It is important to understand the difference between social media helping us to sell compared to directly selling. We all have our marketing channels out there from using local newspapers to our website, adverts on our company cars to email marketing campaigns, these all drive interest, traffic and enquiries. Just like a business card I say, you give it out to people never expecting to directly sell from it, I mean that comes from the phone call later or the meeting where you shake hands over a deal, but the business card is one part of the overall marketing tools that you use to find new clients and conclude sales – Have you ever sold directly from a business card I ask? So, social media, have you ever sold directly from a Tweet or a message sent to your group on LinkedIn or is it simply another one of the tools you use to get your name out there and sell?
Social Media is a great marketing tool, it now needs no real introduction neither does it need a pitch to you the reader on it’s effectiveness in growing brand awareness, but can you say that you have sold directly from social media?
I spend a lot of time researching and studying social media, especially activities of the audiences I like to network out to, and I have seen the ways that these communities that I have built act and react and have become more and more responsive to direct sales via social media channels. Yes, I can put my hand up and say that I have gotten sales directly from social media. Many purchase and booking confirmation emails are received by our office following a Tweet, a Facebook post and especially via our groups on social media with a particular success always with LinkedIn. My business is selling a service, selling marketing space opportunities to other businesses and I would say that around 75% of our business come directly from social media channels. I am happy that we have gone from just a sniff or two of interest from social media to now where we can say that monthly we can thank it for bringing in handsome sums not forgetting bonus revenue streams such as from ads set up with YouTube that pay commissions.
Are we though limited to what we both can declare as being sold via social media and the type of products / services we can hope to sell? Is it just spontaneous purchases which take place such a $1 for an eBook or £10 for a bottle of wine, or can we also have success with more costly items?
I decided to send out a question on social media asking for other people’s experiences who can also say they now sell directly from social media.
Maurice Kilbride, Estate Agency owner, UK:
I asked, have you ever sold a house on social media?
“Social media has continued to have a huge impact on my business in 2016, from raising the profile of the company and positioning us as experts in our field to a massive audience, to generating new instructions for both sales and rentals, including the dearest house we have ever sold! Which came directly from Twitter. Our Facebook postings of new listings are attracting literally thousands of views and generating viewings directly now, so I see us using Facebook marketing increasingly in 2017 and I see it as a genuine challenger to the actually property portals in the next year or two”
George Hosegood of Turvec Solutions Limited: (http://www.turvec.com/)
Do you think that you get a ROI on your efforts placed using Social Media?
Alongside directly traceable sales, social media builds our exposure as a new company at a very low level of financial investment. It seems a logical place to invest time when growing exposure for a new brand.
Do you make direct sales thanks solely to social media?
Yes, we have made sales as a direct link of companies discovering us on social media. But for our business social accounts only offer a gateway to convert introductions into sales through further interactions. Social media is one of a selection lead generating tools.
Dismiss Social Media at your own peril – Do you agree with that statement?
Yes, I do agree with that statement. Particularly in a B2B environment social media can be overlooked, but these channels offer an easy and accessible way to communicate with clients and those engaging with your products.
So, what ways can we look to make money from social media?
- Direct sales that are generated through to our business, ie bookings for events that are posted on Facebook.
- Commissions paid for advertising campaigns such as from Youtube’s partner plans where the ads seen on the videos you upload you are paid for.
- Work on someones social media for them and charge out your expertise and time, ie offer a social media management service. This could also mean an employee of a business who is their social media manager.
- Selling followers, likes, views and trading social media accounts. For most social media platforms, this is against the rules, but many companies offer this service and they have many customers. I have also been approached on several occasions to sell accounts that I own which may contain a keyword that someone else requires or that they are after the high number of followers the account has.
- Using social media as a show window to increase brand awareness that initiates a sales process between yourself and that new potential client.
- Sell software, applications and content that people use for social media to include the likes of social media management softwares that allow you to manage multiple accounts and schedule your updates and those who sell the likes of images. videos and content writing services for people to use in their social media updates.