Word of Mouth is always the best marketing available to a business owner, because the recommendation of a friend will always carry more weight than an advertisement. These days though, most of that word of mouth is happening online! People are seeking recommendations in Instagram and Facebook and using Marketplace as a search engine for the products they need.
That doesn’t mean we abandon all other forms of advertising, and I still believe that an e-mail list can be the most effective marketing tool available to us, but it’s worth noting that Social Media Platforms are free to use and an active profile represents an active business.
Strategy
Every post you create doesn’t have to have a strategy or angle. The occasional post for fun is ok, BUT, this is a business page. So you don’t want it to be overrun with pictures of your dog, or posts that are entirely unrelated to the products or services you sell. Social Media Posts can serve many purposes, but knowing the purpose you intend it to serve will help you create content that grows your business.
Sales - Obviously one purpose our content serves is to sell a product or service. There are multiple ways to do this.
One sales strategy would be to open a story arc with our customer by showing the raw materials or artistic process behind the product. Giving the customer a peek behind the curtain shows transparency and build trust. It also gets a person’s interest and makes them want to see the finished product, so they are more likely to circle back later. I suggest following this up with an “in progress” post showing the work when it is partially complete, and finally closing that story arc by sharing the finished product along with a link that leads them to where they can purchase the piece.
Another sales strategy might be to provide your customer with a gift buying guide that pertains to an upcoming event or holiday. As I write this Mother’s Day is coming up, so you might put together a list of products you sell that would make great Mother’s Day Gifts. You could share these products in a photo album or use Canva to create an info graphic of sorts detailing the type of mom the gifts would be suited for (i.e. soccer mom, pta mom, busy mom, etc)
A basic sales post should always be a recurring staple in your arsenal as well. This is simply sharing a photo of an available item. Detailing a desirable feature of that product or outlining the purpose that it serves, and attaching a link where they can purchase that product - or tagging the business they should visit to do so.
Engagement - Another reason we post to Social Media is to interact with our customers and grow the ‘social’ aspect of the customer relationship. When you are building trust with an audience in hopes that they become customers, interaction is key.
Posting a photo of yourself doing something fun (and hopefully on brand) while asking your customers a relatable question is a great engagement post. These aren’t always the easiest to come up with on the spot, but if you pay attention during the regular course of your day for opportunities to grab these selfies, you may be surprised to find they eventually become some of the easiest for you.
Getting customer input on a new project can also be a fun way to increase engagement while also getting their interest in what you are working on. Maybe you could present a few color options (or fragrances or materials, etc) and ask your audience to vote for their favorite.
Authority Building - Setting yourself up as an expert for your audience can be very important when it comes to gaining their trust and confidence in purchasing from you. There are several ways you can do this.
Sharing information about the creation process such as why certain steps are crucial or why the tools you use matter establishes your knowledge and credibility and allows the customer to see you as an expert that they can trust.
If there is a teaching element to what you do, then videos where you teach or just allow the customer to watch your process serves the same purpose. Demonstrating your skill again shows transparency and builds the customer’s confidence in your ability.
Brand Awareness - One of the most important strategies in social media posting is brand awareness. People can’t shop with you unless they know about you. So growing your follower count is good as long as you are attracting the right people. Making sure that you content is on brand and appealing to the right customer for your product should always be a part of what you are posting.
Shareable Graphics are great for brand awareness. You can create quote graphics or information graphics with your colors and encourage people to tag a friend. This is a great way to reach outside of your existing audience to get the right eyes on your business.
You can run the occasional giveaway to try and gain awareness and followers, but I would use this very sparingly, as I don’t think they are usually effective. Rather they are a great way to say ‘thank you’ to your existing audience if you hit a milestone, and the new attention would be a perk, but to use it strictly as a way to grow isn’t usually that effective.
Sharing a product that would make a great gift and mentioning that your audience should tag a friend who needs it can also be effective for reaching new people.
Ultimately simply being consistent and engaging with comments is the most effective method because the way these sites work is that they show people what their friends are doing. So your customer’s friends will see your posts when they interact, and if you are posting content that is on brand and appealing to your ideal audience, then they are more likely to click through to your page, see more of your work (if you’re active) and follow you.
Types of Content
Image Posts - This should be a regular part of your social media marketing. These pictures create an online portfolio of your work. While these are not always the posts that will bring new people to your page, they are usually the posts that sell product, and they are definitely the content that potential customers will be looking for if they want to buy from you. Use the captions of these posts to describe the unique details of your product, tell the story behind it’s creation, or suggest the occasion when it might make a great gift!
Story Posts - Both Facebook and Instagram now have story features, which are pictures or videos that only show up in the feed for 24 hours. This is a great place for casual conversation with your audience. If your creation process takes a day or less, these are great for those story arcs I mentioned when we talked about sales strategy. At this time all business accounts have the ability to add links to their stories so it’s also a good place to share products with purchase links. With the easy to use polls available in these posts, this can also be a great place to get some customer feedback and interact with your audience.
Livestreams - I believe at this point every social media platform has a livestreaming option, so if you are comfortable in front of a camera and you can create while talking with your audience this can be a great way to let them get to know you. Building Know, Like & Trust with your audience is an important part of business, and these real-time interactions can be very effective. If you can’t create in front of a camera, but you create product in collections, then you could do a livestream to reveal a new line and use video to show off details that pictures can’t capture.
Reels/Shorts - These are short edited videos you can use to get your customers attention. You might be selling product in these piece of content, but mostly you would be showing off your creation process, giving folks a behind the scenes view of your process or using music and sounds to create a brand aesthetic that grabs the right customer for your products. If you are teaching, you might create really short tutorials in this type of content to drive more traffic to your livestreams or full length videos. This content is usually going to get a potential customers attention, and hopefully drive them back to your profile to learn more about what you offer and hopefully follow you or purchase products.
Full Length Edited Video - This kind of content creation if really great if you are teaching your audience how to use a product that you sell or if you teach in-person workshops and want to give your audience just enough to want to learn more. It is a bigger time commitment and really falls under content creation more so than social media marketing, but it bears mentioning here as something to consider.
How - To
Social Media Channels are forever changing and if I record a video today showing you how to do something, it could change tomorrow. My recommendation for using all of these features is first to simply play with them. You can test out all of the mechanics without publishing a post or video and if you accidentally do, you can always delete it later. I think you will learn the most this way. The second thing I suggest is simply going into these apps and using the search feature and typing “how to (create a reel, post a story, etc)” all of these platforms have users who are experts and constantly share how-to videos and teach you to use the new features. This will be much more effective for you since you’re more likely to get real-time accurate results.
Now let’s plan it out! Today I’m sharing a content calendar that I give my students inside the framework to map out a week of social media content to help them stay on track when it comes to promoting their products and services!
