Social Media=Sales?
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Does social media equal sales? This is something that I’ve pondered a great deal lately and then boom…I happened to land on a post where the writer must have been talking to me. Before we get into that let me just say this-lots of times when we think of social media we focus on the crowd as opposed to the finer details. i.e. the large numbers of visitors that you hope will read, hear, or watch your content instead of what you’re going to do to make your calls to action stand out.
Additionally, the thing that I hear all of the time is “how do you measure social media?” To that my answer is Google Analytics goal tracking or their ecommerce tracking. The big thing that you want to track, of course, is sales. But the key is to take your organization’s actual business goals (sales, ROI, revenue, and etc.) and use one of your social media measuring sticks.
Anyhow, here’s an excerpt from TopRank that summarizes this discussion pretty well:
If social media is to be taken seriously for B2B by marketing decision makers, it needs to maintain a focus on business objectives and driving sales vs. “fluff”.B2B companies are actually in a much better position to use social media as a marketing channel than B2C companies. They often have a much clearer expectation for what a customer does and what they want.If social media is to be taken seriously for B2B by marketing decision makers, it needs to maintain a focus on business objectives and driving sales vs. “fluff”.
B2B companies are actually in a much better position to use social media as a marketing channel than B2C companies. They often have a much clearer expectation for what a customer does and what they want.
Now in Adam’s post Kipp was speaking specifically to the b2b community, however, much of what they said also applies to business to consumer companies too. The bottom line, folks, is that social media certainly can equal sales. The key is finding the right variables!
Have you had any success converting social media engagement into sales? If you have please share them with us. I’d love to hear them.
4 Responses to “Social Media=Sales?”
mike_ramsey on October 19, 2010
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Extreme John on October 19, 2010
I've been selling via Twitter and Facebook for over a year now, it's now the main focus of all of our advertising campaigns. So yes you can make sales via social media. Great post.
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BeninB on October 26, 2010
That's terrific insight by the way. Just out of curiosity do you think you'd mind going into more detail on how you've been able to build that sort of momentum via Twitter and Facebook? I was thinking maybe if you're cool with it we could share your story with the readers of this site.
Otherwise, thanks again. Take care!
BeninB on October 19, 2010
Social media certainly offers a great opportunity to do this. But more importantly the mindset that once you learn where your audience hangs out online-you will be there or rather your content will be there for them.
Take care and thanks for the comment!