Social media is one of the fastest and most effective places to generate new leads, attract followers, drive targeted traffic to your website, and cash in on conversions. Today, social media has become an integral part of our daily lives, with about 60% of the world's population using social media and a global social network penetration rate that has reached 59.4%.
Among the various platforms, Facebook is the biggest social media platform today, with 3.03 billion users. However, the real challenge lies in understanding and figuring out the right approach to convert the generated leads and followers into actual customers.
While the social media likes, follows, and comments are all great, they won't be of any use if this engagement doesn't turn into customers to grow your business and revenue. Learn about various ways to convert passive followers into paying customers.
Understanding The Power Of Social Media Engagement
With a massive global social user base, which is expected to grow to 6 billion by 2027, businesses across the board are investing in this marketing channel. Another report suggests that brand discovery from online sources comes through social media 52% of the time.
Social media engagement here is nothing but a measure of how the audience or customers are interacting with your social media accounts and content.
It is a broad term that can cover a range of actions across various social platforms:
- Likes
- Comments, replies, and DMs
- Saves
- Shares
- Click
- Retweets
- Mentions
In the last few years, we have seen social media platforms completely revolutionizing the way businesses interact with their audience. The traditional one-way communication has evolved into a two-way conversation, giving businesses an opportunity to build strong relationships with their customers.
Advantage of social media engagement
- Boosts brand visibility and recognition
- Provides valuable customer feedback and insights
- Builds trust and loyalty with customers
- Drives website traffic and conversions
- Increases reach and potential for new customers
5 Ways To Transform Social Media Engagement
Fortunately, learning to sell on social media is a tactic that businesses of any size and nature can successfully use to grow. In this section, we will explore some of the ways to turn social media engagement in the form of likes, comments, and shares into actual leads that can potentially translate into sales for your business.
1. Prioritize Content
A large part of your social media marketing success lies in creating relevant and engaging content that strikes a chord with your target audience. By developing such high-quality, valuable, and interactive content, you can successfully generate a lot of interest in your audience or followers.
- Add different text to videos using a script to video maker, which will generate videos easily for more deeper understanding of the content and encourage them to engage with your posts more.
e.g. Offering tips, insights, or downloadable resources that require users to share their contact details, such as email or phone number.
- Share your story and the background of why you started your business to let your audience know more about you.
- Have an authentic voice on social media, as it helps you humanize your brand and encourages customers to respond and talk about you positively.
- You can liven up your social media feed with relevant GIFs and emojis, as they have become an important part of the social media language. Also, it encourages customers to engage more with your brand.
2. Promote Wisely
While it is not advisable to put up a promotional post on your social media pages, it doesn't mean that you can't promote your content at all. The best way here is to follow the 80/20 rule of social media, which says that 80% of your post or content should be informative/educational to hook your audience, whereas 20% should be promotional to convert interested customers.
a) Run Time-Sensitive Deals/Offers
Interesting deals and discounts are an excellent way to nudge people to try out or buy products. All you need to do here is to add time pressure and a Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) factor to encourage people to buy your products now.
b) Start Contests or Giveaways
Giving free stuff or running exciting giveaways/contests is also an effective way to encourage your audience to engage and share your posts more. This will also help you expand your reach to people who are not following your social media page yet.
c) Run Social Media Ads
Social media ads are very effective in making customers and prospects engage with your page and content better on social media. A survey also highlighted this fact, with about 90% of people confirming that they buy from companies they follow on social networks.
d) Engage with Your Audience Authentically
Engaging with your audience authentically is another way to generate leads from likes and comments. You can do this by responding to messages, comments, and other mentions.
e) Explore User-Generated Content
Make sure to showcase reviews, testimonials, and other user-generated content to build trust among the users and encourage others to engage.
f) Retarget Engaged Users
Please make use of ads to target users who've already interacted with your content, thus offering them special deals or exclusive content.
3. Mobile-Optimized Website
Today, an increasing number of people use social media from their phones, which makes it important to optimize your website for mobile devices, tablets and smartphones. Failing to navigate the website on the phone can make customers give up and move on instead of clicking on your website to buy something or read an article they saw an advertisement for on a social platform.
Data also show that businesses lacking a mobile-optimized website lose out on several opportunities to generate more sales and revenue. As a result, about 68% of companies now use mobile marketing as part of their marketing strategy.
Guidance for responsive web design:
- Keep it simple: A cluttered website not only looks unappealing but also makes it difficult for users to navigate on their mobile devices. Keep the design minimal, and focus on highlighting important information.
- Use large fonts and buttons: Mobile screens are small, making it crucial to use larger font sizes and buttons to make them easier to read and click.
- Utilize white space: White space is crucial in a mobile-responsive design as it helps to break up the page and makes it easier for users to focus on the content.
- Test website on different devices: Make sure to check how your website looks and functions on various devices and screen sizes to ensure a seamless experience for all users.
- Optimize images and videos: Use compressed images and optimize videos to improve the loading speed on mobile devices. Slow loading times can lead to higher bounce rates.
4. Have Great CTAs
Call-to-action plays an important role in directing the audience to take some action. Strong and attractive CTAs help businesses catch the audience's attention instead of having them just passively scroll through social media feeds. Data also suggests that embedding CTAs in your blog posts leads to a whopping 121% increase in conversion over simple banner advertisements.
The key is to determine the desired action you want your audience to take after interacting with your content. This may include responding to your tweet, subscribing to your email list, following your Instagram page, reviewing a podcast, or making a purchase. It's important to have a clear call to action that encourages engagement and drives the desired outcomes.
How to write powerful and eye-catching CTAs:
- Use clear and actionable language such as learn or discover to let your audience know what you want them to do.
- Include a lot of social proof to convince your audience.
- Highlight the specific benefit or value they'll get out of it.
- Get personal with your CTA, such as contact now or sign me up.
- Use a sense of urgency with phrases like limited-time offer or only a few spots left.
5. Social Media Tools
Another excellent way to make the best use of social media engagement is by using specific tools that align with your organization's goals.
a) Social Media Scheduling Tools
There are a range of different types of social media scheduling tools available on the market today. You can use these tools for everything from composing your posts to content curation to queuing and organizing the content.
- Hootsuite
- Buffer
- Sprout Social
- Emplifi
- Vista Social
b) Social Media Analytics Tools
Whether you're measuring your follower growth on Instagram, tracking Facebook impressions, or evaluating your LinkedIn engagement, social media analytics tools help you get the full picture of your efforts and analyse everything.
- HubSpot
- BuzzSumo
- Tailwind
- Audiense
- SparkToro
c) Social Media Automation Tools
Social media automation tools such as social media chatbots help you streamline your customer service across social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. They also assist in creating automated responses and personalized messaging.
- ManyChat
- Chatfuel
- Quintly
- IZEA
Frequently Asked Questions
=> HOW CAN I INCREASE MY SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT?
Create high-quality and relevant content, actively engaging with your audience, using hashtags, hosting contests or giveaways, collaborating with influencers, and utilizing social media tools.
=> WHAT TYPE OF SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT CONVERTS BEST?
This primarily depends on your audience. The best way to know what type of social media content converts most effectively for you is to be consistent with testing, tweaking, and testing again until you find the right fit.
=> WHICH SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING METRICS ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT TO TRACK?
Among the most important social media marketing metrics to track include conversions, traffic (how many visitors come to the website), conversion rate (how well they convert into customers), and revenue (how much money you make from each customer).
=> HOW TO CREATE SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT THAT STANDS OUT?
Creating social media content that stands out requires a consistent focus on attractive captions, high-quality visuals, and offering value to the audience in the form of relevant, informative, or engaging content.
Conclusion
Converting social media likes and comments into conversions and sales is a long journey that requires consistent efforts in the form of strategic planning, detailed analysis, and a thorough commitment to building long-lasting relationships with your audience.
With the right mix of personalized messaging, engaging content, and utilizing social media tools, you can effectively increase your social media engagement and ultimately achieve your business goals. Keep testing, experimenting and never stop learning from your audience to stay ahead in the rapidly evolving world of social media marketing.
