Social Media: it’s not called Sales Media for a good reason

It doesn’t matter how many lists you make, how many retweets you do, who you follow or how many page likes you’ve got. If you want to convert on social you’re in for an experience. Let’s face it there’s a strong case to say Social Media Marketing doesn’t exist anymore. Advertising – yes.  Customer Contact – yes. Marketing? We’re not so sure.

Because fundamentally here’s the system Facebook, Twitter and Instagram use. Over time your reach is throttled and not by a little – by a lot. Meaning that if you want people to see a brand you have to pay to sponsor a post or create an advert.

Basically, advertising is profitable for companies like Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and you are using their free profiles to market yourself. Considering you’re using their service, that makes it a one way street, they control what you can achieve.

The only other way to garner attention is to acquire an audience, start pumping out a large volume of content that drives opinion and emotion. That way you stand a chance of your content being shared – though you’d want to invest in a bit of amplification because y’know – you’re initial audience is being throttled. Even then, it’s very unlikely people will share an advert or branded content, so to stand a chance of being seen it’s best to create unbranded content, with no selling. Great for sharing, not so great for conversions.

It’s very difficult to say with any certainty what might happen once you do that. It could be very successful – we all see brand content in our feeds everyday but we don’t see the sheer volume of content that goes out everyday and largely achieves nothing. Trust us there’s a lot.

Because Social Media wasn’t made to be a conduit for your brand, it was built to connect people and for them to share and talk about things. Simple as that. Paid for by ads and that’s where brands DO fit in. There’s not much to be scared of either, it’s similar to all other advertising channels. Create a good advert, well researched and targeted, with a great landing page and a great product. Classic advertising principals and trust us people DO click those adverts and you can make them convert.

Brands also fit in when they’re not selling and working to the strengths of social media – talking to their audience and customers. If someone has a problem or want to ask a question Social Media is the first place is where they’ll look – be there for them.

Just doing that will do so much for brand perception.

So to summarise. Want to sell? Advertise. Want your customers to be happy. Talk to them and share with them your thoughts and plans. The days of jab, jab, hook are gone though, Social is not the Mecca of conversions. That’s email.