Let’s be honest, most businesses don’t go on social media to make friends. It’s a sad but real truth. The reason it’s so sad is that making friends is one of the best ways to make sales. How does this work? 

Everyone knows that your mother will read your social media posts, no matter how bad they are. However, did you know you can make other people feel the same way? And if you have good content they’ll do more than read your posts, they’ll start buying from you. 

This phenomenon is something you have probably experienced as well. When it’s girl scout cookie time many people, possibly including you, purposely buy from the girl they know. This may help her have the most cookie sales, but in the long run for you it will give cold, hard cash. 

How To Find Friends After Kindergarten

How do you know who to follow? There are so many people on social media, and it doesn’t necessarily make sense to choose them randomly. It makes much more sense to think about each person you choose, but learn how to do it quickly. Volume and quality of followers are both important.

1. Find a business like yours. From here, follow the people who comment on their posts. These are people actively buying from your competitors, and these are people who will readily respond to a business social media site.
2. Find brand influencers. If you see that someone has a ton of followers and possibly even sponsored content it would make sense to become friends with them. However, it’s important to remember that brand influencers generally only consider brands when paid.
3. People who post regularly post about certain keywords related to your site. Perhaps you sell shoes, and someone posts a picture a day with #shoes. This is the person for you. 

It’s important to note that just because you can follow someone doesn’t necessarily mean you should. A crowded feed doesn’t give you the right set up for the next step.

Netflix and Chill for Followers?

Now comes to the part where you are interacting with your followers. There are two ways to do this. The first way, so that you have a complete profile, is to make content as you generally would. This has to be high quality content, but there are a bunch of other ebooks that make it clear how to make high quality content so we are not going to focus on it here. 

The important part of your content is the call to action. Generally, it makes sense to ask for smaller things at first. Ask for a comment rather than a sale. This makes it clear to your followers that you are there to interact with them and not there simply to advertise to them. (You are there to advertise to them of course, but it also helps to build a brand). 

Once people comment, respond to every comment you get. A like alone does not count as a response. Say something back to the commenter, even if it’s “thanks!” or “so true!”. The fact that you comment is more important than what your content is, assuming what you say isn’t horribly offensive.

This Two Way Street Is Paved By Bodies of Businesses’ Past

Maybe that’s a bit overdramatic, but businesses die on this road if they don’t get far down it. This is the part where you comment on other’s works. These should be related to your product, but not simply a sale’s pitch. 

A good way to handle this is people that already have some of your items or used to some of your services. Thank them for their positive reviews. Respond to any issues. These let people know you are in the market to sell. 

The other option is to comment neutral ways on neutral things. Say “so cute!” to the kitten picture or “#TRUTH” to a post about how anyone can recover. Try to find ones related to you, but in general a comment is never wasted. 

Yes, this can be awkward through a business account. Yes, you should do it anyway. But what exactly are you supposed to say that’s deeper than a hashtagged quote?

Find causes similar to your company. People love to see companies involved in activism, and social media posts can highlight this. Make sure you are doing this ethically though: there’s a difference between getting involved in activism for likes and doing it to better the world. There are people that will see right through it if you choose the wrong option. 

There is the option to pay for popular Instagrammers and such to advertise for you, but is that creating real community? People do often look to people they admire to see what to buy, but perhaps rather than them saying how much they like you and ending it there, they take a post of yours and comment on why they like it. This creates interest in you that leads to you and not simply interest because someone gave it. 

It particularly helps if you can get them involved. This could be polls or surveys, but it also can be asking questions or creating a sub-community, depending on what platform you use. Polls generally beat surveys, as they’re quicker to fill out, but it is very important to include an option for people to choose “none of the above” and put their own answers to get them talking.

Which Platform Do I Use

Choose your platform based on two main ideals. One, what platform best fits testimonials for you. Perhaps you have clothing; everyone wants to see what the clothes look like. Perhaps your testimonials are best given in short phrases. Perhaps they need a whole long post. And remember, you want this to be unpaid testimonials whenever possible. Those are the people who write because they want to write, hopefully without any prompting from you. 

The other platform is simply which one you must believe you can use regularly. It is not just use; it is also use regularly.  Do you have enough pictures for an Instagram post a day? Is the tweet the perfect amount of words? Is picking every word very specifically tiring for you? You don’t need to be on every single social media, you just have to be great at the ones you’re on. 

Should You Hire Someone To Write This? 

This can be hard to make a decision on. The answer, as the answer for most things is, it depends. It depends on whether or not you plan to make sales through social media. It depends on who your target audience is. It depends on how much time you have to be on social media. It depends on how much you would like to spend on social media. 

If you want to hire out, it can be incredibly hard to find someone. Not that there are any shortage of people willing to be hired for this job. In actuality, there are thousands of options, at least, and many good ones, and many bad ones. 

First, here are the bad ones. If they’ve never written for a business on social media, they may not be for you, though that does depend on the person. If they have no social media following themselves that’s not a good place to start. If they don’t understand your field of business, they are not for you. If they have good reviews and yet still have a very low price, they are probably not the right choice. 

Good ones are harder to find. If you have a good relationship with anyone else in the field, word of mouth is an incredible way to do it. It can be worth thinking and deciding what is more important to you, cost or experience (or something in the middle). 

If you lean towards cost, you will probably get someone with little to no experience. It is generally unacceptable to ask them to write new things, but see if they are good at other types of social writing and advertising they have done to see if they are the right person for you. Someone with no writing history should at least have experience with social media.

If you lean towards experience, it will almost always cost more. (If not, there’s a high likelihood they have experience but not high quality. If it’s a new writer, a lower cost makes sense.) Some people are willing to discuss their payments, but many high quality writers have a flat fee. If you want them, you’ll have to buck up and pay it. 

Conclusion

Whether you pay someone to do your social media or you do it yourself, it has the chance to change the course of your business. Making friends on social media is the way to turn the facebook stalker into your biggest champion. By making friends with those who are using social media already, they are more likely to use social media to promote you. Begin making friends on social media today!