Your Social Media Strategy On Fire

Setting Your Social Media Strategy On Fire

“We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it.” 

~Erik Qualman

Your overall social media strategy is designed to meet your business goals, such as generating leads and sales. However, you should also work to get your existing prospects, customers, web visitors and store visitors to follow you on social media.

Why? Simple: because as Qualman hints at above, it’s all about doing social media better.

Let me explain…

Reason #1 to bring your existing prospects and customers to social media is because it’s another channel where you can reach them. Your mailing list is great. Your blog is good. But social media gives you one more opportunity to communicate with your prospects and customers, which is important in a noisy marketplace.

Reason #2 to bring existing prospects and customers to social media is because many of these people are already an engaged audience. They already know, like and trust you. So when they see your content, they’ll naturally engage. In turn, this creates more exposure. And if they’re sharing your content, you’ll get a viral effect too.

You see, the people who are most likely to share your content are those who already know you. Your satisfied customers and other people with whom you’ve built a relationship are capable of sending you warm leads – so take advantage of this by engaging them on social media.

So here are ways to expand your social media networks…

Place Social Media Buttons On Your Website

You can put links to all your social media accounts with a call to action such as, “Follow Us On Facebook.” You can put these calls to action in your side bar, on purchase confirmation pages and on your blog.

In fact, this is super easy to do if you have a blog such as WordPress. Just use any one of the several available social media plugins, and your social media badges will appear at the end of all your blog posts. So not only does this make it easy for people to follow you, you can also give them direct links to “share” or “like” your content on various social media platforms.

Include Social Media Links In Your Products

If you have reports, books, apps, software, videos or similar products that you offer for sale or even as lead magnets, be sure to include links to your social media platforms. As always, include a direct call to action (along with a good reason to follow you)

For example:

• Follow us on Facebook to enter the contest…
• Follow us on Twitter to get late-breaking news...
• Follow us on Instagram to see mind-blowing transformation photos…

Next…

Tell Your Mailing List

You might include a link to your social media accounts (along with a call to action) in the header or footer of all your emails. Better yet, encourage your newsletter subscribers to come to a specific social media page (e.g., Google+) to discuss an article from your newsletter. It’s a great way to turn a monologue (your newsletter) into a dialogue with your prospects and customers.

For example: “Click here to join the conversation on Facebook and to find out what your fellow readers think of this idea… and be sure to let us know your opinion too!”

Print URLs on Receipts

You can include links to your top one or two social media site on all your receipts. This includes both the print receipts as well as the digital receipts, since some folks will print off digital receipts.

Send Ride-Alongs in Shipments

If you send out packages in the mail, then you can share your social media links on a flyer. As always, give people a good reason to follow you on social media.

For example, “Follow us on Twitter to get a discount coupon to use on your next purchase!”

Print Links On Advertising Specialties

If you send out branded merchandise to customers, you can include your social media links as space allows. 

For example, you probably wouldn’t put your links on a pen, since you’d reserve your web links for that valuable space. On the other hand, you have plenty of room to print your links on a branded calendar.

Print Links In Ads

If you’re placing direct-response ads, then you probably won’t want to print your social media links (as you’d rather have prospects head directly to your sales page). However, depending on your niche and offer, it might make sense to include a social media link in ads.

For example:

• Local businesses like restaurants might post social media links, especially if those social media links include consumer reviews. In other words, sending people to a social media link can be a powerful form of social proof.

• All businesses can invite prospects to follow on social media and receive a discount coupon.

• Another idea is to invite people to join a contest, which of course involves following the business on social media.

Again, look at your own business and offer to determine if it’s wise to include social media links in your ads.

Next…

Cross-Promote Your Social Media Pages

Here’s a simple way to promote your links: just tell your other social media followers about them.

For example:

• Include links to your other social media pages along with a call to action at the end of your YouTube videos.

• Include links to your other social media pages in “About” section of your social media profiles.

• Create posts every now and then where you directly tell your followers to join you on other social media platforms. Be sure to ask your followers to re-tweet your messages.

Next…

Use Social Share Tools

As mentioned earlier in this guide, you need to provide a call to action. You need to take people by the hand and tell them exactly what you want them to do, and give them a good reason to do it.

Here’s a reason: if your prospects take the recommended action, you’ll give them a really good reward. This reward might be a free (yet valuable) product, such as an app, book or video.

In other words, yeah… you “bribe” prospects to take action.

This is exactly what social share tools such as Perkzilla (https://perkzilla.com/) do. And you can use this tool to grow your social media networks.

Here’s how it works…

You select an in-demand product that you know your prospects will really appreciate and value. Then you offer this product for free in exchange for your prospects sharing your content on social media. Once your prospect shares on the sites of your choice (such as Facebook), the app unlocks their free gift and gives them instant access to it.

It’s a win-win situation. Your current followers get valuable products, and you get exposure to your followers’ friends.

Quick Recap

Here’s the bottom line: whenever you reach out to communicate with your existing prospects and customers, you have an opportunity to invite them to join you on social media. And it’s a good idea to get these existing customers on social media, because they’ll help you ramp up interaction, exposure and the viral effect.

Now, one thing we’ve been talking about here in this section and elsewhere is how tools can help you build, run and manage your social media platforms. 

Read on to get a list of these tools…