How to use social media to boost your product sales

OK, you asked for it and new here it is!  61 Entreprenette Experts give their tips on how to use social media to boost your product sales! There are a lot of juicy tips in here and innovative ways to attract new customers and covert to sales.  Let me know how it works out for you!

1. Value is key

Give prospective clients a bite of the steak, let them smell the char-broil and hear the sizzle, but don’t give them the whole steak. 

It’s all about giving SOME value without giving your services for free. I try and give some guidelines on an issue without being too specific. This raises awareness and positions me as someone knowledgeable about the issue without giving possibly inappropriate and unsolicited specific advice and creating a compliance issue. Prospects who see this then decide for themselves if they have this particular problem and consequently, know who to come to for help in solving it. 

A good example would be a simple tweet with possibly a link to a related story or whitepaper: Do you fully understand how the coming changes in estate tax law may affect your wills, trusts or other estate plans, possibly voiding them completely?

Thanks to: Ben Pearman  www.PearmanCo.com

2.  Be honest

Stay Honest about your products and services, even when you run into a negative comment. Social Media is all about being transparent and honesty will earn you respect from your audience. Show the human side of your company with every post you make. At the end, people buy from other people.

Thanks to: Ali Allage  www.boostlabs.com

3.  Be more informational

Using social media to promote products can be tricky. The best way to do it is not to promote the product directly, but to provide useful information about it. For example, if you are selling sewing machines, post video tutorials about sewing (and use your machine) sponsored by your machine company. Your content online should be at least 90% informational and useful, and 10% or less advertising.

Thanks to: Andi Enns  www.AndiEnns.com

4. Turn lemons into lemonade

If customers and prospects make negative comments on your social media page, don’t delete their comments! You will be surprised at how many loyal customers will jump to your defense, and those comments will hold much more weight than anything you could say. You will also be given credit from prospects for being so open-minded. All of this will lead to greater sales, especially among those who are ‘on the fence.’

Thanks to: Peter Leeds
 
www.PennyStocks.com

5. Same Bat time, same Bat channel

Here’s my Twitter Tip: Always send your updates, special promotions and new products at the same time everyday. This will help your customer base and will make more people follow you if they know they can count on you being consistent.

Thanks to: Michelle Littler www.littletoad.etsy.com

6.  Be a thought leader

From my standpoint, Twitter has been very helpful in making connections with potential clients as well as potential strategic partners. I actually have two tips because one sets up the other: 

#1 – Use http://search.twitter.com to enter keywords that pertain to your business/product/customer needs. Follow the people that you 1) think would be a potential customer, 2) think would be a potential strategic partner and 3) think would be a good evangelist/influencer. 

#2 – Position yourself/your business as the “thought leader” in your space by 1) finding information like blog posts, articles and other websites that you can share via Twitter, 2) share your insight and opinion regarding hot topics pertaining to your industry and 3) ask other bloggers if you could be a guest blogger resource.

Thanks to: John Joyce

www.thesmallbiznest.com

7. Open ID with Facebook

Integrate any and all user registration that you have with Facebook. It’s
better than OpenID because “regular” people have it, not just geeks. And
regular people hate signing up for new services. Let them log in
(securely) with their Facebook account via a bridge connection, and you’ll get new customers.

Thanks to: Edward Crotty
 www.zoolert.com

8.  Key words

Target key words related to your product/service create landing pages with useful info/relevant content relating to this key word and then use social media searches to find people talking about your key word and then direct them to the landing page.   Thanks to: Nathan Mathews www.kurufootwear.com

9. Linkedin – o – rama!

LinkedIn is a social network that gives employees and entrepreneurs a chance to find leads and network, but it is frightfully underused. 

For this discussion I assume that the user already has a profile on LinkedIn.

FIND LEADS ON LINKEDIN

Track Start-ups. Chances are good that they haven’t yet fulfilled the need for your solution.
You can find start ups by doing an advanced search for a range of keywords such as “stealth” or “new startup”. Apply the “Sort by” filter to “Relationship and recommendations (or 2nd Connections)” in order to see the people closest to you first 

Actively leverage your contacts to get introduced to THEIR contacts. 

Don’t contact businesses through LinkedIn. Instead, research the business via LinkedIn, take down names of perceived decision makers and either call them directly or send them an email (you can usually find contact information via their corporate site). 

When you do initiate or accept a connection request, make the communication goal oriented.

Tell them why you connected with them,
remind your new connection who you are and how you can help, and when they accept your invite, 

 email them back with your vCard, so that you will easily be stored in their address book.
It is best to have some of this templated (but remember to personalize!) to have some of the boredom taken out of accepting or initiating connection requests.

PROMOTE YOURSELF ON LINKEDIN:
There is a lot of clutter on LinkedIn. It is however worth it to actively promote yourself, but be wise: ditch networks that are cluttered and only keep the ones that are targeted.

JOIN GROUPS:
Groups in your city, Groups related to your industry 

Join industry groups where your clients might operate 

Join groups your top contacts have joined (where appropriate), especially clients, as it keeps communication channels open and keeps you front of mind.
BE ACTIVE:

If you conclude that there is a group lacking on LinkedIn that might help your clients find answers to their problems, create the group and be the dominant provider of solutions.

Create meet-up events for members of your groups where you discuss a universal problem for that group and how they can solve it. This will establish you as an expert.

Create meet-up events where you introduce clients who could be of mutual interest to each other.

Create webinars that answer universal questions within a group and invite others to join to the webinar. After the webinar, point them to your websites forum section where they can further discuss the webinar. Provide a sign up to a newsletter that educates about the problem and potential solutions.

Promote your webinar in:

Groups.
Create an event.
Further promote it in relevant forums to get cross-pollination.
Email clients that might be interested in joining.

Look for questions asked on LinkedIn that touch your expertise. Answer them. Where appropriate, link to the resources you created online that might them help solve their problem or make their decision.

Post question for others to answer. This might give you insight in potential new clients you could connect to.

Thanks to: Lorenz Lammens 
Online Design Bureau

10.Start a group on Linkedin and Facebook

One of the best ways to increase your circle of (social) influence is to great a group specific to a cause or special interest that is related to your mainline business.  By promoting and facilitating a community/conversation about the tangential issue, you quickly position yourself as an authority.

Tactically, everyone who finds your group, either by explicit topical searches for groups to join, or via exposure from others (their list of groups, invitations to join, etc) will have your profile in front of them as the group owner.  You will find that people will friend you or link you as a default behavior, or you can proactively and routinely sweep the group of potential new connections to add to your network.

This will allow your business to be spotlighted in discussion threads, posts that end with your signature, complete with links back to your website store, and even targeted ads or promotions you can share with the group.

Thanks to: Kenny Jahng     

www.essistme.com

11. Coupons on Facebook

Create special offers only available to Facebook fans, and then 
promote the offer in all your other communications, including in 
product packages. Example: in your package or in e-mails, say “Become 
a Fan of “our company” on Facebook where you will find a 10% coupon code!”

Then have a coupon code on your Fan page.
Give people a free item if they ask their friends to become a Facebook fan. We do this on the honor system. This approach is MUCH 
better than advertising on Facebook. When we run paid ads on 
Facebook, we get much less traction than when we ask Facebook fans to 
tell their friends about us.

Thanks to: Salah  www.soaphope.com

12. Post daily

Social media requires a constant stream of information. Figure out what you have to say and then break it up into small bits. Drip the stories out a piece at a time. You should be blogging and tweeting daily. Your posts will quickly be lost on highly active sites. Be sure every post has a link back to your site.

Thanks to: Deb McNaughton
 www.azuliskye.com

13. Spread the word

The best way to boost sales using social media is to make sure once
you introduce an offer you promote it. For example, if you are
introducing a special discount or incentive on twitter, there are ways
to get the word out beyond just tweeting the message to your
followers. Some examples include: Engage with influential profiles that have a similar target audience
and encourage them to promote on your behalf via @reply, DM, and email

- Introduce hashtags and bit.ly links so you can monitor performance
and track where the message is going, then you can continuously
refocus your efforts towards the best performing methods

- Make sure your bit.ly links are vanity so that when customers are
searching for your product, the twitter offer will be searchable.

Thanks to: Leslie Hall www.icedmedia.com

14. Time sensitive discounts

My best tip for boosting product sales is to run time sensitive discounts that are announced exclusively via Facebook. For no cost, this kind of program effectively drives incremental product sales and it can increase your engagement on Facebook too.

Thanks to: Jared Carver  www.kangaroosusa.com

15. Choose your connections wisely

Depending on your product’s target audience breadth, send friend requests to everyone on the same site. You can do this with software, but the best way is to manually select real people. The software will connect you with other automated accounts, spammers, non related accounts, and will increase your spam rate. If you do it manually you can make the decision given a person’s profile or posts whether you should connect with them. This way you connect with real people, real people interact with you, real people look at your site, real people forward your profile to other real people. Simply connecting with people will bump up your awareness numbers. -the interacting part is a different tip.

Thanks to: Gary Unger   
www.garyunger.com

16. Advertise on Facebook

Best tip is advertise on Facebook, make sure you do more than one ad at a time.

Thanks to: Charles Atlas  www.charlesatlas.com

17. Tweekdeck

TweetDeck is a wonderful FREE resource that allows entrepreneurs to update Twitter, Facebook and Linked In accounts in the same window! You can send the same message to all accounts or send individual messages to specific pages/accounts. It also has a built in URL shortener so you can post shortened links to blog updates to those pages.

Thanks to: Dawn Shedrick

       www.abundantblissceremonies.com

18. Become a trusted source

Go to the answers section on Linked In and answer open questions. This provides a reason to speak to a potential lead. Once they consider you a trusted and knowledgeable source, your business becomes more appealing. This is a good way to network online and seek meetings offline to strengthen these connections. In order to maximize this opportunity through Linked In, join Groups that your clients would typically join or that are relevant to your industry. The questions you see as a user of the site are linked to the groups you join.

Thanks to: Amy Wetton
 www.firstdegreenyc.com

19. Build community

To leverage social media to boost product sales, no more than 5% of 
your effort using social media should be devoted to selling – focus 
95% of your efforts building credibility and community.

Thanks to: Laura Nedbal    www.crowdspring.com

20. Offer more than a sales pitch

The best way to use social media is to offer your audience more than just a sales pitch.  If you can get in the habit of forwarding useful tips to them in your field along with your usual postings, then they will see value in what you offer.  You can even offer quotes to inspire them so you will be remembered as someone who cares to make their lives more meaningful and productive.

When it’s time to share what you’re selling, you have built rapport with your ‘friends’ and they will be more likely to consider purchasing your product/service if it suits them.   Networking in business evolved because we tend to be more likely to do business with those we know – even superficially – than with complete strangers.  It’s no different online than it is in person.

Thanks to: Marianne Douglas  www.StrategiesforSuccessCurriculum.com

21. Connect your accounts

Sales – Everyone loves to be the first to know about a sale, so every business should tweet or post a note on Facebook about any sale or promotional offer.

Connect Your Twitter and Facebook Accounts – As a business owner, time is of the essence. The easiest way to save time and to stay current on both social networking sites, is to connect the two. With a few clicks of a button, Facebook allows you to sync up your Facebook profile to your Twitter page. So, when you update your status on your Facebook page, it is automatically posted as a Tweet on your Twitter account. This has saved me so much time!

Thanks to: Taqwa Aquil www.TaqwaIman.com

22.  Significant discounts are alluring

Post a special discount or offering for a limited amount of time to encourage others to not only purchase but to re-post or re-tweet to their list of contacts.  Make sure it is a significant discount or offer to get people to move on it quickly.  10% off or free shipping isn’t going to cut it.  If you can offer a temporary 2 for 1 deal or a 30-50% discount it will not only increase your customer list but will introduce consumers to your product, brand or service that might not get noticed under normal adverstising or promotional efforts.  Like Groupon, if it is a super deal, people will at least take the time to look to see what you are offering even if it is something they don’t usually purchase.  Sporadic viral marketing campaigns such as this are worth the temporary decrease in profit.

Thanks to: Jeanne Krieg  www.drymate.com

23. Transparency is key

Be genuine and completely transparent when communicating on behalf of a company.

Thanks to: Mary Schwartz www.Sittercity.com

24. Compliments really do work

When you approach an individual or company through any of the social media channels, lead in with a compliment.

Highlighting what you (honestly) admire about someone’s work, website, blog, product, etc. shows that you’ve actually taken the time to learn something about them and makes people feel good. It’s more likely that they’ll want to do business with or listen to you if you make them feel good!

Thanks to: Kelly Lester    www.EasyLunchboxes.com

25.  Twitter Testimonials

One of the best ways to use social media is to use Twitter as a credibility indicator. When you receive positive feedback about your business via customer tweets, highlight them on your site’s testimonial page instead of using bland text testimonials and your conversion rate will improve.

Thanks to: Anthony Adams of www.drinkthc.com

26. Seed product to YouTubers

Seed product to YouTubers. If their channel is beauty focused, send them product and form a relationship with them where you can revisit them each season with your new product. Same goes to fashion focused channels. Stylists and fashion brands can give YouTubers challenges (i.e. style these pants in 3 different ways) to make it fun and fresh. Choose YouTubers that have over 3,000 subscribers to see an increase in sales.

Thanks to: Karen Robinovitz www.purplelabnyc.com

27.  Video is key

Post a product video or video link demonstrating your product on youtube, facebook fan pages that make sense (like toys r us.com on facebook for toys) and twitter.  You can keep the video simply with a Flip video camera if you are on a limited budget;

Announce fan only contests on facebook.  (A good example is a deal of the day or deal of the weekend that is only posted on the facebook fan page).

Thanks to: Michael Araten  www.knex.com

28. Build anticipation for your product launch

1 – Two weeks before your product launch put out “mysterious” messages such as “Shhh don’t tell anyone but something special is coming.” Or “I have an exciting announcement to make, but I can’t tell anyone about it yet.” Do this through all your social media outlets: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, your newsletter and blog. Consider staggering the messages in different outlets on different days so the anticipation stays fresh.

2 – Announce the product. The week before your product launch make the announcement and increase interest by giving a free preview or a limited number of the items free of charge.

3 – Sell the product. If you’ve done these things at least two weeks in advance you should have generated enough interest to have a successful product launch.

Thanks to: Alicia Arenas   www.sanerapdc.com

29.  No Fluff

Make sure you connect with your target customers and provide them with information they can USE, not just fluff. Sounds simple, but many fail this obvious step. Build a community!

Thanks to: Charlene Anderson
 www.charanderson.com

30. No camera required

Make a promotional or instructional video for about $5 on Animoto.com, starting with just still photos. That’s right—you can select featured music from their site, enter still photos and words, and come out with a dynamic video to place on your website, Facebook, YouTube, and more. You don’t even need a video camera!

Thanks to: Jenny Pavlovic    www.8StateKate.net

31. Integration

Focus your efforts on one message so the consumer hears the same message about you regardless of the source.

Thanks to: Barbara Rentschler  www.knex.com

32. Smile for the camera

My best tip is to create a short video on your product whether it be a book or an online class – post it on youtube and other video sharing sites and of course embed it on your blog. It’s then mentioned on twitter and facebook as well.

Thanks to: Violette www.violette.ca

33.    Go Bit.ly

Write a blog post for your website about a product or service. Tweet it or post it on Facebook using a URL shortener such as bit.ly and to see the stats and the resulting sales. You get more people to your site to see what you offer and this often translates to sale, present or future.

Thanks to: Jill Nussinow www.theveggiequeen.com

34.  Consistency

Tip #1: When using social media as a form of marketing, whether on Twitter or Facebook, the key to drawing in new sales is consistency. In order to drive potential customers to your website, you must have an audience which consistently engages with you and your brand; people who talk to you not just about you. You must also consistently send out messages about your product, brand, sales and promotions. If you do not have the fan base just starting out, or you are experiencing difficulty in creating a loyal fan base, using a Social Media Marketer – like The Social Tweep – can help to drive sales traffic while increasing your brand awareness.

Tip #2: Stay clear of auto-tweeting on Twitter and auto-updating on Facebook. Nothing screams spam louder than the same message appearing several times a day. Even if you word it differently for each auto-tweet, regular users can “spot the bot” and will quickly hit the unfollow button. If you can’t tweet 50 times a day, that’s fine. But, make sure you are physically typing and sending quality tweets in real time.

Thanks to: Michael Grosheim
 www.thesocialtweep.com

35.  Answer Questions and build credibility

Engage your target audience via LinkedIn Groups and Q&A. Join a handful of targeted industry groups and receive daily or weekly digest updates regarding discussions. Join in relevant threads, offering value by answering questions and offering your perspective. Over time, you will build credibility and generate new partners, customers and employees.

Thanks to: Kent Lewis www.anvilmediainc.com

36. FBML applications

To start collecting names through your facebook fan page install the 
”Facebook Static FBML application” which will in essence create a blank 
page section in your sidebar that you can install html into. I suggest installing an aweber autoresponder script directly into that box. With the appropriate bribe you 
should start building your list immediately.

Thanks to: Liam McIvor www.vtamethod.com

37. Capitalize on your competitors by interviewing them on your blog

Why work against your competitors when you can work with them? Interview them on your blog. This creates great blog content while getting your own company good exposure.

Thanks to: Camille Picott   www.pixiupress.com

38. I Apps

Get an iAPP developed for your book, product or service. Then, ask your friends on Facebook and your Twitter followers to check it out and tell a friend. Since it is a cool, new thing, people will go viral with it, as it is an interesting cutting edge marketing technique

Thanks to: Sally Shields www.theDILRules.com

39.  FB contests

Post meat and potatoes TIPS and inspiration. Also host contests for your Facebook fans and Twitter followers. This is how we have gotten business from our fans and followers.

Thanks to: Angela Cody-Rouget  www.MajorMom.biz

40.  Yes or No?

To get more interaction with your fans or followers, ask them a question that does not end in a “yes” or “no” answer.

Thanks to: Laura Davis  

www.hpdarch.com

41. Find your own customers!

Everyone is very transparent in Social Media these days (ie:  “I really shouldn’t have eaten that bag of chocolate chip cookies last night.”,  “I need a vacation.”, “I am so frustrated! My new $900 pair of shoes just lost a heel.”).  If you go look for your customers, instead of waiting for them to come find you, you’ll be able to sell them a weight loss program, a trip to Bermuda and a pair of quality $800 heels!

Thanks to:   Lindsay Wilson  www.socialmediaheaven.com

42. No hard sell

Don’t try to hard sell, be human and make real connections, don’t be afraid to arrange to talk to people on the phone.

Thanks to: Marc Lawn   www.thebusinessgp.com

43.  Brand  management

Other than truly leveraging the most popular social media tools such as Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook, I recommend brands to strenghten brand management and marketing through other social tools that soothes other value dimensions, such as reputation building and as per Nielsen, **”Winning Online is About Serving Your Audience, not Impressions”.  I call this Social Brand Marketing Management ecosystem. One of the not highly-utilized tools that supports product-line sales is BrandsEye.com which monitors the whole web in real-time providing us of an eye to what people are saying about our brands and products, because it allows the brand to be proactive in defending any negative buzz about its products and to offer a more detailed information for reluctant proposed customers, in addition to opening the doors of cross-selling and up-selling for confirmed customers.

Thanks to: Omar Aloyoun www.magsnow.com

44.  Free Shipping

My best tip of a way to use social media to boost sales is to offer a 
discount or free shipping if people order mentioning which social 
network they heard about you on.

Thanks to: Michelle Dunn  
www.MichelleDunn.com

45.  Eyes wide open

Know what your goal is for using social media- do not just jump on the bandwagon blindly. You have to know what you are going to do otherwise social media will not boost your product sales.

Thanks to: Rachel Schopler   www.bevshots.com

46.  Make good use of lunch time

Social media is a great way to establish and maintain a personal connection with past, present and potential clients.  Using mediums such as Twitter is an effective yet simple way to let your followers know what you’re up to and to keep them connected to your business.  Simple daily tweets about what you’re working or even shout-outs to your clients will help give personal depth to you and your business.   And the best thing is, this can all be done from your phone while you’re on your lunch break! It’s all about establishing a strong rapport with your clients, who are your door to infinite referrals and other opportunities.

Thanks to: David Tosti Tosti Studios www.tostistudios.com

47. Become a trusted, agenda-setting source

By constantly offering the best deals and sales, including those from competitors, customers will trust you and seek you out as a source of information.

Write concise messages: On Twitter, leave room for “RT @name” at a minimum, so that customers can help spread the word within the 140 character limit.  Optimally leave more room for customers to add their own words in addition to your message.

Social Media as a feedback engine: Social Media provides a unique window into consumer’s  minds yo incorporate feedback as a means to improve your existing product.

Learn to distinguish between critical/negative comments and hateful/damaging.  Chances are that if someone knows enough about your product to criticize its flaws, they are probably an influencer who will share their thoughts with others.  Use criticism as an opportunity to court influential users and engage the public.

Thanks to: Matthew Hurst www.bluefountainmedia.com

48.  Wikis work

My best tip is to optimize listings on semantic web wikis that welcome
enterprise content while not
wasting much time on Wikipedia, unless you’re a truly notable business
with at least 30 mainstream news mentions of your impact.

Thanks to: Gregory Kohs
 www.MyWikiBiz.com

49.  Tread lightly on twitter

Don’t pound your twitter followers with links for your product if they are not in the market for your product.  Some links are okay because your twitter followers are interested in you and knowing more about what you are doing.  However pounding them with a link to a product that don’t want or can’t use is alienating and doesn’t result in the sales of your product.

Thanks to: Kay Ballard 
kaykaysdivorce.com

50. Use Twitter as a conversational launching pad to establish new and lasting business relationships.

Starting a new business has many facets; none more so important than establishing strong business relationships. Use Twitter to reach out to influential individuals from both inside and outside your industry trade. Collaborate upon ideas; share leads; ask valid business related questions; etc. Don’t just pitch products. If possible, try to arrange a meeting where you can visit with those you converse with online. No electronic chitchat can take the place face-to-face dyadic conversations. Rather, use Twitter as a conversational launching pad to establish new and lasting business relationships.

Thanks to: Bryce Lindhardt  www.carbonitadetail.com

51.   Celebrate your launch

Utilizing social media to boost product sales should not be left just to go-to market execution but also and perhaps more importantly before and during the product conceptualization (innovation process) itself.  By engaging customers throughout the innovation process through social media, much of the market adoption risk associated to product launch is preemptively mitigated and a natural by-product is an influential group of consumer evangelists that will help celebrate your launch.

Thanks to: Warren Ng & Riley Gibson   www.napkinlabs.com

52.  Think big

Create content that can be used across several different media.

Thanks to: Mark Goodman  http://www.youtube.com/scorechicagovideo

53. Start you own social media site

The best tip in my opinion is starting a social site.  i.e. a Ning etc. it is free cost effective, you can target a group to join your site, you are in control of your site, page and membership.  It is completely free to start.  The great thing about it, is you can advertise, promote your products, services, events and you have a ready available audience. The site includes events, main page, blogs, video discussion page.

Thanks to: Eula M. Young www.griotsroll.ning.com

54. Lat minute sales

Post last minute discounted items on Twitter.com and people will usually snatch them up.

Thanks to: Candy Keane www.ThreeMusesClothing.com

55. Mini-blog all day

Hopping on and off your favorite social networking site can make a mess of your productivity; but ignoring interaction for hours can send the wrong message. Instead, post a few mini-blogs throughout the day while limiting your read-and-reply times to just once. Like a blinker signaling an upcoming turn, your mini-posts signal your intention to engage while not requiring you to take every off ramp you see.

Thanks to: Marnie  www.Marnie.com

56. Run spontaneous “contests” to drive traffic to your website.

You can get creative and try to create contests that have a theme that directly relates to you and your product.  Try things like product placement with someone famous or of note in your industry, but obscuring their face. Have your customers “guess” who is holding your product and the first right answer wins one of your products or something else comparable. You can also do product placement in an interesting place and have your customers guess the location.

I find that by creating a frenzy of sorts to be the first to guess correctly not only drives traffic to your website, but increases interest and excitement about your brand.  Encourage entrants to sign up for your mailing list and then announce the most recent winner in newsletters that also offer a coupon, discount or other incentive for them to keep purchasing your product.
Thanks to: Marci Geller www.marcigeller.com

57. Sweepstakes contest

In my experience with social media, the best way to leverage Facebook fans and Twitter followers is to have a sweepstakes contest.
Everyone loves winning something free, and in the case of one of my
clients, we were pleasantly surprised to learn that offering 5 free
t-shirts could deliver impressive results. In sum, we set it up like
this: each time a user took a “social” action such as becoming a fan,
tweeting, leaving a comment on our blog, etc., he/she would be entered
into a drawing to win one of our 5 free shirts. In no time at all, we
saw engagement increase tremendously on all of our social media pages.
That meant a huge spike in Twitter followers and Facebook friends and
fans. Of course, we can’t assume that when someone links to one of our
social media pages, they will later make a purchase, but it does set
up a relationship which we can continue nurturing, and really, that is
the single best thing that social media can offer—to help businesses
build direct relationships with their customers.

Thanks to: Gloriane Yi
    www.superlativellc.com

58. Be genuine and honest with yourself and your customers

We all want to sell more product and make more money, but when it comes to Social Media the most important thing to remember is that your primary goal is to connect with PEOPLE. Be honest with yourself about your product and services and you will have clear definition as to who your social media audiences are. Be honest with your customers. Don’t be afraid to have one on one conversations with them, answer their questions, hang out where they hang out, and make yourself available to them when they need you. Treat your customers as you would treat any friend or acquaintance and you will be guaranteed success at social media branding your business and selling your product. 

The next time you fire up Twitter to send out that next “big sale tweet” why not try a different approach and search that space for activity related to your product and work on connecting with the people who are looking for help or talking about things related to what you offer. To make this easier you should use one of these free tools out there that allow you to actively monitor and segment this giant stream of information: Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Twitter Lists. Start listening, discussing, sharing and participating and your product sales will increase as a result of your ongoing participation.

Thanks to: Matt Nelson
www.firsttracksmarketing.com

59. Facebook chat

Utilize the chat function on Facebook to speak directly with potential customers.  Being able to speak to network friends in real time allows for real time responses and the ability to ask for purchases that happen immediately.

Thanks to: Asadah Kirkland www.beatingblackkids.com

60. Create a video and put it on YouTube, especially if you have a visual product.

YouTube videos are now ranked by Google’s regular search engine, and can often get to the first page of Google results in a day or two. YouTube itself is now the 2nd most used search engine in the world. Therefore, think about the words that your customers would use to find your product, like Florist Medford, MA, and make sure you use those keywords in the Title and Tags for the video.  If you have any type of visual product, and always wanted a TV commercial to show it to people, now is the time to do it. And its free.

Thanks to: Patrick Omalley  www.patrickomalley.com

61.  Build your mailing list

We like to use social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, to build our mailing lists by providing teasers and also by encouraging discussion and mailing list opt-ins. When we add new site content, we post links on Facebook, along with photos if appropriate, which keeps our name in front of our Fans. Since we only send our newsletter out once or twice per month, we announce it online a few days ahead of time, and then a few hours before we actually send it out, reminding them that if they’d like to receive the newsletter, they’ll need to op-in. We always see a spike in email sign ups right after we make a post. Content is King, but a strong mailing list is key to online business. Social Networking is a great way to build a loyal list.

Thanks to: Michael J. Hultquist  www.quist.net

Written by Sarah Shaw

There are 22 comments

Cafe Pasadena says:

March 18, 2010 at 7:45 am

Exxce!!ent!

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Lynn says:

March 18, 2010 at 11:46 am

Great ideas Sarah. Need to study them then start implementing those we’re not already. So much to do, so little time!

Warmly,

Lynn

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Maria Millsap says:

March 18, 2010 at 12:26 pm

Thanks for this post, Sarah and to your contributors. I picked up 3 new tips that I will be implementing and adding to my social media presence.

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Kai says:

March 18, 2010 at 12:58 pm

Sarah this is an outstanding list! I bet it was fun working with everybody to pull it together. May I add one more?

I think that “Re-purposing your content” is one of the most effective ways to reduce overlapping effort and fuel top line growth. But what does it mean? It’s like this: your audience has specific informational needs. Once you identity those needs, figure out how to address them in lots of places consecutively. For example, if you record an interview on a subject you can post it as a podcast, spin it into a video, transcribe it into several blogs, talk about the interview on Facebook, invite people to the conversation through LinkedIn, turn it into a Teleclass or Web Conference, etc. That way you are spreading your information as widely as possible and getting lots of mileage without having to pump out brand new content so often. Not that I’m against new content – it just overwhelms many small business owners so why not make the most out of what we already have?

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Tim (BrandsEye) says:

March 18, 2010 at 3:09 pm

Thanks for the mention and a great list!

I really like the integration of wisdom of the crowds (Brand Management) and crowdsourcing (#40) – a very powerful combination.

Chat soon,

Tim Shier
MD – BrandsEye.com
@timshier
@brandseye

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Jenny Pavlovic says:

March 18, 2010 at 5:07 pm

Wonderful list! Regarding my tip (#30) on making a video, here’s an example of a video I made on http://www.Animoto.com for about $5 starting with just digital photos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC3mTXSc0_8. Animoto supplied the music.

Jenny
http://www.8StateKate.net

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How to use social media to boost your product sales (via www.theentreprenettegazette.com) | Napkin Labs, Inc. says:

March 18, 2010 at 5:17 pm

[…] writing it I suppose).  Anyway, we thought we’d post this snippet from Sarah Shaw’s Entreprenette Gazette which we gave her a little help […]

Reply

Kenny Jahng says:

March 18, 2010 at 5:31 pm

@MARIA MILLSAP —

Which 3 tips did you pick-up as relevant to your own business? Always great to hear how people digest new content and make it their own!

Kenny Jahng
I teach businesses
how to market online profitably
http://www.essistme.com

Reply

Marnie says:

March 18, 2010 at 7:18 pm

May I have permission to use this in the paperback version of my book, SANE: Social Networking in 15 Minutes a Day? I’d love to pass all these tips along… as well as introduce readers to all the Social Networking entrepreneurs. Let me know! Great idea for a piece. Marnie

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Sarah Shaw says:

March 18, 2010 at 10:34 pm

@Marnie – You may need to get permission for each person as I cannot grant that to you………I can’t imagine they’ll say no!

Good luck with your book!

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teresa joyce says:

March 19, 2010 at 7:43 am

I wanted to take a moment to say Thank you Sarah.
For always giving of your time and knowledge. I find the information pertinant and timely. Your blog and services are totally awesome!
It is because of your knowledge and willingness to share it that many innovators & entrepreneurs will succeed.
Making it to the top can be hard work that many of us are not prepared for (we may think we are 😉 the information you share with us helps ever so much.
You are appreciated.

Best Regards,
Teresa Joyce
The Pocket Shop
http://www.FunctionAll-Linens.com
512-552-1232

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MattHurst says:

March 19, 2010 at 9:27 am

This list is huge: great work putting this together!

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Sarah Shaw says:

March 19, 2010 at 10:40 am

You are all so welcome! I couldn’t do it without your contributions so I thank you AGAIN!!!

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Marci Geller says:

March 19, 2010 at 10:40 am

This is just wonderful. Marni-you have my permission:-) Contact me if you have any other questions. Here’s a small example of some of the contests we’ve run recently: http://www.facebook.com/katrina.mayer?v=feed&story_fbid=107328799285390#!/photo.php?pid=30841846&id=1302048248

Best of luck to you all!

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Omar Aloyoun says:

March 19, 2010 at 3:26 pm

Sarah, you are the star of this article because you have managed to gather insights from multiple-industries experts to build a benchmark of practical ideas that any segment can utilize to start increasing sales on the spot.

I am glad to be a contributor to your blog.
I am also so glad that my contribution #43 is been encouraged by the Managing Director of BrandsEye.com himself Tim Shier.

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Omar Aloyoun says:

March 19, 2010 at 3:45 pm

You are right Sarah, if we search Google for how to use social media to boost product sales, this article is on the first page and on rank #1 either.

Google BOT respects unique, rich and original content. Google’s tough Algorithm and filter produces a true genuine results that users find and rate it as extremely-relevant.
This is SEO, the Internet’s Law of Attraction.

Reply

In the Media – Pixiu Press quoted in the Entreprenette « My Blog says:

March 21, 2010 at 6:42 pm

[…] The Entreprenette collected tips on social networking from small businesses. Pixiu Press submitted a tip and was lucky enough to be selected. You can read the full article here. […]

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Matthew Nelson says:

March 23, 2010 at 6:40 am

Glad to be a part of this wonderful list of contributing experts. Thanks for putting this together Sarah and I look forward to working with you more in the future.

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grace wieber says:

March 24, 2010 at 8:59 am

Wow, wow & wow… Just when you think you have a handle on things, you get to read a post with ‘eyes wide open’ ! I appreciate the thoroughness that was poured into the writing of this piece. Thank you. ~ Grace

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Nathan Mathews says:

November 1, 2010 at 11:23 pm

Yeah, Sarah I made your list #8 . . .and what a great list this is. As others have said and I agree, what a great list of twitter tips.

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flash text says:

December 7, 2010 at 3:08 am

Thank you for sharing this information about social media. I found it very needful for me. Thanks

Reply

mare says:

May 24, 2013 at 11:39 am

This is really interesting, You’re an overly professional blogger. I have joined your rss feed and look forward to in quest of more of your great post. Additionally, I have shared your site in my social networks

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