How to Utilize Social Media Marketing As a Sales Tool

While we all know the obvious benefits of social media marketing, such as the opportunity for engagement as well as having direct access to your target audience, many business owners often overlook its potential benefit on the sales process.

That’s why we’ve put out ebooks like “Take Your Social Media To The Next Level” that outline every step in the social media game to help businesses turn a profit with these free tools.

But for those of you who’ve already spent some time dabbling with social media and want to dig a bit deeper, then this article is for you.  Want to know how you can use social media as an awesome sales tool? Then start here:

Get On Pinterest

Being that it’s now the 3^rd largest social media site in the world, if you have a business, you need to be on Pinterest.  Believe it or not, it really is more than just pinning pictures of funny quotes or pretty bedrooms and food.  Any business – and we mean any business – can have pictures on Pinterest.  Even if your site is the least visually engaging site (after all, how visually engaging can plumbing be?) there’s a way in which you can make your way on Pinterest.  Graphs, charts, pictures of different types of pipes and plumbing tools all have their place, and all should be available through you on Pinterest.

You might have to get a bit creative when coming up with content, but trust us – it’s all great reference material, and you’ll be glad that you did it.  Newsjack something and turn it into something that turns out to be an entertaining or funny meme and you’ve got it made.

Regard Social Media As “Inbound” Information

Rather than view social media as being outbound (i.e. you put out information to the masses), try seeing it as “inbound” for a change. Take into account what your visitors and leads are saying.  What are their interests?  Is there a trend in the type of questions their asking or the topics that they’re discussing?

Take time to respond to your friends and followers on social media and learn more about your buyer personas.

Create Social Media Monitoring And Alerts

Yes, there are tools out there that will keep on top of any company or name mention that you specify without you having to do the foot work! These tools are invaluable and are a must-have for any business that wants to be profitable online and stop wasting time trying to filter through hundreds if not thousands of potentially relevant social media conversations.

When you have these alerts set up for certain keywords, you’ll receive an alert whenever a particular keyword or keyword phrase that’s relevant to you is happening.  Allow you have to do then is click on the link, and you’re sent directly to that conversation which you can then dismiss, address, or monitor.

Use Social Media Marketing Intelligence In Your Sales Calls

One reason why we love the HubSpot “Social Contacts” tool is that it provides the sales team with immediate information on what their leads have been sharing or commenting on when on sites like Facebook and Twitter.  Having that information is beyond invaluable.

It gives your sales team a lot more information on what your leads are interested in, how often they’ve clicked on the company’s social shares, and what sort of content their interested in.  Ultimately it allows your sales team to craft messaging that really speaks to your leads, and therefore sell to your leads.

Check In On Your Competition’s Social Media Accounts

Social media is wonderful for so many reasons, with one of the reasons being that you can keep a closer eye on your competition.  For example, any business on Facebook can mosey on over to their competition’s Facebook or Twitter page (and if you aren’t sure who your competition is, check out our ebook on “The Essential Guide For Mastering HubSpot” which spells out how you can use HubSpot’s Competitor’s Tool to check out who the competition is and why they’re a competitor) and see what their “friends”, “followers” or “fans” are saying.

What sort of questions are they asking?  In some instances you may be able to answer those questions for them right then and there on the competition’s pages.

If not, then it may very well be a worthwhile blog to create and get indexed before your competitor does.