One of my colleagues recently asked:

We’ve been posting on social media for years, and it’s never resulted in any sales. Do you have any thoughts? 

And I commend anyone who has been posting on social media for a long time and has yet to get results. Social media sales are possible, and you can attract potential clients on social media. If the person has been posting for years with no sales, something is off.

I took a quick look at the person’s socials, and with just a few tweaks, I’m confident they can start seeing results from social media. If you’re reading this and trying to make sales, be sure to review the items below because they can make a world of difference.

Social media is a powerful tool, but if it’s not wielded properly, it won’t provide the results you want. In fact, 60% of business-to-consumer brands get customers through social media. You can, too.

P.S. The person is using their Facebook and LinkedIn company pages.

Get Personal – Stop Using the Company Page

Company pages are great, but they’re more like a news ticker, right?

You go to a company page for updates, but for driving meaningful business? They don’t work too well (unless you’re using them to run ads from – which is a different story).

So, what can you do?

Get personal. Social media is all about that personal touch that people crave. What I recommend is that you begin leveraging your personal profile.

Why?

1. Who would people rather connect and engage with? A company or a person? Most people will say “a person.” We don’t really know or connect with faceless entities.
2. Social algorithms tend to “throttle” company posts. You can test this out by posting the same post on your company and personal LinkedIn page. Algorithms prefer personal profiles and will show your posts to far more people when posting on a personal account.
3. Depending on the platform you choose, there may be more options on your personal account than on a business one. For example, a premium LinkedIn personal account allows you to connect to 100 people per week. You can’t connect with people on a company page, but you can ask 250 people to follow it per month.

It’s may be hard to break out of your sheel and show up on your personal profile, but I promise you that it’s worth it. 

Niche Down and Get Specific

You can try, but you’ll never appeal to everyone. You need to niche done to make connections that are:

• Relevant
• Profitable

For the person who writes in, all of the posts are generic and aimed to appeal to all people and all businesses. Don’t feel bad. It’s a trap that a lot of people fall into, but you can easily get out of it by niching down.

I’ve also seen many people who believe that they’ve niched down, but they haven’t. For example, I have a lot of firms that tell me they work with “small businesses” or a long list of niches.

Unfortunately, this isn’t specific enough to be niched down.

Worried about your existing clients who aren’t in your niche? 

You can still help them. Your niche will simply provide a focus for your marketing and help you maximize the tips below.

Build Connections and Create Value-Added Content

Social media is all about building genuine relationships. It’s difficult to do that if you’re using stock content. 

After reviewing my colleague’s profile (the one who asked today’s question), I can tell that they’re purchasing stock content from vendors. Stock content can prevent you from having a blank profile, but it’s crucial to humanize yourself on social media and post unique, meaningful content.

Often, stock content fails to:

• Create a meaningful connection. Your personal experiences, stories and insights will resonate more deeply with your audience. They can relate to your experiences and challenges, and that connection will foster a stronger bond.
• Add value. Stock content is too generic to answer specific questions your audience has or to address their needs. Your aim is to make your audience’s life easier and help solve their problems through your content.

So, how do you start creating value-added content?

• Identify your niche’s pain points. What are their specific challenges, questions and problems? What’s keeping them up at night? What solutions do they need?
• Share your personal insights and stories. Weave your own lessons, experiences and insights into your content to make it more relatable and personal. 
• Provide solutions and advice. Position yourself as an authority – a go-to resource for your audience. Share how-tos, tips and insights that address the specific needs of your niche.

Have an Engagement Plan

Content alone on social media is NOT enough. 

To succeed on social media, your goal should be to create a sense of community and interact with your followers and audience.

An engagement plan can help you achieve this goal.

When creating your plan, I recommend that you focus on two main things:

Your Niche Directly

How will you interact with your audience directly? More importantly, how do you find your audience? It depends on your platform.

Here are some tips:

• Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator if LinkedIn is your platform of choice. 
• Try searching for niche hashtags. You can do this on most social platforms.
• Join and participate in Facebook Groups.
• Search for niche podcasts and research their hosts and guests.
• Research conferences and their speakers. 

Once you’ve identified where your audience is, you can start planning how you’ll comment on posts, ask questions, add value and start building real relationships.

Niche Industry Influencers

Your engagement plan should also focus on influencers within your niche. How do you find influencers? 

Many of the same strategies above will also work for finding influencers:

• Look for niche podcasts and their hosts
• Participate in groups
• Search for niche hashtags
• Attend or research conferences

But you can also try:

• Searching for coaches who serve the industry
• Looking for media outlets and seeing who is contributing there

Everyone’s engagement plan will look different. The key is to figure out how you can add value and interact with individuals in both of these categories to start building relationships.

Always Take the Right Approach

Taking the right approach to social media will help you get the results you want, but it’s important to remember that it’s not a quick fix.

Why?

Because building relationships and adding value takes time. Before we had social media, relationships built and grew businesses. The same is true for social media. 

Be patient and make sure that you’re always taking the right approach to social. Each time you post something new, leave a comment or send a direct message, ask yourself: Am I adding value to the other person?

And, that’s a wrap on this Dear Katie question.

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Now I want to hear from you. Do you have a question? 

Submit it here

Until next time, cheers to your success!

Katie