We are big supporters of social media and its brand building qualities;  it is the perfect channel to ‘connect’ with your target audience and push your message. However, once you have your hundreds of followers and fans how do you convert them into a sale? According to a recent publication by MediaPost,  at its core social media works best when relying on good old fashioned marketing tactics promotion and customer service.

Your social media campaign should aim to increase brand awareness, drive customers to the website and convert the follower to a sale. The MediaPost article using data published by Razorfish states, “of those who follow a brand on Twitter, for example, 44% said access to exclusive deals is the main reason. And on Facebook and MySpace, 37% cited special deals as the main reason they have “friended” a brand”. As the stats tell us brands must be enticing customers to their websites using promotions and discounts doing so will increase brand interaction and encourage customer loyalty.

Using social media platforms to give customers added value such as insider hints, tips and additional information regarding products can push customers onto your website and help the decision making process. The correlation between such brand engagement and providing above average customer service is high. Big brands such as BT are utilising social media platform Twitter to provide immediate and relevant customer service, e.g. within minutes of a complaint about their service is aired a message is recieved by the complainer asking for contact details with someone dealing with the response as soon as possible saving you the time and effort of phoning and sitting on hold!

Online customer service from BT

However, as we touched up on in our Habitat Getting It Wrong post for a successful online marketing campaign you must strategically plan a course of action. Many businesses and brands may rush into setting up social media profiles on the premise that it will ‘be good for the brand’, however, as this post has hopefully communicated there is more to social media than building brand awareness and that it takes a little more than having a big brand to entice friends/fans/followers to your website to purchase.