5 ways to make your social media a sales machine

Transcription

1 5 ways to make your social media a sales machine

2 Aseem Badshah Aseem is the Founder and CEO of Socedo, a web platform that helps to automate prospecting on Twitter and LinkedIn. He's been a leader in the social media marketing space for more than 8 years. Before Socedo, Aseem founded Uptown Treehouse, a marketing agency for Fortune 500 brands focused on social media. You can learn more from Aseem at blog.socedo.com.

3 Build your client base with social media 1. Find your target audience With 72% of all web users active on social media, your potential customers are out there, and they come with a wealth of information. A single Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram profile contains the customer s name, location, interests, and community of peers think about what you can learn based on who they follow, and who follows them. More importantly, social media provides real-time updates about customer behavior, whether they re tweeting about yoga, asking their friends if anyone knows a good personal trainer, or uploading pictures of their first guitar. Know what social media sites your client base is using the most. The Pew Research Center has some great data about the demographics on different sites. Then build out a list of keywords and hashtags your ideal customer would be using in relation to your services, and search for your audience based on this list. 1

4 2. Discover a new customer persona Businesses grow because they find new markets. The great thing about social media is that you can see who is interested in your service. You may be surprised! While targeting the audience you already know will be interested in you, make sure to pay attention to the types of customers who engage with your content. Who is retweeting you, sharing your pins, and commenting on your Facebook updates? Continue to update that list of keywords, hashtags, and bios when you see positive trends. You ll also learn what your customers are talking about and how they are finding you and your services. Social listening is all about being aware of your position in the community, and it s as easy as tracking hashtags about your brand and active users in your space. 2

5 3. Make them notice with content It s one thing to find your customers, but to keep them engaged, you need to make yourself valuable, or at least interesting, for the time they spend on social media. Consistently sharing content, from blog posts to inspiring quotes to interesting articles, is the best way to keep yourself on the forefront of your customers minds. T.A. McCann of Rival IQ advocates a rule for social media content. Out of every 10 tweets, Facebook updates, or other posts, five should be content from others, relevant to your audience, three should be content from you, and two should be something personal and non-work related. Social media is about being social. Too many brands use it as their personal billboard to promote their services. Keep your community interested in who you are, and they ll turn to you first when they re ready to become customers. 3

6 Things you also need to check off your list Can they handle group classes? They might be a great 1-on-1 trainer, but coaching group classes requires a very different set of skills. Can they handle pressured situations? They have to be able to respond quickly and figure out what to do without showing your clients any weakness or doubt. Nothing is a big deal unless they make it a big deal. Are they able to call audibles in class, quickly create solutions, and execute? This is key in scaling options for injuries, inabilities, or a class plan of 10 members that jumps to 25 in the next class. The coach must quickly adjust and adapt their floor and workout tactics with a smile. 4

7 Do they know how to troubleshoot? Your coaches face challenges large and small thrown at them daily by clients. If your coaches face a situation that they can t quickly identify, analyze, and solve, your clients lose faith in the coach and your business. Do they have social awareness and social acuity? Your coach might be teaching a great class and say something they think is hilarious. But what if it s offensive to a member? Generally, coaches who do this have a pattern of doing so, thereby losing respect among members. The coach needs to have that special set of skills to read the room. Even worse than a bad-joke-coach are coaches who believe yelling and reprimanding adults is the proper way to gain respect and control. I recommend the book How to win friends and influence people as well as anything on NLP Neuro Linguistic Programming. 5

8 And, of course, always check your gut. Where there is doubt, there is no doubt. While instructing people is the #1 task of most coaches, don t forget that they need to fit and reinforce your culture while representing your brand properly. If anything seems off, don t make the hire! The wrong staff can cause irreparable damage to your business. Do your homework! Learn more about how you can manage your business, call Front Desk at