In this installment of our eBay Elevate webinar series, social media guru Katherine George explores how to leverage content creation and social media adverts, to help you build a strong social media presence on a budget.

Grow your social presence on a budget

Social media is an amazing tool to get your business noticed. With a cost-effective plan, you can be on your way to boosting your business growth.

This eBay Elevate webinar, hosted by social media guru Katherine George, gives you insight into using eye-catching content and social media adverts to help convert your followers into buyers - without breaking the bank.

Social media for business

The fundamental reason why businesses are on social media is to make sales - and it’s all about making that return on investment. It all starts with your customer. You don’t need to be on every network, just where your customers are. When using social media, you must take into account various points:

• Age & gender

• Decision making unit

• Solo or family

• Social status

• Income & disposable income

• Reason for purchase

• Hobby & lifestyle choices

• Job & education level

• What problem are you solving?

Content Pillars

Content pillars set the theme of what you’re going to post about and give you a sense of guidance. These pillars tend to fall into certain categories, from your unique selling point (USP) to value-adding systems such as guides, blogs and how-to’s. Showcase what makes your business different, including your own, third-party and user-generated content - and reflect the platform and audience you’re targeting.

We use different social media platforms for different purposes and it’s important to know which network works best for your business. Depending on which products/categories you sell, many of the below socials could work for you.

• Facebook = Connection

• Facebook Groups = Community

• Instagram = Inspiration

• Pinterest = Planning

• Twitter = Conversion

• LinkedIn = Work

Customer Journey

The customer journey is an important aspect of selling and how you present your business on social media. It’s all about how the customer goes from not knowing about you and then being ready to make a purchase. Your customer journey will be different depending on your customers, your sector, your vertical and depending on what you’re really selling.

Content

Remember which platform you’re writing content for and what that platform's purpose is along with its targeted audience. Take into consideration your sales funnel in terms of social media. You’ll have awareness, interest, decision and action. Spend your time looking at your customer and then create content for the different parts.

Content for awareness: Brand building is a great place to start by keeping it nice and simple. Share your story, value and ethos with your target audience by creating videos and giving them an insight into your business.

Content for consideration: As your customers have already found you, it’s now the time to give them more to understand and know more about you. Build trust by sharing reviews, giving advice and even inspiring by showing your own knowledge with case studies, success stories and more.

Content for sales: There are so many ways to get over this final push. When you want your customers to convert, use obvious calls to action, make sure you link your products, and trigger FOMO by creating flash sales and offers.

Social media is more than your content

In order to retain or get more customers, we have to think about social proof. This can trigger a sale at any part of the sales funnel. It’s all about someone else telling your customers how great you are. This can be done with eBay Feedback and Facebook reviews, just make sure you share and engage with that social proof! Another way of building up a good repertoire is replying and thanking your customers. This builds trust and community support.

Build a content calendar

Plan and organise your social content with where you’re going to share it and when. Keep your content balanced by remembering what you're really selling, so focus on the features and not the benefits. Keep in mind your content pillars and themes by including other elements your customers really care about. Tie your content in with national events and days to drive more attention to your socials.

Social Ads

There are two types of social ads that you can use - organic and paid social media. These both have pros and cons to take into account. Organic helps you retain a great ROI and creates a loyal, engaged audience, but it takes time to build and is a large time investment. Paid social on the other hand gives you a quick ROI, amplifies your messages quickly but brings a fickle audience and isn’t a quick way to make instant sales.

Like most elements of marketing, they work better together. So you can bring in new customers with paid advertising but keep them engaged and excited with organic content. This will help maintain brand loyalty, helping you increase your long-term return on investment and keep your sales funnel moving.

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