I think you’ll agree that social media is a force to be reckoned with nowadays.
The continued rise of social networking sites is, it seems, unstoppable. I’m talking Facebook (1.65 billion users), Twitter (320 million users), Instagram (400 million users), Snapchat (100 million users), LinkedIn (300 million users), YouTube (over 1 billion users)… I could go, on but there are way too many to list here.
Billions of people access social media sites every day and 1 million new active mobile social users are added every single day. That’s an astonishing figure of 12 per second!
What’s more, according to adweek.com, the average social media user spends nearly two hours a day on social platforms. With audience interaction on this scale, your online business can certainly take advantage.
Yet I still encounter people through my eSelling programmes reluctant to address the fact that social media includes massively powerful marketing tools: tools that no business – large or small – should be ignoring.
I believe that if you are not currently using social media to market your eBay or Amazon products, then you are without doubt missing out on huge opportunities to drive traffic to your listings, promote page views and ultimately increase your sales.
You see, it’s just not enough to throw an eBay or Amazon listing together, set it live, relax and hope for the best.
Let me put it this way – if you were opening a new shop on your local high street, you wouldn’t fill the shelves with stock, place an ‘Open’ sign on the door, sit behind the cash register and wait for customers to arrive would you?
You would, I hope, have a marketing plan. This might involve an open day, advertising locally, special opening offers and incentives, a free glass of champers and so on – all designed to kick start interest in your store, lure shoppers in and help them spend money.
And that’s just for starters – you would also ensure you had an online presence – a website – which you would market… on social media!
But for some reason, when it comes to selling online, many people assume that it’s enough for their products to ‘be’ on the world wide web – whether that means on eBay, Amazon or a website – for sales to magically start happening with not an ounce of marketing. This completely bypasses the fact that just because you’re already ‘online’ it doesn’t mean you are ‘online’ – if that makes sense!
What I mean is that an online business should be treated like any other business and marketing is a necessity for success. Yes, by listing your products correctly – taking into account title keywords, descriptions, images and so on – eBay can bring you a certain amount of readymade traffic. It’s the same with Amazon.
So, why would you stop there and be content with a small percentage of the kind of traffic you could potentially experience with just a few really simple marketing strategies? This is probably a good time for you to watch my free video tutorial on how to use Facebook and Twitter to market your eBay and Amazon products.
But aren’t social media sites potentially dangerous? You don’t know who’s looking at you and seeing your personal information…
Well, hopefully, potential customers will be looking… but not at you, at your products!
Seriously though, I do agree that if used incorrectly, social media can give away information about you that you may wish to keep private. However, note my use of “incorrectly”.
It is a fact that if you want to get your message across, build a business and a brand, drive customers to your products and make sales you will have to face up to social media, come out from under your rock and announce to the world that you actually exist.
On the personal side of things, privacy settings, blocking and the ability to choose who you connect with are there for a reason – to be used. On the other hand, using social media sites to market your business is unlikely to be detrimental to you or your wellbeing!
But I’m not a fan of Facebook. I don’t want my business plastered all over the internet for anyone to see…
When it comes to your business, why not? Surely you want to promote your brand and your products? Surely you would like extra customers?
Don’t get confused here about business and personal social networking. For example, Facebook and Twitter work perfectly well for both.
You don’t have to announce to the world what you just ate for breakfast alongside a nicely filtered photo of your Rice Krispies, or add pouting selfies or gym poses every five minutes. It is your page – your business page – and you choose what to post. In a business capacity this will mean sharing and distributing information about your products and services – not cereals and weights.
I hear you. Surely though, social media sites are just for youngsters to mess around on?
Says who?
Social media does a great job of reaching every demographic and so is the ideal platform for you to share information, product images and to define what your brand is all about.
For example, in February this year, statista.com showed that age distribution is pretty evenly spread when it comes to Twitter, with 35% of users aged 15 to 24, 17% of users aged 25 to 34, 20% of users aged 35 to 44, 15% of users aged 45 to 54 and 13% in the 55+ age group.
So, basically, all of the above are merely common issues disguised as excuses. You cannot overlook the power of social media. According to a report by Social Times, 38% of businesses plan to spend more than 20% of their total marketing budgets on social media this year. This is an increase of 13% on last year.
The reason?
It works. It is powerful. You can reach a huge potential market with a few clicks of a mouse. And it works both ways: people – potential customers – can reach you too.
So if you’re fearful of social media, or you don’t think it’s worth utilizing because it won’t make any difference to your business and sales, think again.
Marketing is vital to your success. Thirty minutes or less is all it will take for you to get started on the social media path. Go for Twitter and Facebook first – they are easy to set up – and can potentially take your business further.