How to Use Social Media (Properly) to Sell

Last summer we ran an experiment to set up a business in two hours. Stop looking at us like that.

We created a VERY BASIC FREE website and a Twitter account. We focused on a very specific niche and spent most of the two hours following and chatting to the audience (about twenty minutes was spent writing two short blog posts). The website, which was BRAND NEW and not listed on Google had 84 unique visitors in 24 hours and 4 mailing list sign-ups.

Anyone with a device and an internet connection can find, engage and sell to customers WORLDWIDE.
We just need the right strategy.

Millions of people worldwide are communicating every second. Complete strangers on every continent are uploading their interests, opinions and wants to their social media profiles for any of us to read. Wow! At the click of a button, we can find our niche customer – our unique tribe of customers who are most likely to buy what we’re selling. At any time of the day or night, we can reach them, connect and start chatting for free.

There are ways of wasting hours on social media and getting zero return on the time you invest, and there are ways of spending just a few ‘smart hours’ every week that could get you the results you want.
So how do you do it well and what are the common mistakes people make?

Here are the Top 12 Mistakes we’ve discovered that happen when people – especially new businesses – are using social media to find customers.

Fail to engage / “buy my stuff” syndrome
It’s social media not selling media. A general rule of thumb is you need to get people off the platform before you can sell.
Therefore, you need to be using social media to ‘engage.’ What does ENGAGE mean? Chat! Reply! Start conversations and join discussions with people who are your target customers. It will drive traffic to your page, some of them will visit your website and that’s where the sales will happen.
Not choosing the right platform / “Try and do them all” syndrome
If you were in a restaurant, you’d be sick if you tried to eat EVERYTHING on the menu. Trust us, we’ve tried.
Pick one (maybe two platforms) which is your best guess of where your potential market is likely to hang out and start engaging. You don’t need all of them. Better to do one thing really well than do four things badly.
Not focused on target customer
There’s no point having an Instagram account if your target market is the over 65s (well, not at the moment), so choosing the right platform is a good start (the one where your target customers are most likely to be).
Secondly – and critically – if you try and sell to everybody, you’ll end up selling to nobody. If your message is too confusing or too broad, you’ll struggle to connect with your audience.
You’ve got several ways on social media platforms to get the attention and interest of your potential customers:
your bio description, the header images and avatars you use, and the website address are all opportunities to hook your customers in to click on your website link. (See point 5)
Relying on automation to make sales
Automation is a bit like a lamppost to a drunk – it’s handy to lean on but not all that illuminating.
It’s social media, not robot media. Auto-replies don’t create engagement, they annoy people. Sure, have some posts sent automatically to keep your business in people’s minds, but don’t think that’ll get you customers – it doesn’t replace the art of conversation. There’s a great account owned by a coach called Roxy who has automated some of the most inspirational quotes to be posted from her account daily. We’ve replied to two of them to strike up a conversation and what do you think she did? Nothing! Ignored them, which is an opportunity to sell MISSED!
Missing the point / “Nowhere to go” syndrome
The ‘point’ is where your social media account ‘points’ potential customers to go for more information.
We’ve seen lots of great engagement but so what?
So, you got 100 likes! So, you got 100 new followers! So what?
The POINT of engagement is that your channels POINT somewhere; create meaningful connections on social media so your audience is interested enough to check out your website. So get that website address on your social media accounts – and remember, it doesn’t necessarily have to be the home page address.
It can be a good idea to send your customers to a landing page specifically designed for them, that way they don’t have to waste time clicking your menu links to get to what they’re after (they’ll look at the other pages next if they’re interested enough). You want to get their attention straight away, so have something interesting for them to see, make them WANT what you’re selling and make it easy for them to TAKE THE NEXT STEP (e.g. Call you, email you, click ‘buy now’, etc).
Not enough volume
Here’s the thing: people need to see your stuff at least 7 times before they’ll take any action, and the average life span of a post is less than 7 seconds on some platforms. So don’t post 7 times, post 700. Don’t follow 7 people, follow 70! You thought 3 was the magic number, didn’t you? It’s not, it’s 7.
We often get asked, “How long should I spend on social media every day?”
There are no right or wrong answers to this. Better to spend 30 smart minutes than eight hours watching cat videos.

The size of the results you get is down to the size of the SMART action you’re prepared to take.
Broadcasting not listening
We ran a test and sent three tweets at the same time to measure engagement:
– A broadcast tweet
– A question tweet
– A help someone else tweet
Guess which got the most engagement?
When we broadcast (e.g. buy my stuff) NOTHING HAPPENS!
When we ask a question, a LITTLE HAPPENS.
When we go out of our way to help someone else LOTS HAPPENS.

If you ‘listen’ (use the search engines on each platform to find posts by other users), you’ll discover people are sharing content and opinion. People obsess about their own posts, but it’s so important to listen first. Listening means you’ll learn more for a start and if you go out of your way to HELP OTHERS, you’ll really stand out and this will send people to your website.
Failing to learn
If you were going to run your first marathon, you’d probably take the trouble to find out how to prepare. Social media is such a fast-moving animal and it changes all the time. Those who win are those whotake the time to learn how to be the most effective.
Forgetting people can’t see your face
Simon’s current pet hate is people ranting on social media and leaving their superior commentary like a mic drop in your social feed. This is not engagement, this is annoying!
Of course, there are no facial expressions, emotions or tone of voice that can be accurately predicted from your posts. There are plenty of active people switching customers off because of their strong opinions that can be amplified – or worse – misinterpreted. Don’t be one of them.
Having fun
If it’s not fun, why are you doing it? Often people say to us “But I don’t know what to write!” Stop overthinking and go have fun. Let your sense of humour loose! Be nice! Be kind and help other people be successful – it’s a rather lovely thing to do and the universe will send you back some help.
Not staying in the game
Social is not a quick win; you don’t have to beat yourself up if you take a few days out, but don’t expect rapid results. Most people give up too quickly – if you want to win, you’ve got to stay in the game.
Not measuring results
Where does your traffic come from? Twitter? Facebook? Or something else? If you spend 8 hours of your precious time on social media, you need to know what impact it’s had on traffic to your site and sales, otherwise, you don’t know if you should do it again. Do you know what’s working?
Post something, tag us and we’ll help spread the word!
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