9 Easy Tips To Use Social Media to Drive Traffic and Sales to Your Online Business

Are you looking for ways to boost sales for your online business? If so, social media marketing may be the answer. Social media platforms provide a great way to connect with potential customers and drive traffic to your website. In this blog post, we will discuss how you can use social media to increase traffic and sales for your online business. We will also provide tips on how you can improve your social media marketing strategy.

If you want to use social media to drive traffic and sales for your online business, there are a few things you need to do:

1. Create Engaging Content:

If you want people to follow you on social media, you need to create content that is interesting and engaging. Share blog posts, images, and other types of content that will interest your target audience.

In order to do this successfully, it's important to have a deep understanding of your ideal customer or client. What are their interests? What type of content will they find valuable? Once you know the answers to these questions, you can create content that appeals to them.

At the moment, video content is being pushed out on all platforms, so we recommend that you focus on creating reels on Instagram at least as much as you post a regular image or carousel. Of course it depends where your ideal audience resides, some companies appealing to an older audience may choose to use post to Facebook, whereas others with a Gen Z audience may focus on Tiktok and Instagram. Either way, it's important to follow what the algorithm is pushing out the most and make an effort to create content that will satisfy those requirements.

2. Promote Your Products or Services:

In order for social media to be effective, you need to promote your products or services. This can be done by sharing product photos and descriptions, running ads, or holding contests and giveaways.

Make sure you are promoting your products or services in a way that is consistent with your brand image. For example, if you have a luxury brand, make sure your promotions reflect that.

It's also important to remember that not every single post should be a promotion. In order to keep your followers involved and interested, you need to be curating content that your ideal customer would want to consume on a regular basis. For example, if you are a clothing brand, make sure that you post more than just your clothes. You should also be posting quotes, entertaining reels, aesthetic photos related to your brand, and other things that your target audience will enjoy seeing and are more likely to save or share.

This also guarantees that your ideal customer or client will not feel like they are being "sold to" all the time and become annoyed or unfollow. Curating a feed that is aesthetic, interactive, and "on brand" is a good way to maintain positive customer relationships and keep your followers engaged.

3. Take Advantage of Influencer Marketing:

In the past decade or so, online marketing has completely changed. With the advent of the influencer wave, businesses have pivoted to a more affordable,?and?more effective way to market: the influencer. The reason this works so well is because the influencer who is promoting your product or service has an audience that already trusts him/her. One of the most essential aspects of business and successfully making sales is that your audience feels like they actually?know, like, and trust?you. This must happen before they buy, and in fact, it's part of the reason why it takes people an average of 23 times seeing a product before they actually make the purchase.?Familiarity?is so important. And that's why influencer marketing works.

Think about it this way. Imagine a random brand that you follow posts an item and you see it pop up on your feed. You might think it's cute, you might even double tap - but are you going to make that purchase right away? Probably not. You might even be a little skeptical about the quality or the value. "Of course they claim it's a great item, they're trying to make a sale."

However, now imagine this. Your favorite?influencer?posts the same item. The caption is going on and on about what a wonderful product it is and you can clearly see them showing it off beautifully in the reel they have curated. You not only trust this person more, but you see them with the product, so now?you?want it too.

Do you see how this works? Influencer marketing has absolutely changed the game for businesses - it gets your product out there to an audience that is already ready to buy and it puts you out there on the market in way that no Facebook ad can. Of course, just like diversifying your income streams is important, so is diversifying your marketing. You may choose to utilize influencer marketing?and?Facebook ads. Test it - see what works best. And ALWAYS be willing to grow, adapt, and pivot if you need to.

4. Use Call-to-Actions:

A call-to-action (CTA) is an instruction that tells people what they should do next. For example, you might tell people to “like” your page or “visit your website.”

You can include them almost anywhere: in your caption, in the photo or video itself, in your story, etc. In fact, it's smart to include them in more than one place (for example, both your caption and your story) because it takes customers quite a few times seeing a CTA before they actually take action.

Using CTAs can help increase engagement and boost sales. Make sure your CTAs are clear and easy to follow.

5. Utilize Your Stories:

Why is it important to use stories? Well, for starters, one-third of the most popular stories on Instagram are from businesses. And since stories expire after 24 hours, people are more likely to watch them in real-time than they are to watch a post on your feed (which will be there forever).

Another reason stories are so important is that you can use them to run polls, ask questions, and generally interact with your audience in a way that feels less formal and more fun. This helps boost engagement and makes your customers feel like they know you better - which as we talked about before - is essential for making sales.

6. Monitor Your Results:

The only way to know if social media is working for your business is to monitor your results. Track the number of website visitors, leads, and sales you generate from social media. You can also use analytics tools to see how much traffic you’re getting from each social media platform.

If you see that social media is driving traffic and sales for your online business, then keep doing what you’re doing. If not, make changes to your strategy.

Now that we've gone over some tips, let's take a look at how you can improve your social media marketing strategy.

1. Use Hashtags:

Hashtags are a great way to reach new people and promote your content. When using hashtags, make sure they are relevant to your brand and target audience. It's also important to diversify your hashtags. This is a strategy that will allow your posts to be seen by new accounts as soon as they are posted as well as remain on the hashtag search page forever. For that reason, you need to use hashtags with a range of uses, for example: 10 hashtags with under 100,000 uses, 10 very specific hashtags within your niche or location (i.e. #FloridaBusinessCoach or #TampaNailSalon ), and 10 popular hashtags with over 100,000 uses.

As important as it is to use the right hashtags, it's also just as important to engage with them. What do I mean by this? The same hashtags that you've just posted with, you need to interact with. As soon as you post, for the next 15 minutes, you need to be engaging not only with your audience, but also with other posts using the same hashtags (like, comment, reply to comments, etc.).

2. Engage with Your Audience:

Along those same lines, it's important to remember that social media is not a one-way street. In order to be successful, you need to engage with your audience. Respond to comments, answer questions, and start conversations. This will help build relationships with potential customers.

Another way to engage with your audience is on your stories. Post a question sticker and then share?their?answer along with your response to their answer. Conversely, you can also let them ask?you?a question and then respond with video (we recommend adding captions to increase watch time). Both of these strategies are great for increasing the feeling of inclusivity and building long term relationships.

Similarly, replying to your follower's stories with an engaging comment or question is also a great way to build authentic relationships. When you're doing this, try to remember that there's a person behind the screen and focus on genuine connection rather than making a sale.

Thirdly, make sure that you're engaging with people who are following you, even if you're not following them back. You can do this by viewing your followers and engaging with their new posts as long as they do not have a private account.

Another similar and equally important tactic in social media marketing is to locate your ideal audience on instagram and reel them into your instagram funnel (in short, your instagram page, which eventually leads to your website). You can find them via relevant hashtags OR via comments, likes, and follows on similar pages. Comment on their posts, like their posts, follow them, send them a personalized DM, and most importantly, keep up these relationships - with both new and old followers.

3. Be Consistent:

It’s important to be consistent with your social media activity. If you only post once in a while, people will forget about you. Try to post regularly and stay active on social media. If you have a hard time staying consistent or just don't have time, you can always outsource these tasks to a marketing company and we'll take care of it for you so that you can focus actually doing what you love, providing the best quality product or service to your customers.

For more one-on-one support, be sure to book a free consultation with us at the link below:?Free Business and Marketing Consultation

Do you have any other tips? Please share them in the comments below. Thanks for reading!