25 Ways to Increase Conversions Using a Social Media Strategy

The first clear step is to decide what you want out of your social media marketing strategy. You need to determine goals, otherwise it will be hard to track your return on investment. There has to be a clear reason behind what you post, and when you do it. Posting random content to your social media channels without a clear strategy in mind is not going to yield the best results.

But make sure to be realistic! There’s no point in setting goals that you know you won’t be able to hit. With attainable goals you are much more likely to stick to your original plan and be a lot more satisfied with the end result. If you are aiming to have close to a million social media followers in six months then you might need a rethink. Step back and think about how you expect your business to grow over a certain time period.

And who knows? You may eventually get to that million mark! However, it's important to set steady targets and grow your followers gradually. Aim for sustainable growth rather than unrealistic immediate impact.

Your social media strategy and content will mean nothing if you don’t have a clear idea of who you are targeting it to. You need to research what similar businesses are doing with their target markets. What time is your audience online? How long do they stay online for?

While it might not be everything - engagement is important. You need the crowd behind you! You are going to need as many likes, shares and comments as possible from the people that are most likely to buy your product. It is then a question of figuring out how to turn your social media followers into buying customers.

But before all this you need to create a persona for each potential buyer group of your product. For example, if you were a recruitment company you would have businesses and jobseekers as two potential audience personas. You could then think a bit more about what these people want and need from a business such as yours. What exactly would they gain from using your product? What would they be like before they used it, and what would have improved for them after?

It goes without saying that you need to figure out who your closest competition is. More than likely, your competitors are already using social media. So try and take a look at how they are using social media marketing and see if there are any ideas that might work well for your business. This isn’t stealing- it’s seeing what works in your industry and latching on.

For example, let’s say one of your competitors is using competitions on social media and getting high engagements. It’s probably a good idea to run competitions yourself on your own social media. You can then put your own unique spin on the contest and prizes in line with your own company ethos.

Don’t forget relevant industry keywords and how often your competitors are using these on social media. The competition might also change the way they use their social accounts. It's important to keep an eye on this information and allow it to inform your future goals and strategy.

Before you dive in with your social media strategy, it's important to interpret real-world data on social media channels. For example, Facebook might seem like an obvious choice for your social media marketing. However, LinkedIn’s rise in popularity as a B2B social network might mean it's the strongest option for your business.

Social media analytics provide an excellent way of finding out more about your target audience. You can find out where they live, how they respond to your brand on social and which languages they speak. Once you have this knowledge, you can personalize and tailor your social media marketing to the appropriate audience.

For example, let’s say more women were using Facebook at a certain time of the day- 8.pm. It would be important to target any female-oriented content at this time to increase engagements.

It can be great to have thousands of followers on your social media profiles. Your brand will appear as if it has a growing number of customers- who wouldn’t want to look like that? However a large follower count does not always tell the whole story, and businesses and customers can see through that.

It is more important than ever before to build solid relationships on social media . To do this you need the best content and effective social media scheduling.

Will you prioritize post reach over clicks or engagement? For post reach to work, you need your content to spread far across social. Link clicks are also essential for seeing how customer and potential customers move through your marketing funnel. Or maybe you want to analyze engagements, which means the total number of social interactions divided by the number of impressions. It’s up to you!

Before you start planning an exciting new social media strategy, you need to evaluate how you approached social media up until now. What worked well for you and what didn’t? How does your social media presence compare to your competitors? Who is connecting with you on social? Does your target market use many social media sites, and if so- which?

Try to collect all this information and analyze it before jumping in and getting your new social media strategy started. This will allow you to have a good starting point when planning to improve your results.

It is true that your audit needs to provide a clear representation of your social accounts. Let’s say that you have a social media account that doesn’t have a clear strategy. Is it worth keeping? Is it attracting the right audience? Maybe you need to get back to the drawing board and evaluate if the right audience is on your channels. Or perhaps the account is outdated and needs a complete rehaul.

There are several difficult questions that you need to ask yourself. Is the correct audience really present on your social channels? What is their behaviour like? How do they use the platform, and when? And most importantly, does your business goals align with your planned social media strategy for this channel?

If you are honest with these answers then you are on track to get the most out of your social media strategy!

Your tone of voice on social media is hugely important. A business must always keep a consistent personality across platforms to give potential customers a sense of familiarity. This will all depend on the type of business you have and the products or services that you provide. For example, if you were a hair and beauty business your social copy would have a more feminine or friendly tone. On the other hand, if you owned an accountancy firm your tone might appear more professional or business like.

It really is all down to you how you establish your tone of voice. What’s most important is that you decide this with a clear head and after consultation with colleagues. Then you can approach your social media strategy with a consistent voice and branding.

Having verified social media accounts will allow your brand to appear more authentic. Your potential customers will know that it really is your business that is behind the social media marketing, and not a copy.

It’s possible that there are duplicate accounts of your business out there. This is something that might appear in your audit. Don’t worry if you find them! You can report these as soon as you spot them to Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. Fake accounts can harm your brand and take away followers that should really be yours. Getting your accounts verified means that you can then build a trusting relationship with your followers.

It’s important to not underestimate the power of social media marketing on your brand. You need to have a team of committed marketers to schedule and promote your social media content. Don’t just leave this to one person in your business.

There are many different aspects to your social media strategy that need to be considered. Who will create the content that will be uploaded on your channels? Who will schedule the content? Who will find or create the visual content that you post? Hire correctly and you will have a social media presence that enhances your brand.

The type of content that you post on social media will help to define your brand. It will showcase your identity to potential and buying customers- so its critical that you find the right content! Don’t target content to your unpopular demographics without a solid strategy in place first.

It’s also equally as important to know the difference between target content and promotional pieces. The latter can annoy or potentially frustrate your users. In fact, 46% of users have said that they will unfollow a brand if too many promotional messages are present. As well as this, 41% of users have claimed that they would unfollow a brand if they shared a large amount of irrelevant content.

These numbers stress the importance of getting relevant, non-promotional content to your target audience. You need to get the balance right- otherwise you are risking the loss of followers or potential customers.

Each business will probably have a social media platform that suits them more than others. For example, a b2b business will probably prefer using LinkedIn. More people in senior management positions would be present on this network, so it would be an important tool for promoting your brand and connecting with like-minded businesses.

On the other hand, a hair and beauty salon will probably get higher engagements from Instagram or Facebook. The ability to upload images or videos to a younger demographic that could be interested in health and beauty products is an attractive proposition for such businesses. Potential customers will want to see the product working successfully. Video case studies are an excellent example of how a business can use Facebook or Instagram to prove that they have an excellent product.

Twitter is also hugely popular for establishing a presence, particularly among American audiences.

Video content has grown in popularity for social media marketers. The ability to get a message across via the medium of video has changed the marketing landscape. And you should embrace this!

Product videos inform potential buyers visually and help them make a decision. The ability to see a product in action and be used successfully is an excellent asset for any business. In fact, according to Sprout Social, 90% of shoppers online feel that videos have had a direct impact on their purchasing decisions.

There are many ways that you can use video content to your advantage. Facebook Live is an excellent way of building and maintaining an immediate relationship with your customers. Instagram stories are another popular idea that will allow you to remain connected with your younger audience.

A posting schedule is simply essential for your social media strategy. You need to organize what content goes out and when on your preferred channels. The importance of this cannot be underestimated! Targeting your high-quality content to the right people is a must- otherwise no one will see it.

There are plenty of tools out there that will help you with this. ContentCal and Buffer are two well-known tools that will allow you to fill up your calendar with content and schedule when and where it is posted. Marketing automation software such as Hubspot will also allow you to do this.

As previously mentioned, finding out when your target market is online will allow you to direct the content at optimal times.

It can be really difficult to create high-quality visual content on a daily basis. Photo editing tools are sure to help you along the way. Visual content keeps your customers engaged and interested in your brand

A great idea that could work for your business is to create content themes. Although keeping a close eye on content trends can be time-consuming, it will make a huge different to the quality of your content and the engagement that it receives. It is important to section out your content and keep everything familiar for your audience

Instagram is an excellent source of inspiration for content themes. Check out what similar brands are doing so you can set up a consistent theme on your chosen platforms. Good examples of evergreen content themes include information content themes, product recommendations and quizzes or surveys. It is up to you to decide what type of content you want and what suits your target market!

Every business needs to have a strong mission statement that communicates their values. This is not only important for your business but also for each of your social media profiles. If you can establish a mission statement for each of your channels, then you are on to a winner!

This will allow you to think how your social media posts help to achieve business goals. What are you trying to achieve by posting to Facebook or Twitter for example? Perhaps you want to drive traffic back to your blog. Or share other sources or news articles in the hope of getting backlinks and referrals.

You could have a certain percentage of content on company culture, or on lists of influencers or social media marketers. It really is up to you! But always keep your business objectives in mind when posting. Every thing you put on social media should be for a clear reason, and tie in with your social media strategy.

This point ties in with building a great social media team. Without a few hands on deck you won’t get the most out of your social media strategy. And one of the most important things a social media team can do is respond to users immediately on these channels.

For example, if a potential customer asks a question on Facebook and doesn’t get a response they are much less likely to remain interested in or buy your product. It really is that simple! Why should they care about you if you don’t care about them! Super fast and helpful customer service is simply essential for any business that is taking themselves seriously.

The ability of a user to message directly to a business on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn makes this more important than ever. If you respond quickly to your users it will appear on Facebook that you answer swiftly to any queries. This will bring the number of questions up and at the same time the number of potential paying customers.

Delegate someone or a group of people on your team to act as front-facing customer support agents on these channels. Having a clear procedure of how to deal with queries will speed things up and keep potential customers happy.

Every business has key influencers in their social sphere. If you connect with someone who holds a lot of influence in your sector via social media, your product or service will get more exposure. Sounds simple right? And if an influencer really cares about your shared sector, then they will be more than happy to help you out.

If you get an expert endorsement your brand will appear much more credible in the eyes of the customer. For example, a local gym will receive much more engagement online if a fitness professional shares them. You need to build and maintain relationships with influencers. This can start by sending them a targeted email or message, or simply liking or sharing the influencer’s social media content.

In a way, not being on an influencer’s radar may mean that you are doing something wrong. Your product or service needs to be respected and known by those with the most credibility in your industry. Don’t get downbeat if you are an unknown quantity, use this information to improve your product and get it to the top of the market. You need to keep up in the race with your competitors and not fall behind to more innovative marketing campaigns.

A positive customer review is something that every business wants and is an essential part of a company’s online reputation management strategy. It endorses your brand and tells people that you have a reliable product. If you can showcase these reviews on social media, then even better!

It’s always good to get a face with the positive review, so make sure to include a headshot next to the quote or review that you are posting. What will really make you stand out though is a video. A positive video explaining how the product worked successfully is going to have a lasting impression on your customers- so take note!

A social media campaign can either improve or destroy your reputation. Be careful with your marketing strategy and think long and hard about the effects that it might have. You are going to want to create a positive impact for your target market which will in turn increase engagements.

For example, launching a marketing campaign that leaves you open to any form of negative feedback or PR is a disaster waiting to happen. Coca Cola deciding to use a branded image of snow-covered Russia probably wasn’t the greatest idea in hindsight. At the time, the Russian map was a debatable issue due to the annexation of Crimea by Russia from Ukraine in 2014.

This caused a huge backlash from Russians who felt it was disrespectful towards their country. An edited version of the image with all regions included however caused Ukrainians to feel offended. In the end, the image was taken down.

Long story short- think carefully about what you are going to post! Don’t get involved with debatable issues or anything that may cause offence. This will present your brand in a poor light and may affect sales.

Having an informed overview of your social media strategy is essential. You need to know what’s working for you and what isn’t. Without doing this it will be difficult to know which campaign is successful or more effective than others.

Your goals, metrics and network preferences need to be as clear as possible. Try and set a target of how many engagements you would like to reach in a month. That way, you can go back and measure your social media efforts against what you aimed for. You can check each social media channel and see which is performing the best, or the worst. From there you can make the slight adjustments you need to keep your social media strategy in check.

The key is to develop long lasting relationships with your customers. If you do this, there will be a lot less room for failure and your overview will look healthier!

To successfully track your progress on social media you are going to need the best tools. Without them, you will struggle to analyze your social media strategy over a period of time! There’s nothing wrong with using social media manually, but using great tools will save you a lot of time and effort. A no brainer right?

There are a wide variety of tools out there- so get searching! You can choose from social media listening tools, scheduling tools or analytic tools. Once you have the tools that suit your business, you social media strategy will be much easier to implement. For example, if you have a scheduling tool that’s working great for your business, you are going to have more time for SEO strategies or producing excellent optimized content for your blog.

You can use the data to analyze your strategy and how its performing over a length of time. This can be used to compare and contrast two different strategies to each other. Tests are a good way of finding out what works best for your business. Try different campaigns, strategies and posts against each other in light of this information. You are likely to notice the best strategies and the ones that are not performing as well as you’d like.

Luckily, there’s nothing really wrong with implementing a strategy that doesn’t perform well. As long as you act quickly and refine your strategy based on a real-time situation, you should be good to go! Having a proactive strategy is important as it allows you to change your tactics and not lose time on a strategy that’s not working.

Every business must adapt to change. Be prepared to adjust your social media strategy to what is happening outside and inside your business. A strong awareness of market trends will allow you to anticipate and make the appropriate changes. This has to be communicated to your entire social media team so everyone stays on the same page.

It's always important to get customer feedback. This information will prove invaluable to you as you develop your social media strategy. Surveys are an excellent way of finding out just how well your tactics are working. You need to find a way of asking your audience if they are satisfied with your social media presence. This can be done via email marketing, an outreach campaign or simply as a poll on your social channels.

You need to allow a space for your customers to tell you what they want done differently. It's important to act on these suggestions as it shows you are willing to change or improve your marketing.

We all know that great images are essential for increasing engagement on your social media channels. They visualize what your brand truly represents and capture attention. For this to work as effectively as possible, you are going to need the best images.

Free stock photo sites are a great place to get started with this. Your Facebook cover art, for example, is an important part of your profile as it's the first thing your audience will see. Pick an image that jumps out to potential customers or highlights the unique selling point of your product or service and you are on to a winner. Pikwizard’s free photo database has an excellent section of image categories, from forest backgrounds to desktop wallpapers.

So that’s it! These are just 25 simple ways in which you can use a social media strategy to increase conversions. The social media marketing game remains as competitive as ever- so start thinking clearly about your strategy.

You need to start with careful planning. Without setting goals, identifying your competition and collecting important data your ideas will struggle to get off the ground. If you plan ahead then you are more likely to anticipate any setbacks or strategies that simply won’t work. Always carry out a social media audit before you start implementing a strategy- you never know what has worked successfully for you to date.