How to Increase Sales Through Social Media: 9 Tips That Work

Social media is an essential marketing tool for businesses. Most of your customers have a social media presence and are active members. As per stats, more than 3.8 billion internet users and over 2.4 billion are active on social media platforms.

With the social media user count shooting up each day, it would help if you started thinking about how to increase sales through social media. You can use social media platforms to create your brand's reputation and awareness, generate leads, connect with your audience, etc. While speaking of lead generation, you must first be aware of the different types of sales leads to easily identify them on social media platforms and then prepare qualifying questions for sales. 

In the section ahead, you will learn some most effective ways on how to increase online sales through social media. While many listed ways will directly generate revenue, some will help indirectly. 

Tactics for increasing sales through social media

Use Interactive Posts 

While answering how to increase sales on social media, the top point is creating interactive content for your audience. Try your best to maximize your brand's social media presence and create content to entertain, educate, and attract the audience. 

People use social media in their free time for recreation. Therefore, avoid pressing hard on every post while using interactive posts. Be smart to create a content strategy a month in advance and post accordingly. You can create interactive content like giveaways and contests with media rich elements like carousels, animated videos, and GIFs or audiograms. Content of such kind quickly spreads outside of your existing followers' list, especially if one of the mandatory rules includes tagging friends and resharing on stories. To promote interactions and get higher engagement, begin the contest buzz a few days before the BIG day. 

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Few other ways of creating interactive posts on social media:

• Creating and posting cute animated GIFs, videos, and pictures.
• Creating content inspired by real-life situations.
• Create funny content as it promotes resharing and interaction.
• Post content that includes tips related to your services or products.
• Share customer testimonials, case studies, and customer feedback.

You should create different pieces of content for different platforms. For example, you cannot use the same content for WhatsApp marketing which you are using for Instagram marketing as both the platforms work very differently.

Note: When it comes to sales in general, interaction is an essential aspect of converting leads and generating revenue. Zixflow Leadbot indulges in human-like customer interactions and helps enhance sales. You can connect with a Zixflow expert to book a free demo of this leading lead generation tool and explore ways to enhance sales.

Use the social media platforms your audience uses the most

When it comes to using social media to increase sales, it tempts you to instantly get onto every social media platform and begin posting content on each one of them. But, this is not the best for your business. Every social media platform features a distinct user base, and your target audience might only be active on some of them. 

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For instance, Snapchat and Instagram are big draws for Gen Z and millennials. If you are a B2B business, LinkedIn is an ideal social networking platform to look at. Ensure to thoroughly study your audience and create content for the platform where they are active. When you directly interact with your audience and integrate your social media marketing with your sales engagement platform, the sales numbers go up.

What kind of content must you create for different social media platforms?

• ‍Instagram: Pictures with storytelling, contests, giveaways, etc.
• ‍Facebook: Long-form and video content.
• ‍Twitter: Short messages with pictures and videos.
• ‍Pinterest: DIYs, sharing details about products, etc.
• ‍Snapchat: Short-form video content.
• ‍YouTube: Long-form informative content like tutorials, how-to's, service or product demonstrations, case studies, etc. 

To understand what an optimized Instagram handle looks like, visit the Zixflow instagram account. 

Post often and be consistent

The next hack in understanding how to increase sales with social media is by posting regularly and being consistent. Consistent content helps keep the algorithm up, enhancing your audience reach. It keeps your social media handle active, as well as your customers' entertained and informed. Most social media platforms have an algorithm where your account needs to post consistently to be seen by the crowd. 

When posting regularly, ensure to create valuable and distinct content such that every post is different. People tend to get tired too soon, especially when the content is the same. Every once in a while, surprise your audience with interesting content pieces and remember to interact with them constantly. With regular posting, people become more consistent about your brand. 

Collaborate with social media influencers

Studies suggest that 49% of people depend on recommendations from influencers and are more likely to make a buy after seeing it on any social media platform. 

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You can use the reach of social media influencers to build a reputation and increase sales for your business. Social media influencers have many followers, and they can become your one-click choice to reach out to millions of people in a go. Their mass following can drive up your sales, and you can generate multiple leads. 

Share user-generated content 

The next way to increase sales using social media is by sharing user-generated content like testimonials, user experiences, etc. Potential sales prospects read several reviews before purchasing to ensure the brand is worth their hard-earned money. More and more people are turning to social media platforms to find authentic reviews and witness services and products in action. 

So, now the question arises of how to use social media to increase sales using user-generated content.

If your business has customers sharing positive feedback and experiences of your services and products, share that content on your social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, etc. Whether it's a tweet on Twitter or a customer testimony, ensure to share them on your handles with your audiences. This brings authenticity to your social media profile that you cannot achieve by creating self-generated content. 

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(Source - Instagram handle of Zixflow)

As per a study by Stackla, about 79% of users state that user-generated content favorably influences their purchase decision. Mere 13% of users state that brand-generated content is impactful. 

Promote flash sales

Promoting flash sales is another way to increase online sales with social media. Flash sales are a limited-time offer that creates a sense of urgency among customers. A set of customers who have been long interested in purchasing your product or trying your services are more likely to purchase at the time of flash sales. 

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You can announce flash sales a couple of hours before it begins and create a buzz in customers. Most businesses use Facebook and Instagram to promote flash sales. If you do not have a huge number of followers, flash sales can help create brand awareness, as people tend to share such sale opportunities with friends and family. 

Invest in Social Media Advertising

Social media platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, etc., feature millions of followers. Once you spot the ideal social media platform for your business, your marketing efforts might not suffice for your sales to shoot roaring high. One of the effective ways to cent percent reach out to your target audience and to get your business noticed is social media advertising. Every social media platform has the option to promote business by creating advertisements. This ensures high visibility among a relevant set of audiences. You can display these ads for the list of sales leads that your CRM generates. 

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Keep up and use the latest trends

While speaking about social media tactics to increase sales, you must use the latest social media trends. Creating promotions and content near seasonal festivities like Diwali and Christmas might not be enough, and you must go that extra mile to shoot up your sales. Popular trends are going viral now and then. You must keep up with the latest trends and use them to create content. This will draw more attention to your business in an organic way. If you plan to incorporate this tip, create content as soon as the trend arises. You want to be able to post on a hyped trend while it is in its critical phase. Trends come and go quickly; therefore, you must be on your toes at every given second. 

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To concentrate more on marketing hacks, like following up with the latest trends, you must switch to sales automation to eliminate mundane sales tasks. Once you free yourself of the time-consuming sales tasks, you can avail yourself ample time to concentrate on the marketing and creative aspect of sales.  

Make use of shoppable posts

Yet another way to increase sales using social media platforms is by creating and posting shoppable social media posts. The shoppable posts enable users to buy your services or products directly from your post. Instagram is an ideal example of shoppable posts. 

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For example, you can tag your services and products on your Instagram posts and stories. This enables your followers to view your products and services and make an instant purchase by simply clicking on your website link. You can mention the details, like name, price, description, etc., on the post or story and add a "checkout" button to lead the customers to the product page. This method can also be helpful in your lead-generation process. 

Now that you know the hacks, experience the power of social media marketing!

You probably started reading with a question about how social media can increase sales. Now, you have a collection of the most effective methods to increase sales and brand awareness among audiences. These tips can help you get sales, build a loyal customer base, interact with people, and grow. 

But, to indulge yourself completely in marketing, where you can devise newer ways of business development, you need to make time from the day-to-day sales tasks. In sales, we have often seen reps investing hundreds of hours doing monotonous tasks which can otherwise be automated with the help of sales automation software. So, do automate all you can and invest more time in closing deals.