How to leverage social media platforms for your customer acquisition strategy

These days, social media is non-negotiable as far as marketing is concerned. You simply cannot ignore the power of social media with the number of worldwide users expected to hit three billion by 2021

If you aren’t already leveraging social media tools to acquire more customers, then you’re missing out on millions of prospects. They help you to engage your target audience in a more personal way. And social media is the ideal place to increase your brand’s exposure, generate more leads, and even service customers.

But it’s not as easy as it sounds. If it were, everybody would be doing it, and doing it well. It takes a certain level of planning and tact to get the most out of social media marketing. Hopefully, these tricks will help you with your customer acquisition strategy on social media.

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1. Invest in Social Ads

Investing in social advertisements is a good way to build a large and targeted following on social media. Almost all major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. offer paid ad functionalities. You can use these to increase your content views, clicks, and engagements.

You can make the most of your investments by promoting free offers or even repurposing promotional content. Albeit you stand to make more sales by promoting paid offers. But this way you can get new subscribers and potential leads for the future.

You can even use these paid facilities to promote your content and ads to specific demographics. Take it a step further by conducting A/B split tests to get a better understanding of what consumers want.

Image via Facebook

Take this sponsored ad from Booking.com promoting their budget-friendly rates for business travelers in particular.

2. Post Links to Your Blog Posts on Social Media

Content marketing has become increasingly popular these days. It is the top inbound marketing priority for at least 53% of marketers. All thanks to its increased effectiveness over traditional outbound marketing methods.

You can use your posts on social media to direct your followers on social media to your blog. This way you can provide your readers and followers more information through your long-form content. You can not only increase your site traffic but also the time they spend on your website.

Have a look at how Foundr Magazine leverages the character limit on Twitter to promote their long-form content.

Image via Twitter

You can encourage your users to visit your blog by adding a call-to-action in your social media posts. Invite them to visit your site and check out more content. This is a good way to increase your engagement. More than that, you can even tempt visitors to make a purchase. You can also use this tactic to build your email list and convert those leads at a later point.

3. Collaborate with Influencers

Many brands are relying more on influencer marketing because of its many merits. Consumers find it easier to relate to non-celebrity bloggers and therefore trust their opinions. No wonder why 30% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase based on a non-celebrity influencer’s opinion.

By vouching for you, influencers provide social proof about the usefulness of your products. Influencers have a fair amount of sway over the purchase decisions of their followers. That’s because they’ve worked hard on establishing themselves as experts in their niches. Which is why consumers look to them for advice.

Lilli, for example, often collaborates with and promotes plus-sized apparel brands such as Fashion Nova.

Image via Instagram

By collaborating with them, you stand to gain an increased brand awareness and ultimately, more sales. However, to get the most out of your influencer campaign, it’s absolutely critical that you work with the right individuals.

And that, my friends, can be a daunting task. Thankfully, there are numerous influencer marketing tools out there that have been designed specifically for that purpose. Take Grin, for instance, which can assist you with everything. It is capable of helping you with your influencer discovery, outreach, campaign management, and even performance tracking needs.

Image via Grin

4. Leverage User-Generated Content to Win Consumer Trust

Building upon the previous point, you can also look to your existing customers to lobby for you on social media. Nothing makes a customer feel more important than being acknowledged, possibly even honored by their favorite brand.

You can do that by asking your most loyal customers to share their experiences with your brand. 25% of survey respondents claimed that they bought a product after seeing it in posts of other users. That’s because 76% of consumers find user-generated content more honest than advertisements.

Clearly then, encouraging your users to talk about you and your products is a surefire way to improve your customer acquisition. And nobody understands and leverages this fact better than Buffer, the social media scheduling app.

Image via Instagram

They leverage their #BufferCommunity hashtag to showcase photographs taken by their numerous users worldwide. These images are far from promotional and not even remotely brand-centric. Which is why they are so effective. (Ok, the cute puppy in this one also helps.)

5. Provide Excellent Customer Service on Social Media

Improving customer experiences the most important priority for 72% of brands. That’s because providing excellent customer service helps foster brand loyalty. Besides, the better all-around customer service you provide your customers, the more likely they are to turn into strong brand advocates.

It could be the difference between you and your competitors. Which is why it’s imperative you up your customer support game. And leveraging social media tools to help provide that exceptional customer support might just do the trick.

90% of consumers have used social media to directly talk to brands. It also happens to be their preferred medium for customer care. Responding promptly and resolving your customers’ queries can help increase their trust in you. Likewise, the inability to do so will only increase your churn rate.

Providing good customer support on social media is another great way to drum up business through word-of-mouth marketing. After all, your efforts are on public display. Depending on your performance here, you can generate either good or bad press for yourself. Both of which can seriously impact your customer acquisition.

Starbucks does an amazing job of this. They make it a point to resolve any and all customer issues to the best of their abilities. And promptly at that. Have a look.

Image via Facebook

Conclusion

Social media tools are evolving, and with them, so is the way we do marketing. Regardless of those changes, these strategies will continue to be effective. And these tried and tested tactics can help you nurture warmer leads, gain new customers, and engage existing ones.

It comes down to the entertainment and engagement quotient of your content. You can leverage influencers to build social proof and increase exposure for your brand. Once you’ve established engagement and site traffic, repurpose and remarket your content. This way you can get the most out of your paid advertisements as well.

Feel free to share your insights on other social media tactics for customer acquisition. You can use the comment section below to do so.