Socialize Your Way to More Sales: Creative Ways to Use Social Media

Facebook

I have 2 tips here for you, but they work together: engage your fans AND pay to post. Not all posts, just the right posts that will make you money. I try to write posts that require my fans to answer a question but when selling something on Facebook, I try to get them to also share the post by offering an additional discount if they publicly share the post or promotion. Then I pay to promote it. With 15,000 fans, and without paying to promote my posts, approximately 200 people will see my post offering something for sale. However, if I offer a discount to fans that share, and pay only $5 to promote that same post, about 2,500 people will see it. It’s worth every penny, and I always see more sales by offering my best followers a discount, and allowing Facebook to do some of the marketing legwork.

Pinterest

Start pinning the right kind of material to get your brand found. If all you pin are photos of your products, people will write you off as overly self-promoting, or they will never find you at all. Pinterest is about sharing ideas within a community. So start targeting your customers with pins that speak to them, but still capture your brand. Really think about what your target customer is searching for on the web. For example if you are known for your children’s line with a sleek minimalist style you may start a “kid’s room décor” board with sleek minimalist decorating ideas. Or if your brand is known for being fun and spunky, then you may create a “party board.” Other ideas for apparel lines looking to market on Pinterest are: “fun quotes,” “before and after” photos showing your design process, a “happy customers” board or a “styling board,” showing off people wearing your clothes in a stylish way. Note that whenever possible, Pin from a blog on your site so that when people click through they are more likely to make a purchase.

[ctt tweet=”Pinterest is about sharing ideas within a community. So start targeting your customers with pins that speak to them. # Marketing @MakersRow” coverup=”635YO”]

Instagram

Ask your followers to tag their friends in your posts. You can simply state that you will host a giveaway for a product once 40 followers tag 3 friends in a post promoting sale you are having. That’s 120 more people that will see your sale. If you have a good number of followers, then you should ask for more people to tag 3 friends before you host a giveaway. IMPORTANT! Don’t give away the item you are trying to sell. From past experience I’ve learned that if you giveaway the item you are trying to sell many of your followers won’t buy. They will just wait, and try to win it.

Email List

I can never tout enough how important an email list is to your business. When I saw Facebook making changes and fewer people seeing posts I encouraged my followers to start an email list and offer incentives to their fans to sign up. I made sure to do this, and now most of my sales are coming from my email campaigns instead of Facebook. If you are just starting out with an email list, I love MailChimp. It’s free and easy to use. Start by promoting an offer or giveaway in turn for signing up for your email list. I love the idea of offering a generous coupon so that it promotes sales as well as grows your email list and creates return customers. It’s said that 80% of business is return customers, so get your product in people’s hands, even if it means a deep discount.

[ctt tweet=”It’s said that 80% of business is return customers, so get your product in people’s hands, even if it means a deep discount. @MakersRow” coverup=”HG2Jd”]

Twitter

I have to be honest here. I don’t tweet much. I just haven’t had time to invest in building a large following, and instead chose to focus on the other social media platforms that were already working well for me. However,  I can tell you that the best way to build a following is to comment and tag others as much as possible.

Which brings me to my final tip.

You don’t have to be on every form of social media. You just have to be consistent on the ones you choose to operate on, and offer up unique material to each site. I like to use Facebook for information about my brand and blog posts that lead back to my site and shop. I use Instagram to give people a look at my life and the brand behind the scenes, Pinterest to promote my brand and my hobbies, and an email list to promote sales and share what’s going on with the company. By offering a different angle on each social media platform, those same people will follow me on each social media site, which reinforces my brand.

Do you have creative ways to use social media more efficiently or cool apps that help you get the job done? Share ‘em below. 

Build Your Ideas

As you start considering how you will promote your brand, create samples and early runs of your product! Maker’s Row is home to over 10,000 factories that can help you build out your idea.

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• » Getting Started With Social Media For Your Brand

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This post was originally published on September 3, 2014 and has since been updated.