce involves creating complete social shopping experiences. These include browsing products, adding them to the cart and buying them (check out).

Whether you want to sell directly (social commerce) or indirectly (social selling) here are some of the best strategies you can consider to sell successfully.

5 Key Strategies for Selling Through Social Media 

1. Choose the Best Selling Platform 

Whether you want to promote or sell products to customers, you must choose the right social platform. The ideal social media platform is where your target audience is. This allows your social media selling tactics to work more efficiently.

The top social media platforms you can use to promote or sell products include Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok. Platforms like Facebook offer a marketplace where brands can display their products to allow customers to explore or buy them. That means you must create a shop on social media if you intend to sell to customers.

Considerations like a Facebook shop will allow you to seamlessly curate products, provide relevant information and allow customers to check out. On the other hand, choosing the right selling platform can also improve lead generation and build a loyal customer base. With that, ensure to prioritize at least two social media platforms depending on your business type and goals. 

2. Optimize your Social Profile 

Selling on social media can be made existing and fulfilling, especially for millennials and Gen Z. With that, you surely don’t need to keep a boring social media profile. Optimizing your social media profile whether you simply want to promote your products or sell can help your brand reach considerable targets in a short amount of time.

Having an optimized social media profile can improve SEO performance, usher your brand in front of the right eye and also extend its reach. Besides that, it will improve brand authenticity and image. Therefore there are a few things you can consider if you want to optimize your social media profiles. For example;

• Clarify your brand name to capture users’ attention
• Update your bio with relevant information and keywords
• Use a high-quality profile picture 
• Curate an attractive social media storefront if you want to sell your products
• Provide a link to your website
• Lastly, use hashtags 

Optimizing your social media profile will help you reach more social media users because many customers and potential buyers use social media to search for brands. 

3. Use Social Media Analytics 

Curating meaningful customer interactions requires reliable insights. Besides that, measuring social media effectiveness calls for a standardized methodology. Social media analytics can help collect valuable data from the different social media channels you may be using. These insights can help you understand your audience better, analyze competitors and pave the way for informed decision-making.

Additionally, you can use a range of other social media analytics tools to track performance. Tools like Buffer, Hootsuite and SocialPilot can conveniently and efficiently help you manage your business’s social media presence on multiple social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. These tools provide insights into how your social posts perform.

On the other hand, you can also consider Google Analytics. Google Analytics allows users to obtain deep insights into their business websites. It can allow you to track website traffic and analyze user behavior and campaign performance. Findings can also allow you to conduct a gap analysis with the goal of staying afloat. Data access and usage are currently crucial keys to running optimized social media campaigns and can help marketers attain a competitive advantage. 

4. Personally Engage With Your Audience 

Modern consumers are quite selective about the kinds of brands they choose to follow. They love brands that connect with customers from all angles and those that surely understand their needs. Precisely, they prefer brands that make them feel treasured and appreciated.   

With that, don’t let your social media followers think as though they are interacting with a machine. Focus on telling your story, offer feedback, recognize loyal customers and partner with influencers. Besides that, find ways outside your usual box to connect with your audience. 

Product demos, live videos, short-form videos and offering customer support will surely boost conversion rates and build your network.

Moreover, ensure to stay active on social media. The more social media users interact with your brand, the more likely they are to take you seriously. They will be intrigued to check out your offerings, experiment with your products and do business with you. Otherwise on and off social media business tactics won’t take your brand far.

5. Share Relevant Content 

Content marketing is very crucial, however, not every content piece is a pathway to goals. Creating and sharing relevant content is very important in running winning campaigns. Sharing relevant information can improve social media users’ perception of a brand. 

It can also increase social media shares, comments and brand interactions. Additionally, sharing relevant content can impact campaign performance, boost sales and multiply followers. However, it’s important to avoid being too promotional. Simply provide informative product descriptions and add links where necessary.

Choose to engage social media users with content outside your brand website. For example, post wishes on special days and promote social causes such as human rights, etc. Also, you can utilize user-generated content to drive traffic to your website. 

Bottom Line

Selling through social media or using these channels to promote your products is associated with a range of benefits. The number of social media users is expected to increase which makes these platforms a perfect avenue to accelerate business growth and brand awareness. This piece of content details some of the best social media selling strategies businesses can leverage. They will not only boost social media sales but will also ensure that your brand remains relevant to social media users. More importantly, they will offer a brand or business a competitive advantage.