Do you have a process for turning your social media followers into customers?
Unless you sell on platforms like TikTok and Whatnot that have ecommerce features built seamlessly into content UI (user interface), you need to do a lot of work to get your followers from your social media post and onto your website to make a purchase.
In this post, we share tips on how to build a social media funnel that nurtures your follower into becoming a customer.
1. Get your social media channels ready for a funnel
You can’t build a successful social media funnel if your social media channels are dry to begin with.
You need to increase your views and engagements if you want your funnel to succeed.
Here are a few tips on improving your social media marketing strategy:
- Post on the social media platforms your target audience uses the most.
- Create multiple content types:
- Tutorials, guides, lists, reviews and product demonstrations that target audience pain points
- Comedic sketches
- Trends
- Behind-the-scenes images and clips
- Quizzes
- Begin social media posts, especially videos, off with a hook
- Make each video 60 seconds or less.
- Make sure every second of every video you create is engaging. Use jump cuts to reduce long periods where nothing happens.
- Use a consistent social media schedule.
- Engage with your followers.
- Engage with your niche.
2. Develop a clear strategy before you begin
Do you know which product you want to generate more sales for?
You might have an entire store full of products to choose from, but some consumers become overwhelmed when too many options are on the table.
Stick to promoting one product per funnel.
You should also be aware of who you’ll be targeting in this funnel. Your audience can be segmented in multiple ways:
- New customers
- Returning customers
- Low-engagement customers
- High-engagement customers
- Product categories customers purchased from and content types they engage with (this reveals their interests)
Determine who you want to target with each funnel you create. This allows you to optimize it as much as possible.
You can’t segment your followers into different lists like you can with email marketing, but you can at least have a clear definition of the different groups within your social media audience so you can create content that’s tailored to a specific group.
3. Learn the stages of a social media funnel
The typical sales funnel has four stages: awareness, interest, consideration and conversion. Consideration and conversion may also be known as “decision” and “action,” respectively.
A social media funnel has a couple of addons:
- Stage 1: Awareness – Make your target audience aware that your brand exists.
- Stage 2: Interest – Increase interest for your product among your target audience.
- Stage 3: Consideration – At this point, your follower is considering buying your product, but they’re also weighing their options by comparing your product with competing products.
- Stage 4: Conversion – Your follower converts and purchases your product.
- Stage 5: Engagement – Your follower engages with your brand by leaving a review, contacting support and making additional purchases.
- Stage 6: Advocacy – Your follower becomes a fan of your brand and tells their family, friends and their followers about your product.
These are the stages we’re going to run through for the remainder of this guide.
4. Raise awareness for your brand (Stage 1)
The best way to raise brand awareness on social media is by posting high-quality content to it in a way that ties your brand into your content.
Duolingo does this by creating content with their mascot, the Duolingo owl, Duo.
Does that mean you should create a mascot for your brand to include in social media content? Not necessarily.
It just means you should designate someone from your team or a group of people from your team as the spokesperson for your brand and have them appear in all of your content.
Once you do that, you can get to work on creating high-quality social media content for your brand.
Uncover your audience’s biggest pain points, and create content that provides solutions for them. Include your products in content if your products are specifically designed to provide those solutions.
Consider creating a dedicated set for social media content so you can include your logo somewhere, such as a wallhanging. Have your team wear and use branded merch as well.
You should also find influencers to work with organically, meaning you create content with them and don’t ask them to promote your product. This is only for the awareness stage, though.
5. Get your followers interested in your product (Stage 2)
Once your target audience has found your content, and you start to receive more and more views and engagements, you can start getting them interested in your products.
Continue creating high-quality content, but start tying your product into it.
You can also create content that’s specifically designed to showcase your product.
Create your own infomercials that demonstrate exactly what your product does and how it will improve the lives of your customers.
Consider working with influencers by building influencer marketing campaigns in which you pay influencers to promote your products on their own social media accounts.
If your customers create their own content with your products, repost them, and leave comments.
6. Encourage your followers to consider your product (Stage 3)
At this point, your target market is very aware of your brand and product.
They follow you on social media, like your content, comment on it and sometimes share it. This means your content will appear in their feeds more and more, and they’ll start to consider purchasing your product over another.
But while they’re considering, they’re also watching content and reading reviews for competing products.
How do you get them to consider your product over others?
The best way to do this is by lifting the veil up and sharing more about how your business operates.
Share the manufacturing process of your product, especially if you make it yourself. You should also make videos of you packing orders if you also ship your own products.
Answer questions about your products with videos, and create videos that explain why your product is superior to competing products. It might seem petty, but if you don’t believe your product is better than other options out there, why should your followers?
Create more videos that include team members who aren’t normally seen on camera so your followers know they’re supporting an ethical business that has a positive working environment.
7. Convert your followers into customers (Stage 4)
This is a big step, and how you do it will differ depending on the type of product you create and how you want to sell it.
If you package your own orders, you can get away with selling your products directly on TikTok and Whatnot, both of whom have ecommerce features built right into their platforms.
You can place buy buttons right on videos and livestreams on these platforms.
If you sell a SaaS (software as a service) product or have your own website, your funnel will have a few additional steps.
First, it might include a link-in-bio page, such as one created using Shorby. This can help you create a simple web page filled with links to the different products you offer.
You then place a link to this page in the bio section of your social media account instead of your website link. This prevents you from losing conversions since your follower won’t need to go to your website to search for the product they want to purchase.
Second, consider using a landing page builder to help your follower consider your product more. Swipe Pages is a great option for this that’s easy to use, but OptimizePress is also a good choice if you have a WordPress site.
If you’re successfully attracting your followers to your landing pages but can’t get them to convert, consider adding an additional step by getting them to subscribe to your email list instead.
MailerLite is a fantastic option as it’s easy to use and quite affordable.
Once you capture your audience as leads, you can nurture them with a few emails before asking them to buy.
8. Get your followers to engage with your brand after they buy (Stage 5)
You can’t post directly to customers who made purchases on social media. This is why building an email list is so important. It allows you to create segments for customers based on whether or not they’ve made purchases and which products they’ve purchased.
After your customer purchases a product, encourage them to engage with your brand by asking them to leave a review and letting them know which support options are available to them.
You can also promote additional products to them that are similar to the ones they already purchased.
9. Encourage your followers to become advocates for your brand (Stage 6)
Advocates are incredibly valuable to your brand.
They allow you to receive additional marketing on social media that doesn’t require you to create content yourself.
Ask your followers to share themselves using your product. Have them tag you or use a specific hashtag so you can find this content easier, and be sure to repost content your followers make.
You can also launch an affiliate program so your followers can earn money for promoting your products.
Final thoughts
Social media platforms give us all the ability to reach a potentially huge audience. Get the content right and it all falls into place.
And having a small number of followers isn’t as much of an obstacle these days either. There are plenty of small accounts that have managed to reach a huge audience and go viral.
Again, it’s because they got the content right.
But even the largest social media audience won’t be all that profitable if you don’t have a social media funnel in place to turn followers into customers.
So, regardless of the size of your following, it’s well worthwhile building out your social media funnel now.
Then, you’ll be ready for whenever a particular social algorithm decides to put your content in front of a huge audience.
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