Tag: social

From Clicks to Conversions: The Science of Turning Likes Into Sales on Social Media

Are you getting clicks & likes but no conversions (sales or leads)?

Clicks and likes are forms of engagement. Whenever a user clicks on a social media post, that user is engaging it in some way. On most social media platforms, there is no way to quantify just how interested a user is in your brand other than counting the number of times they’ve engaged it.

Conversions are the end goal of all social media strategies, whether it’s branding, product sales, or service leads. If you have an online store, one of your conversion goals could be to get people to purchase something from your store. Let’s say someone clicks on your Twitter profile and then purchases something from your store. That’s a social media conversion. If you have a Financial Planner (CFP) or Advisor service, a key conversion goal is to get people interested in your service to fill out an information form on your website. Again, let’s say someone clicks on your Twitter profile that links them back to your website landing page where they fill out their contact information. That’s a social media conversion.

How do you convert on social media? A few basic ways (as stated above) are:

  • Add a link in your profile that when clicked, leads to your product shopping page (cart). Make sure your product landing page is mobile-friendly.
  • For services, add a link in your profile that when clicked, links them to your website contact submission form. Make sure your website contact submission form is mobile-friendly.
  • Use Hashtags. Hashtags are a proven way to increase traffic to your content and to your website. Make sure that you’re using social media hashtags that are relevant to your business. Don’t overstuff with Hashtags (looks spammy). Use 2-3 Hashtags per post.
  • Your audience definitely wants to see engaging content from you. They also want to be able to connect with you as well. Your social media conversions will improve if you are commenting, liking, and sharing.
  • Include compelling calls to action working on your social media posts. Asking for followers to check out your recent promotions or product/service discounts is a call to action.

Last but not least, track your social media metric traffic back to your website or the product page. Using tools such as Google Analytics, or social analytics tools such as Keyhole, Sprout Social, and Hootsuite also allows you to identify the type of creative and messaging (posts) that performs best. Don’t wait to go viral. Grind. Persistence. Put in the work. Play the long game. Share your content across social platforms. All it takes is one of your followers to share a content post and the conversion amplification may go 2x.

How to Measure Leads Through Social Media

Every day, your customers are active on a huge range of channels, including social media. If you’re not present and engaging with them across all of these social media platforms… it’s killing your reputation, lead generation, and your bottom line.

How you define a quality “lead” depends on your industry, campaign, and goals. Generally speaking, a quality lead will include useful information and clear signs of intent to engage with your business.

Social media is now the preferred business contact platform. Use this to your advantage by actively engaging with (and converting) prospects and customers on all modern channels such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Reddit. If you’re collecting social media leads, you need to be collecting analytics insights. Whether it’s product sales or new client and services type leads. How do you measure it coming from social media? Here are a few ways:

  • Google Analytics. Watch and review social media platform traffic (goals) in Google Analytics to track leads on your website. This will allow you to monitor which social media platform is the best source for your business. If you notice, for example, that Twitter outperforms Facebook, it may be worth redoubling efforts on that platform.
  • Social analytics tools. Tools such as Keyhole, Sprout Social, and Hootsuite also allow you to identify the type of creative and messaging (posts) that performs best. Most of these tools offer easy-to-review dashboards that offer metrics such as the number of impressions, reach, posts, and engagements that certain accounts or hashtags you are getting from each individual platform.
  • Engagement. Engagement is one of the most valuable metrics in measuring social media lead generation. You need to evaluate if you’re engaging with the right audience, how they are interacting with your brand, and what they are doing to engage with your topic and spread your content. The ideal engagement metrics include the number of likes, comments, shares, and re-tweets.
  • Tracking via a specific social media “discount code” or “social shopping”. Many brands offer customers a discount code in exchange for a product or newsletter sign-up. Discount codes or rewards points encourage customers to make a return visit to your site, and ideally a purchase. If you plan to offer one, have a strategy in place for not just generating leads, but also nurturing and converting them.
  • Social Media Ads metrics. The main metrics include Reach, Impressions, and Click-Through Rate.
  • Link Tracking on Social. Link tracking answers the question – “How did you find us? It involves tracking the number of clicks obtained by specific links on your social media posts. Link tracking is helpful in monitoring if your audience is clicking on links associated with your ads.

The above bullets can help you measure leads coming back through Social Media. In the meantime, what can actually help boost the % Leads using social media? 5 tips are below…

  • Optimize your profile. Your profile should provide the means for customers to contact you, sign up for your newsletter, shop, contact information, YouTube channel, etc. Your profile should always include a “link back” to your business website. Make sure to “Add a link” to your bio.
  • Create clickable content. Without compelling content, you won’t collect leads (clicks). Clickable content includes social media posts. Social Media posts include clickable content such as blog posts, YouTube channel content, and call to action type of content (landing pages) that can be SHARED.
  • Use social lead ads. Call to action ads can be posted on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Linkedin, etc. Your best-performing Twitter posts can be “boosted” (just like paid ads) across that platform where you can dial in demographics such as gender, age, geography, etc.
  • Share testimonials as social proof. Customer stories and testimonials can give you the social proof you need to acquire new leads. Showcasing how clients have benefited from your products and services to demonstrate your brand value. Add these stories and testimonials to your website.
  • Leverage social media sponsorships. Instead of using paid ads, you could also attract leads from the social media content that your target audience is already consuming. Consider sponsoring shows, content, and YouTube channels that are popular with your target audience.

 

Why Your Business or Service Needs To Get On Twitter NOW

Why Small Businesses Need a Mobile Optimized Website ASAP

Yodle and Research Now polled 400 US small businesses. What’s shocking (according to this poll) is that 40% of small businesses have not implemented either a mobile optimized website nor mobile optimized emails or SMS marketing.

There is so much opportunity out there with a mobile optimized website. More traffic, more leads, more product sales, etc. Everyone is mobile (has a smartphone and/or tablet). Over half of web traffic is mobile. Mobile users buy more (according to one Adobe report).

Google favors mobile responsiveness (think search engine placement ranking). If you use Social Media such as Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest in your small business marketing strategy, referral links off your social media posts mean that incoming website traffic will be accessed via mobile devices. NOT having a mobile optimized website is just leaving money on the table.

Social Media Analytics is Essential

Social Media Analytics tracks your progress, helps you better allocate your time, and you get to see a bigger part of the whole picture. Social Media Analytic tools such as Google Analytics, Hootsuite, Hubspot, Sprout Social, UberVU measure exactly what the ROI is of some of your social media outputs. If your not measuring your Social Media efforts, your wasting valuable marketing time.

Get on G+ Now or Lose Your Search Ranking

Whether you like it or hate it or …………have no time for yet ANOTHER Social Platform, you now must get on G+ social network.

Google is starting to rank social “signals” from its G+ content. That means your service, business or corporation must establish a G+ strategy to even keep your Google rankings or to increase it. G+ has now become a priority for SEO’s and Social Media marketers. Period.

Brands need to do better job of listening on social media

newmediaandmarketing:

As the owner of a Subaru Outback wagon I am a brand advocate because I believe it’s a great car. I decided to join their Facebook page as a loyal customer and there was a lesson there for all brands to learn. It comes down to the principle that you need to monitor your social media around the clock but more importantly you need to respond in real Internet time not when you find it convenient.

Brands need to do better job of listening on social media

5 critical metrics to measure business blog performance

Social media can be a key driver of short-term traffic.

analyticisms:

Basic analytical stuff but still good advice.

5 critical metrics to measure business blog performance

Your Social Media Strategy Must Include These Platforms

  • FaceBook (encourage Likes and Shares)
  • Twitter (create robust profiles that link-back to your company website)
  • LinkedIn (many forums you can promote your business)
  • YouTube (create marketing & product videos to technical support “how to” solutions)
  • StumbleUpon (StumbleUpon now accounts for more than 50% of all referral traffic from the top social media sites)
  • Wikipedia (The key to getting traffic from Wikipedia is to simply post external and reference links)
  • Blogs (base your blog on the WordPress or Tumblr platform. The “reblog” strategy helps generate traffic. Post at least one blog post a day. Don’t have blog content? Pull some content out of existing white papers, or marketing collateral) 
  • Forums (get active in your online community!)
  • Social News Sites such as digg, reddit, Slashdot, etc.
  • Q & A Sites such as Yahoo Answers, Quora, Answers.com, etc.
  • Document Sharing Sites such as Scribd, docstoc, slideshare (generate good content that people will want to share)
  • Check-in sites such as foursquare

These Social Media sites create “signals” to Google in which they take into account when ranking search results. They also push enormous amounts of traffic back to your website. An active social media presence creates branding opportunities as well as goodwill for your customers (think customer support). In cases of PR messaging, social media delivers instantly.