How to use social media for B2C marketing

You wouldn’t place an ad in just any magazine and expect it to magically boost sales. Setting up a profile on a social media platform and blindly posting updates is the same concept. Using social media for social media’s sake is not a strategy that gets results.

Don’t worry; you don’t need an entire team of people to start seeing social media ROI. By spending as little as six hours per week, 69% of marketers see lead generation benefits with social media.¹

If you’re wondering how to use social media for marketing, start by incorporating these four practices:

1. Find New Customers
2. Consider the Customer First
3. Create an Engaging Content Plan
4. Leverage the Power of Community

Organic reach has gone the way of fax machines and rotary phones. The days of free impressions are over; social is now a pay-to-play environment. Paid social is a tried-and-true approach because it inserts your brand into the minds and vocabularies of potential shoppers. Once you’ve chosen the right social media platform, try these two successful tactics for increasing brand awareness and finding new customers with paid social advertising:

• Invest in mobile video ads for your next branding campaign for a 32% lift in brand awareness.²
• Deliver targeted messages directly to your competitors’ customers by browsing for them by name in the Interests category on Facebook or searching for their usernames on Twitter.

When you’re using social for B2C marketing, your number one priority should be paying close attention to customer needs.

• Engage when and where your customer needs you, on the channel of their choice, not yours.
• If there is a problem, respond authentically with valuable answers. Customers need solutions or suggestions.
• Leverage a social response tool to respond accurately and quickly.

Learn more about customer service best practices with our Digital Customer Care Playbook.

Compelling content is a way to cut through the noise and clutter on social media. Your content must be visually enticing, and it must tell a story. Videos are one of the most effective storytelling formats — people are 85 percent more likely to buy a product after viewing a product video.³ Studies show that people would rather watch a live video than read a blog post. It’s important to note that your video doesn’t have to be perfectly produced either; it just has to be interesting and useful.⁴

While social networks are terrific tools for acquisition, powering reach, and winning your audience's attention, they fall short on the deep engagement you need to build relationships with your customers. The simple reason for this is that they are off-domain. You can’t control the experience your customers have when they view your content and interact with your brand on Pinterest or Instagram, and you certainly can’t communicate with customers on these properties in any scalable capacity.

Branded, on-domain communities are a powerful, untapped consumer touch point that influence consumer behavior and generate B2C social media sales. Superfans and engaged community members are the most loyal customers, and they spend more.

Looking for a way to get ahead of the game? The benefits of adopting a social media management technology platform can be transformative.

¹ Social Media Examiner - "2017 Social Media Marketing Industry Report"

² Content Marketing Institute - "23 Things to Consider When Creating Video Content [Examples]"

³ Inc. - "16 Eye-Popping Statistics You Need to Know About Visual Content Marketing"

⁴ Social Media Examiner - "Visual Content and Social Media Marketing: New Research"