As a business owner, how often have you thought this:
“Sales are slow. I need to drum up some new business. I know! I’ll post on Facebook and the sales will come ROLLING in!”
It’s easy to think! When you’re busy and raking in the money, finding time to keep up with your Twitter feed, share updates about the business on Facebook and post cool images of your product/brand/showroom on Instagram gets put on the back burner.
But social media suddenly is a very enticing sales opportunity the moment things slow down and your cash flow is drying up.
Unfortunately, I have some tough news to share:
Social Media does NOT Equal Sales
Social Media is about connecting with your audience in a real and genuine way. As a business owner, what that means is providing helpful, interesting and engaging information to your fans and followers so that WHEN the opportunity to sell your products or services comes up, it happens in a natural way.
For example:
A Jewelry Designer (hey- we work with one of those!) may share a series of Instagram posts showing her process from design to manufacture.Seeing some sketches on paper that turn into digital designs in photoshop to a final ring on a finger are super impressive to a follower (cough, like me!) But that series of photos doesn’t directly SELL anything. However, if it’s done well, it will be interesting to the followers.
Maybe the photos are rolled out in such a way that each day a new part of the process is reveled. And each day we as fans get to see the jewelry come to life in a unique way, ultimately resulting in the final completed piece of jewelry being revealed!Will that result in direct sales? Possibly!
If the end product is cool enough, priced right, available for purchase right then and there and easy to buy, it could happen!But what it will do FOR SURE is connect the fans in a unique way that gets them sharing the content, telling friends about it, and engaging with the designer authentically.
Guaranteeing Sales Results
As an agency working with businesses of all types, big and small, we often get asked to work on “commission.” If a company can’t afford our rate, they will pitch the idea that they will give us a share of the profits we produce by running their social media. It’s a great idea, in theory, and one many other business types do as sales commissions are a common thing!
But we know from our experience, that we could lay out the BEST social media strategy, create the most engaging, beautiful, artistic content that increases followers, gets people talking and sharing and yield ZERO sales results.
Social Media does NOT guarantee Direct Sales
We know that if a great strategy is in place and implemented well, combined with a great product or service and the right audience, sales will happen over time. But it may not be as a result of a Facebook post. Or a beautiful Instagram feed. Or the most retweeted Tweets.
Sales happen with a combination of all 3, PLUS a great website, ADD in some PR in the local news, AND a beautiful showroom in a great location COMBINED with word of mouth from happy customers who share their happiness with their friends and family, online and off!
Social Media is an important part of any business plan, but it’s just one part of a bigger pie.
Exceptions to the rule:
Of course there are exceptions! One that can be true in Social Media is: Social media Advertising. There are ways to link your Facebook page to your E-commerce site so that when you create an ad for Product X and target an Audience you know loves your product, you can see DIRECT SALES as a result! While we could call this social media, in reality, we think of this is a traditional advertising campaign, utilize social media as the platform to display the ads!
If you’re looking to integrate a social media strategy into your business plans, we’d love to help! Contact Us to find out what working with method Agency looks like.
Sing it, sisters! I had a corporate account that just! could not! get this! I was also tasked with getting an image of a paintbrush to “go viral”. Lol ?