Social Media Marketing Tips Excerpted From the Forthcoming Guerilla Marketing for Direct Selling, by Jay Levinson, James Dillehay and Marcella Harting
Businesses are flocking to social networking sites to gather new leads, increase sales and follow up with customers. According to Jill Konrath, social selling queen, direct sellers using social selling are 50% more likely to beat their quotas, according to Jill Konrath, social selling expert.
“Social media presents an opportunity for business people to connect and know each other prior to a phone call or e-mail taking place.” ~ Jeffrey Gitomer, Author: The Sales Bible
Go forth and be social, knowing that:
• Each social site attracts followers for different reasons and kinds of interactions. It’s critical to understand the “why they are there” of each site in order to appeal directly to their interests.
• Limit yourself to posting on the two or three sites you hangout most on to avoid overwhelm.
• Brief social media posts with less than 70 characters get better engagement than longer posts.
• Post more than once a day. Use tools like Hootsuite.com or SproutSocial.com to schedule post deliverance across several sites. They also report on your post’s engagement.
• Avoid posting just to put something out there. Be helpful. Be inspiring. Be entertaining. Be educational.
• A personal profile on Facebook is limited to 5,000 connections. But a Facebook Page can draw millions of likes and followers. Over 70 million businesses have Facebook Pages.
• Posts with images get the more shares on Facebook and the most retweets on Twitter.
• The organic reach of your posts is limited. To get more viewers, you will have to pay up in the form of ads or post boosts.
• In 2016, almost 96% of social media marketers reported that Facebook brought the top ROI (return on investment) from among all social networks.
• Twitter ads got 99% percent more engagement in 2017 than in the previous year.
• When people comment on your posts, reply. The more interaction you can inspire, the more your posts will show up organically.
How frequently should you mention your product when posting socially? There is no golden rule, but a good starting guideline is post seven times to help, entertain or educate, then post a product link or video. Repeat the cycle a few times and watch what your followers do. Another suggestion is to post 1 promo for every 10 ‘giving’ posts.
Setting up profiles on a social media networking site lets you write about your personal life in all the detail you wish. You can post tips and resources for your target audiences. You can discuss products you have found beneficial. You can link to your main web site which provides more details and a shopping cart for placing orders.
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This article is copyrighted 2018 and may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the author. Excerpted from the forthcoming Guerrilla Marketing for Direct Selling
