Social media performs 2 primary function for business owners. First, by enabling your content to be directly in front of the eyes of interested people or customers; and Second, by creating a momentum through your content that builds awareness, interests, and eventually will create the reason to buy.
Social media also functions as a channel wherein you can:
- Answer questions from your customer base
- Get your name and logo out into relevant communities or groups
- Establish your expertise in front of potential future customers
- And directing traffic into your sales funnel
Check out these themes that will help you with your sales funnel!
But the uniqueness of social media that keeps it apart from other forms and channels of marketing is that it’s all about getting your client base or followers to market for you. Only they don’t call it marketing, they call it “sharing relevant news and information to people who will appreciate it”.
Caring is Sharing
When you share something over social media, you are often triggered by the fact that the post was humorous, informative, newsworthy, or to put it in simple terms, you were triggered by your emotions. Emotion is what makes people care about something, and people who care are people who share, and you make people care by providing an applaudable content.
The essence of social media is about giving away valuable content, and reaping the benefits of free marketing of that content for yourself or for your brand. If you use your social media to try to overtly sell things—including yourself—people will never follow you, or worse, they’ll outright block you.
The 80/20 rule is a good example to becoming content relevant to your customers or followers and at the same time promote your brand in a subtle way. Post four pieces of content that have no direct benefit to your business, and one piece of content that is plainly profit-motivated (don’t forget to apply a link to your sales funnel). The more people you convince that you are a source of value rather than a seeker of value, the more they will follow, like, and share.
BUT WAIT! The only exception to this rule is if you’re posting in a location or from a separate account that is plainly intended for selling.
But Shares Aren’t Everything!
Getting people to share your content is very much the main goal in social media, but you have to remember that you need to balance the need to get shared with several other factors, like:
- Present your business based on your brand
- Knowing which content your target market wants to see
- Follow all legal and ethical standards for use of social media
The last thing you want is to go viral for something that makes you look like you don’t know what you’re doing!