There are all sorts of articles out there that teach you how to “get more customers using social media.” There are some great tips, but they don’t really explain how to implement them in a real-world way.

For example, “you should hold a contest” is a great idea! But…what kind of contest? How does the winner collect the prize? How do you track entries? Plus, if you do too many gimmicky things, won’t it hurt your business reputation?


So much love for social media and so many different directions you can take it.

In this article, we’re going to talk about practical, foundation-building things you can do with social media to get more customers to your website or storefront. Check it out.

1. Really Understand Your Brand

It’s important to understand who you are and what your brand identity truly is. Knowing who you are and what you want to project will help you narrow your focus to the social media portals that will actually help you build your customer base.

For example, if you run a legal consulting firm, you probably aren’t going to get as much mileage out of Pinterest as you will LinkedIn. On the other hand, if you run a cupcake shop, Pinterest could be the key to raising your daily sales 4-5% (if not more)!

If you run an actual storefront, consider using what is still, by many, considered to be a “dark horse” of social media: FourSquare. There are lots of creative ways to use FourSquare to your advantage, but one of my favorites – and the easiest to implement yourself – is what Domino’s did in the UK. Domino’s paired up with FourSquare to reward whoever the Mayor of each of the UK’s Domino’s locations happened to be with one free specialty pizza a week and saw their sales go up enough to inspire Domino’s to continue the campaign.

You can learn about it and other great examples of using FourSquare in this great article by Simply Zesty.

2. Share Content that is Actually Meaningful to Your Audience

If all you ever do is share promotional codes for your products or announcements of your sales on your chosen social media portals, you’ll alienate your followers faster than you attract them. Work hard to create, find, and share information and things that will actually help make the lives of your audience members easier or help them understand parts of their lives better.

A great example of this is GE. GE has created a web series called “The GE Show” that is scripted and designed to help viewers better understand things like solar power and other technologies that power daily life. You can learn more about their efforts here.

3. Monitoring

Don’t assume that people are going to tag you or “@” you every time they mention you on Facebook or Twitter (or whatever social media portal you use the most). In fact, most social media users won’t unless they specifically want to get your attention.

Set up searches for your name, your company’s name, your products, etc. This way, even if you aren’t specifically tagged, you’ll see what people are saying and you can join in the conversation when doing so is appropriate. This shows that you pay attention even without someone bossing you into it.

Barclay’s used this approach perfectly when they were launching their new mobile app.

4. Photos and Images Matter

Here’s the truth: The attention you attract to your posts and tweets goes way up if you use a photo or an image. It’s almost scary how much more likely people are to click on and respond to your messages when you include a photo.

Of course, you don’t want to use just any image (though that might make for a fun experiment). You want the image to relate to what you’re sharing. Often, particularly on Facebook and Google+, the system will automatically search for relevant images to include when you post a link to your blog or to an article. Other times, it’s up to you.

The best photos to use are your own, obviously, because you own the rights to those photos and you don’t have to worry about any tricky copyright or creative commons laws. If nothing in your library works, the creative commons search on Flickr is a great resource – just make sure you give the photog credit for his/her work!

Shop Imagine went as far as to include videos, and that worked out really well for them.

5. Distinct Presences Matter

These days, it is possible to write one thing and have it plastered across all your social media accounts in a matter of seconds. It’s almost too easy to create identical presences across every social media platform in existence. It’s social media for the lazy, and you need to resist it.

Why?

Because not all social media portals are created equal. Yes, one person might have an account on multiple platforms, but each platform has its own distinct personality, and it’s important to play into that.

In an article for Mashable the social media manager for ModCloth, Natasha Kahn, spells this out: “On Facebook it means sharing photography, on Twitter it means wordplay and hashtags, and for Polyvore it means styling outfits.”

Yes, it takes time to create separate posts for each portal, but your audience will appreciate that you took the extra time, and so will the community that keeps that particular portal humming – which means your posts are more likely to be shared (always a good thing).


With whom do you want to communicate today?

The thing is that branding yourself and finding new buyers and clients on social media isn’t all that different from building and buying “the old-fashioned way.” The primary difference is that the recipients of your messages are more vocal and more likely to actually tell you whether or not your campaigns are working. You can track your results in real time.

So, instead of trying to find some newfangled way of reaching people, why not stick with what you already know how to do well? The medium might have changed, but surely your message hasn’t, right?

Erin Steiner is a freelance writer from Portland. She maintains active presences on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Google+. She also creates content professionally for a number of clients. A “jack of all trades” writer, Erin writes about business, pop and geek culture, and other topics.