How to convert social media followers into customers

Social media platforms are a powerful tool for any business, helping promote your brand, increasing awareness of your dealership and allowing you to engage with a huge audience. But how do you convert fans and followers into customers? Here are our top tips for making social media work for your company.

Analyze your social media platforms

If you’re already using social media to promote your business, then you’re ahead of the game because 74 percent of Americans use social networking sites. It’s a relatively cheap and easy way for even the smallest of businesses to reach wider audiences without breaking the bank. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google+ are all a big part of your potential customers’ lives; however, different groups and demographics use some social media networks more than others. So do your research first.

Check out your competitors’ social media sites and look at what industry organizations are doing. If your target customers are mostly on Facebook and hardly on Twitter, then it makes sense to put more time and effort into your Facebook site.

Make it easy to get customers into the sales funnel

Make sure your social media profiles clearly display your contact information — social media is great but feeding followers through to your website, where they can view your goods and services and book an appointment, is the key to converting followers into customers. Include links to email subscription signups, your web landing page, downloads and other resources and, most importantly, links to where they can make a specific purchase or find out more.

Social media is a great way to drive people to learn more about your company, a new product or service or to book a demonstration. However, you have to make it easy for them; make sure your links are visible and take them to the right place, and check that they are working. Social media users can easily become customers in just a click of a button.

Offer exclusive deals to get them in the door

Offering deals and discounts to social media users can prompt them into action. If you’ve got a large Twitter or Facebook following, offering a 10 percent discount on retreading or four tires for the price of three with an exclusive code can translate into many more customers than just advertising on the radio or newspaper.

People love a bargain and they like feeling they’ve got something not everyone else has. By limiting the deal for one day only or the first 100 users to “like”, “retweet” or comment creates a sense of urgency and a “fear of missing out.” It also creates more traffic on your platforms and increases the likelihood users will tell others about the great deal they got from you.

Create great content to keep them coming back

Think about interesting and helpful content you can provide your followers. Don’t just promote your products and services and rely on keywords to drive traffic — customers will get bored of the constant sales messages. Creating and posting great content keeps them coming back to your social media platforms, your website and to you as a business.

Consider creating and posting how-to videos, or articles on tips or common problems related to your business. You could post tips on looking after tires and checking tire pressure or guides on how to choose an all-season tire. Sometimes you might want to post content that’s not strictly related to your business, such as the weather or seasonal information. The idea here is to be helpful to the customer, engage with them and provide interesting content so that they will engage with you and be more likely to visit your business rather than your competitors’.

Engage with your followers and build loyalty

You need to be on the ball with social media and engage with your followers. Follow up every complaint as soon as possible with a polite response and an assurance the issue will be looked into. It’s not just the complainant who sees these interactions, but other users too, and how you deal with tricky scenarios helps people form opinions about your company. (We have some tips for handling negative reviews here.)

Sometimes followers will make helpful comments that might prompt you to introduce a new product or service. If this is the case, let them and your other followers know and tag the customer in the post. People want to know they are getting personal service or attention, so don’t send out generic social media responses every time. If you have a few people looking after your social media accounts, or even just one, have them sign off with their initials so the customer knows they’re engaging with a real person, rather than a faceless company.

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How to convert social media followers into customers