No One Wants to Be Sold To...But People Love to Buy!

don’t be like this guy…

I recently had a conversation with a business friend, who had his doubts about advertising on social media, specifically on Facebook.

“Those [sales] conversations don’t happen on Facebook.” he stated emphatically.

It got me thinking, what conversations happen on social media and why do people go on social media?

The truth is that people come to social media to learn, connect with people, be entertained, escape reality. They don’t come to get sold to. The truth is no one wants to be sold to, ever!

However, this is the essence of marketing and sales - how do you convince someone, who has opened their Facebook app to look at friends’ vacation photos and be entertained, to make a purchase? Here is how to sell on social media. (Two ways actually).

Direct-Response - Get them to take action, now.

“Enter the conversation already taking place in the customer’s mind” - Robert Collier (written almost 100 years ago!)

Do your research and know what problem you solve for your customer. What keeps them up at night? What is their deepest fear? What is the agony that your customer experiences? What does success look like and how can you help deliver it to your customer?

If you do your research and know the answers to these questions and WHY IT’S IMPORTANT to your customer, then your message will hit home. Otherwise you’re just a distraction. And furthermore you might be doing damage to your reputation.

The headline/title of your post (this also applies to an email subject line, or the headline of a blogpost, podcast, landing page, etc.) must capture your target audience’s attention. The headline has one job to do - get someone to read further. This is arguably the hardest task of selling on social media.

You must grab their attention!

“The number one sin in marketing in general is being boring” - Dan S. Kennedy

The headline is your hook. It is the lure to get their attention. If you can get people’s attention, nothing will happen - it doesn’t matter even if you’re offering free $100 bills.

That is the key to opening a sales conversation through social media.

Branding - The sales will come once people know, like and trust you. (the long game)

The other way to use social media effectively in marketing and sales is through branding and awareness.

Have you ever noticed that on social media, especially Facebook and LinkedIn, you see the same people over and over again. You might think, “I haven’t seen that person since high school, but I see pictures of his kids, vacations, job, things he’s eating, etc., all the time”.

That is the power of branding and social media is one of the best platforms to get people to know, like & trust you.

“People don’t buy for one reason, they don’t believe you” - Billy Gene is Marketing

Instead of posting your offers, sales, promotions, focus on building your brand. Get people to know you, like you and trust you (and sprinkle in some insight into what you do). It takes time, but if you can get people to like, believe you, trust you, then when it comes time for a person in your target audience to make a purchase, you’ve already differentiated yourself and you’re way ahead of the competition.

In closing, stop selling and give them what they want - entertain them, inform them, educate them!