Social media is an excellent tool for keeping brands connected with their customers, but it can also be a powerful driver for direct sales activities.
Do you use social media to attract customers and increase sales?
If so, have you made sure that your social media profiles contribute to your sales funnel, instead of each being an independent element?
Here’s how you can ensure that your efforts on social media are linked to driving sales for your business.
1. Plan ahead
Keep in mind when launching your brand that your website will be just one of many marketing channels. You need a variety of online assets to maximize your visibility, and each of those assets still forms part of your sales funnel.
As a result, consistency is key, and as part of this approach you should look for a brand that is ideally available on all major social media platforms.
In this way you ensure that:
- Each profile is recognized as part of your brand and thus contributes to the overall recognizability of the brand
- Each profile lists your brand and will help you better manage your brand results
Mention is a brand generator that checks the availability of the name on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest:
This is a quick way to see if your name is used or not, which can help you guide your initial branding approach.
2. Build a consistent brand image
Apart from your brand name, the visual identity of your brand (logo and colors) is another powerful way to build brand recognition and increase your presence more broadly.
Humans are extremely visual, and we recognize and recognize things through visual associations. This is due to ‘visual superiority effect‘related to the brain’s ability to store visual information much more easily than text:
As a result, the visual identity of your brand should be consistent across all your social media profiles, aligning with the cognitive response.
Consider visual consistency about:
- Profile Photos
- Headers of your channels and event pages
- Your graphics on social media
- Your ads
Fishing has a handy function which stores your brand identity elements, and enables your team to apply these visual cues and motifs to every asset it creates. This will save you time by enabling you and your team to apply your visual elements to all your ads in just a few clicks.
3. Customize your copy on social media according to your landing page
Social media marketing is disruptive. People usually come to social platforms to see the latest updates from their friends and family, and your product links and promotions interrupt their activities.
This is where a strong and consistent brand identity can help people more comfortably and confidently when they come to your page.
Think of every click that your social media update or ad will send to your site. Why would this social media user want to continue to communicate with your page, instead of clicking down to continue with their social media feed?
For example, in this Instagram ad, UPRIGHT uses the same visual elements in the ad ad and the linked landing page:
By being consistent, you not only strengthen your brand, but also give users more assurance that they have come through exactly what they are looking for, while also ensuring a less disruptive experience.
4. Use Content Repurposing
Content repetition is one of the most effective ways to create brand recognition across different channels, but instead of reusing the same content across as many channels as possible, consider using a more creative approach.
Every platform is different, and the way people are involved in each one also varies, which means you have to fit in with the best practices of each app to maximize your content power.
For example, you can:
- Publish long-form content on your blog
- Remove all footage from your blog content and turn it into a (video) slideshow for use on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube
- Grab important takeaways from your long-form content (e.g. Steps) and create a quick infographic to post on Pinterest
- Take some important points from your content and turn them into a visual quote to use on Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin
- Grab all your visual quotes and turn them into a compelling video on social media
The more assets you create, the more unique updates you can put together, each with more brand awareness and more traffic to your site. And because you used your original article as the basis, people who click on your social media links will probably feel more comfortable communicating with your site.
There are several tools that can help you devise an effective content repackaging strategy, including: Canva, Visme and Haikudeck.
If you need help finding ideas on how to expand and reuse your content, you can also quickly search in Text Optimizer. The tool uses semantic analysis to suggest unique angles that you can use in your content repetition strategy:
5. Customize your landing page
Marketing personalization means providing different user experiences based on each person’s previous interaction with your brand.
There are different ways to use personalization for your sales funnel on social media. One of the most obvious methods is using the Facebook Pixel, which records data of people who visit your website and communicate with you, and then enables you to reach out to them with more personalized promotions based on their specific actions.
fineness is another marketing personality tool that allows you to customize your calls to action based on the traffic source, location and past interaction of your users.
Social media platforms can promote brand recognition and direct sales – and social media marketing is at full strength when used simultaneously for both. Think of every feature and update of social media in terms of your brand identity: ‘How will it contribute to my overall brand image and how can it increase my brand awareness?’
Considering the bigger picture, it can have a huge impact on your branding and sales efforts.
