Why Businesses Need to Use Social Media

In today’s market, most businesses own and operate social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and/or Instagram. However, they don’t have a deep understanding of why they NEED these accounts – the true value of social media. They are simply clocking in and clocking out of their social media accounts because it seems to be what everyone else is doing. The true value of social media when it’s used the right way is its ability to increase revenue and/or improve a company’s bottom line.

Since the beginning of time, the art of selling has encompassed 4 basic principles:

Collect Leads (Attract new people)
Connect with Leads & Create Interest
Illustrate Trustworthiness & Value
Convert into Sales (Then Buy Again or One-Time Sales)

To sell a product or service you must first attract an audience of potential customers or sales Leads. Next you must Connect with your Leads and Create Interest about your products or services. Then you must illustrate trustworthiness and value so that your Leads are compelled to buy. After buying something, they’ll either like it and Buy Again in the future, or it will be a One-Time Sale.

In the past, phone communications, direct snail mail, and email were the go-to methods to facilitate the above sales strategies but times have changed. Customers are no longer talking on their phones; they’re posting and commenting on social media. Many don’t even have landlines in their homes anymore. Snail mail has been all but replaced by email but current trends show that email is fast becoming replaced by DMs or direct messages on social media. The amount of time people spend online is increasing. When they are on their phones, they’re on social media mostly watching viral videos. Studies show that customers will believe a random video on Facebook from somebody they don’t even know over their own mother’s testimonial. They trust the quality of the video more than they trust “mom’s opinion.” Our culture has changed but the basic principles of selling have not. Attract potential customers or new LEADS > Connect & Create INTEREST > Illustrate TRUST & VALUE > Convert into SALES and inspire customers to BUY AGAIN.

Businesses must use social media if they want to be successful in these basic principles because that’s where their audience is congregating, communicating and connecting. It makes perfect sense that you must go where the people are. The larger your audience, the more leads you’ll accrue, the more opportunities you’ll have to connect, the more sales conversations you’ll accumulate.

As the backbone of your sales strategy, social media can be an extremely powerful communication tool. It can be used to promote new and existing products and services; communicate with and train employees; strengthen your brand messaging; promote what’s most important to you and your business; provide customer support documentation; link to 3rd party resources in a different voice that an employee or potential customer might connect with better. In the age of online reviews through sites like Yelp, now customers also have the ability to speak up publicly on social media. Business owners can also respond publicly and use this customer feedback to improve their business. If they have a good reputation and use social media to listen to their customers, they’ll get the feedback they need to improve their products and services, and their bottom line. Using social media, businesses can communicate with customers in a multitude of ways, show them that they care and appreciate their business, thereby reminding them to visit the business again and again.

Once a business owner understands the inherent value of social media they’ll be as passionate and aggressive about their social media strategy as they are about the rest of their company. At Bluume, creating a strong social media strategy is just one of the ways we can help a business improve their bottom line. With a professionally designed social media strategy you can increase revenue and profits to a point where you have financial freedom to spend more time doing what you love.

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