A social media marketing strategy is an important key to your success online.
1. Focus on your customer purchase funnel
It used to be that you could just post information in your local newspaper to let people know about your products and services. Today, successful companies need to analyze and create a customer purchase funnel, also called a sales funnel.
- Leads – People who see your content or information: These people maybe
have seen your Facebook ad, but are not taking action since it’s the first time
they’ve been exposed to your company and need more information in order
to move the next phase. - Prospects – People who become interested but are not ready to buy yet: These
people are comparing options and typically need more interaction to generate
trust with your company. - Customers – People who bought your product: Your task is to identify what
special characteristics they have, in order to target these kinds of people with
your Facebook promotions, and to communicate with them to try to get them
to endorse your product to their friends.
How you can help customers move to the next phase in the marketing funnel Here is a list of items which help customers to move faster toward the next phase in the funnel and toward the purchase decision:
Give valuable content for free: This content can be in different forms and
needs to be interesting and relevant to the initial problem that the customer
has.
Offer more opportunities for engagement: Customers need more opportu-
nities to communicate with your company on different platforms.
Generate trust and credibility: Share customer experiences and case studies.
Survey your buyers and ask why they bought your products, and use that
information to improve your funnel.
Track results in each level of the funnel: Analyze the results in each level of
the funnel and use that data to improve and modify your funnel.
2. Accept the fact that consumers’ attention spans are getting shorter
The strong growth of the usage of portable mobile devices and digitized lifestyles, in general, has significantly changed the way people consume content on the Internet. According to several studies, consumers’ attention spans are getting shorter all the time and companies need to adapt their social media marketing strategies for this new trend.
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Make content that is easy to consume: Typically this means creating shorter
content so that consumers can consume it before getting distracted and moving to the next thing. With content I refer to videos, photos, GIFs and articles, just to name few. A long form content still has its place for con- sumers who already know you and your company, but for most new potential clients you need to create short and interesting content.
- Make the beginning of your content count: The first paragraphs of your article
or the first 4 seconds of a video are the most important, as you need to invite consumers to consume the rest of your content. Using questions in the beginning of your content normally helps to get consumers’ attention.
3. Learn to leverage the opportunities in the Facebook ecosystem
At the moment, Facebook is the biggest social network, serving over 1.5 billion active users each month, and also owns several other social media tools, including Instagram (with 400 million active users), WhatsApp (1 billion active users), and Facebook Messenger (800 million active users). Each of these tools provides a unique and powerful way to interact and engage with your potential customers. Each of these tools will be covered in detail later in this book, but here is a quick overview of the Facebook ecosystem for businesses:
