Social Media Only Works When You Do

Introduction

Social media can be a great tool for generating business. It's often used to connect with current customers and promote brand awareness, but it can also be useful in the sales cycle. The key is that you have to work just as hard at your social media presence as you do offline; otherwise, it won't work for you. Let's look at some ways that social media can help you generate leads:

Honor the relationship between social media and the rest of the sales cycle

Social media is not the end of your sales cycle. It’s a tool that helps generate leads, and it should be used as such. Once you have a lead, you need to nurture them through other channels so they can become customers. If someone visits your website, it doesn’t mean they are ready to buy right away or even at all (see our post on why people visit websites).

Your phone calls and emails will also contribute to this nurturing process by getting information about the customer's pain points and preferences so that when you do reach out again with an offer for whatever it is you're selling (or more specifically, how you can solve their problem), they'll know what they want from you enough that there will be no question about whether or not they should say yes.

Share expert knowledge

Sharing your expertise within the company is one of the best ways to establish a reputation as a thought leader. This applies even if you're a social media manager for a large brand, because it gives you an opportunity to show what makes that brand unique and valuable. It's also an important part of building your personal brand: if people know that you're knowledgeable about X or Y, they'll trust you when talking about those topics—and they may even be more likely to buy from you!

If your company has products, services or solutions available in other industries (e.g., retail), then sharing this information would also be useful. For example:

• If we were working with T-Mobile (a cell phone provider), we could talk about how good their customer service is compared to other providers' services.

• Or if we worked with Google (a search engine), we could share statistics on how many searches are done on Google each day compared with other engines like Bing or Yahoo!

People aren't likely to buy from companies on social media that haven't established a relationship.

Let's say you're a large corporation and you want to get into the social media game. You decide that you're going to try and use Facebook or Twitter as a way of building relationships with your customers and potential customers.

You've probably had an experience like this before: You see an ad on social media, but when you visit the website, there's no mention of what it is exactly that they do. So naturally, you don't buy anything from them... because why would you? They haven't given a single reason why anyone should choose their product over anyone else's!

This happens all too often in business—a company decides that simply putting up some posts about their products is enough; but ultimately, people aren't likely going to buy from companies on social media that haven't established a relationship with them first.

If you're going to take the effort to be on social media, you need to make sure that customers see that you're actively engaging with them.

If you're going to take the effort to be on social media, you need to make sure that customers see that you're actively engaging with them. This means being responsive and visible.

Responsiveness is a huge part of it—if people reach out to you and don't get a response back, they will likely lose interest in continuing the conversation. You may think this doesn't apply to big companies because they have their own customer service teams but even big companies should consider themselves small businesses when it co

mes to social media interactions. If someone says they love your product or service, respond! If someone has questions about something related to your business (like how long an order takes or when it will be shipped), respond!

Just as importantly though: don’t just broadcast or post without interacting with anyone. It's one thing for a business page manager who knows nothing about our industry (and thus didn’t know what questions might come up) not responding quickly enough; it's another thing entirely for me, who works in our industry every day and knows what questions might come up before even reading them myself, not responding at all...

Social media can help create leads, and then it's up to you to close the deal.

Social media can help you generate leads, but it's up to you to close the deal. Social media is not a "free pass" into the next phase of your sales cycle; it's just another way for people to learn about your company and connect with you. If someone follows your brand on Twitter or likes your business page on Facebook, then they're probably interested in what you have to offer—but that doesn't mean they're ready to buy from you yet!

If social media is helping generate a lot of interest in your business and products, great! But don't let that enthusiasm distract from what matters most: closing deals. You need to be willing—and excited—to do just as much work offline as online if you want success on social platforms. And remember that everything starts with one person at a time: every new lead requires nurturing before it becomes an opportunity for revenue generation.

You have to be willing to work as hard as you present yourself on social media.

It's important to remember that social media doesn't automatically equal success. In fact, if you're not willing to put in the time and effort required for your business, social media can cause more harm than good. You may be able to get thousands of followers on Instagram with one post, but without any real strategy behind it, those numbers will soon dry up. You'll have an empty feed and no way to generate sales from your loyal customers or attract new ones!

Social media can generate business but you need to work just as hard at it as your offline work

Social media can be a very effective way to generate new business. But it takes work. You need to be willing to work as hard as you present yourself on social media.

You need to be consistent and persistent in your use of social media, just like you are in your offline marketing efforts. This is not something that should be a one-off campaign that stops after 6 months or 12 months or whatever time period you have decided on for the campaign's duration. It needs to become part of your everyday landscape, because if it isn't something that is integrated into how you do business then it won't work for anyone!

Conclusion

Social media has become an increasingly popular way to sell products and services, but it's important to remember that it's just one component of the overall sales cycle. To make the most of your efforts on social media, you need to build strong relationships with your customers and engage them in a meaningful way.

You should also be willing to work as hard on social media as you do offline because while some people might buy from companies they see online without ever interacting with them again (like me!), most people will not do this unless they feel like they know someone behind those screens that cares about their questions or needs.