How to Increase Your Business’s Popularity & Sales Through Social Media
By
Fernanda Bohme
Owning Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts for your store will not automatically increase your store popularity or sales. Using social media effectively takes some research, sometimes a little bit of money, and someone who is dedicated to updating those accounts on a daily basis.
So what are the secrets? Most business owners know that using social media accounts can help them to increase popularity and sales, but many do not know how to use social media effectively.Here are some tips on how to use the different social media networks in order to increase popularity and sales:
Utilizing Facebook effectively takes communication and dedication. The point of advertising anything on Facebook is to get lots of people to see it, talk about it, and share it with their friends. Here are some tips on how to use Facebook and to get people to communicate on Facebook about your business:
- Post things that your demographic and or fans will like.
- Post information, deals, sales, and anything else that has to do with your business that others will find interesting.
- Be more interesting by posting more pictures. People share photos a lot more than plain text and links.
- Post often. You can’t have a conversation with someone if your business or brand only posts on Facebook once a week.
- Respond to Facebook messages and comments in a timely manner. Quick responses will make commenters feel like they are being cared for and catered to.
- The best posting time, according to Bitly, is 3 p.m. on Wednesday.
- Don’t bombard your businesses’ Facebook pages with coupons and ads. Mix it up and post updates on the business and products.
Twitter is another communication tool that takes some getting used to. It’s also a tool that takes daily dedication in order to be successful. Here are some tips on how to use Twitter for your business:
- Be communicative. You can do this by following other people, posting comments on other tweets, re-tweeting interesting tweets and responding to messages that other tweeters send to you.
- Do not spam or promote. Do not spam other tweeters about your special deals and do not try to directly promote your company. You can indirectly promote your company by writing a blog post with a link to your company site and then tweeting about the post. If people see the post as relevant information, they may click on the link to your site.
- Don’t be annoying. This is a social network and people will only share and talk about interesting things.
Pinterest is a newer social media platform that is quickly rising in popularity. Here are some tips on how to effectively connect with fans and potential customers:
- Post new and original pictures. Take pictures of your products and pin them on Pinterest. Generic photos that have most likely already been used won’t do as well.
- Do to others as you would have them do unto you. The golden rule applies to all social media platforms, but especially to Pinterest. If you want people to re-pin your pins, click on your links and comment on your pins. Then you need to do those things for other Pinterest users.
- Pin coupons, deals and contests on your Pinterest and make sure they are relevant, timely, newsworthy and fun.
- Stick on the $ sign. If you are pinning products, then it may be a good idea to put the actual price in the description. Using the $ sign will put a special mark on your pin that shows the price so that only the people who really want to buy the product will click on the pin.
- Create new pins on a daily basis to keep the community of communication going.
Use social media effectively and it will help increase awareness, popularity and sales for your business.
Fernanda Bohme is the co-owner of Bohme Boutique and loves boutique clothing. Fernanda and her sister started the Bohme boutique in a little kiosk that was only open on holidays. The sisters had a lot of ups and downs, but since then the boutique has grown into a thriving and successful business that has store fronts all over the country.
