Customers are lead from awareness to sale by way of incremental exposure to a brand or product. While these same principles still apply today, social media has shaken up the paradigm by shortening the gap between people and information, meaning that the funnel has changed and offers a new way to pull in customers and to build off brand loyalty to turn them into your public spokespeople.

Here are the 6 steps to nurturing the sales funnel with social media.

Step 1: Awareness.

This is your introduction to the outside world, your first face-to-face with an unknown. Studies have proven that brand loyalty requires trust and since familiarity is the lion’s share of a consumer’s trust, awareness is the first step toward building that new relationship.

Where before awareness required expensive ad time across public mediums, social media awareness is about generating compelling content that are both visually pleasing and come with a locked-and-loaded call to action. Your logo, tagline, content and message all contribute to your overall awareness.

People prefer brands they have heard of because there’s a built-in reference of trustworthiness. This means a customer’s likelihood of buying from you is directly tied to whether or not they have heard of you, even if they have never purchased from you before.

Step 2. Interest.

Next, you must go beyond a familiar face. Social media is not an address book where you find the names and contact info of people you already know, it is an active and vibrant social community; a network of associates, friends and acquaintances.

Treat your customers online with this culture of relationship in mind. People expect a response in the digital world because that is behavior that has become normal, even for businesses.

Regular content that connects on an emotional level will give customers a reason to follow you, and again, this is before they have even done business with you. It doesn’t mean that all the stages before the Sale are necessarily time consuming, but rather that getting to know a brand is the most reliable path toward doing business.

Talk to them, answer their questions, chime in to conversations that don’t pertain to your marketing. Keep it casual as people can tell when they’re being marketed to, but still remember that your efforts are ultimately about self-promotion.

Step 3. Conversion.

You need to turn that interested customer into a paying customer once you’ve got your hooks in.

Give them an incentive to spend money with you right on the landing page. Don’t make them hunt for a deal, throw it out in front of them. Promotions, give-aways, and loyalty programs are all great ways to put some positive pressure on their shoulders, especially if they’re already leaning in the right direction.

Consider using remarketing techniques to give them a gentle tap on the shoulder in the event they don’t convert on the first visit. Use a remarketing cookie on your company website to harness the Facebook or Google Display Network, keeping your ads in front of them later on even when they aren’t thinking about you anymore. It works like having an ally who reminds them of their interest in you without interrupting their normal activity.

Step 4. Sales.

From the moment a future customer first hears about you, you have created a lead. You can convert that lead into a sale if you successfully direct them down the funnel.

Remarketing, social media engagement, special promotions, newsletter-style communication, blog content, and the strength of your business-customer relationship are all solid ways to bridge that gap.

It is through focused, sustained effort that you will have the most success. It is important that your efforts be consistent, and that the actual purchasing experience be pleasant, because after the sale itself, your product will do the talking. You may have a disappointed customer who feels misled and is less likely to come back or recommend you if you oversold it.

While the end goal is the sale, social should be functioning as MORE than a sales facilitator.

Step 5. Loyalty.

In a traditional marketing funnel, sales would mark the final step. As previously mentioned, the social media world is a thriving community and a sale is only a smaller step toward the larger goal of converting your paying customers into vocal advocates on your behalf.

Customer satisfaction is as easy to measure as their continued engagement with your brand. Poor attention to your social media and online followers after you have done business is the equivalent of locking the door behind them when they leave.

Loyalty creates new sources of customers that come with a built-in interest level due to a personal recommendation from a friend. Word-of-mouth is your strongest asset and the wider your base of loyal customers, the more you can withstand the inevitable changes to the landscape where your business resides.

Step 6. Advocacy.

Because it is by self-defeating by nature, Marketing is a tough racket. People don’t like ads, they don’t trust ads and are usually aware when they are looking at one. People trust their peers and friends, even someone they hardly know, over the most compelling advertisement.

This is where your funnel has been narrowing down to. The golden level of customer loyalty that turns a satisfied customer into a company spokesman. You wouldn’t need to market at all if you could simply purchase this kind of trusted authority.

Your brand advocates are far and away your strongest marketing asset with the widest reach at the lowest cost. They will actively promote you in conversation, and whether or not their listeners are swayed, the impact of a trusted voice speaking positively about a brand will plant a more potent seed than you could ever hope to generate on your own.

The Social Funnel has certain similarities with the traditional funnel, but where it surpasses is in it’s attention to maintaining these valuable relationships with your customers. Customer satisfaction was always important, and always created loyalty with varying degrees of success, but the current digital world makes it possible to keep all those plates spinning at the same time, a feat previously beyond even the largest, most consumer-friendly company.

This means a customer’s likelihood of buying from you is directly tied to whether or not they have heard of you, even if they have never purchased from you before.

If you oversold it, you may have a disappointed customer who feels misled and is less likely to come back or recommend you.

While the end goal is the sale, social should be functioning as MORE than a sales facilitator. Customer satisfaction is as easy to measure as their continued engagement with your brand. The golden level of customer loyalty that turns a satisfied customer into a company spokesman.

There is so much information out there about Social Media these days.  You will see all kinds of articles and blogs about so many subjects it will make your head spin – literally.  Some start off with – “10 Things You Must Know About Social Media” or 15 Social Media Tools You Must Have” – “Content Is King”.   Well for one it can make it difficult to know exactly where to start.  That is part of the reason I started my own business.  I want to be able to share my knowledge and help others navigate through this maze called social media and also create a web presence, thus the name Social Media and Web Design.

In this day and age most companies will have employees who are familiar with social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, Linkedin, and the other popular networks. However, this doesn’t mean that every business actually uses social media to benefit their business.

Here are a few uses and benefits to effectively using social media in your business and for your business.

Marketing

Free marketing is the most common reason that businesses join social media. Social media marketing is so important because it gives businesses direct access to both current and potential customers, allowing them to answer questions, showcase their brand, spread information and address issues in a more personal way.

Networking

And who could forget the one social media site that every company should really be on (or at the very least their Human Resources department)?: Linkedin. The platform will improve your business’s search engine results.  You can utilize the events section to search for industry events or to promote your own event.

Developing A Social Media Plan

With your goals clearly in mind, identify the most suitable social media site(s) for your business.  Ask yourself, “Are my customers using this site?” or “Can I reach them through this site?”  If you need to use multiple sites, remember there are tools to help you manage multiple social media platforms.

Once you decide which site(s) to use, build your profile page(s) there.  Provide information that will enable you to build relationships.  Make your posts and comments interesting enough to motivate people to come to your website or subscribe to your updates.  Consider updates on social media sites as updates to your business plan.

Monitoring What’s Being Said About Your Company

While many companies offer this service, these are some of the free or lower-cost ones:

· Google Alerts provide a simple way to keep track of what is said online about your company, products, competitors, and industry terms and trends.  These alerts are delivered to your email address for free.

· MediaFunnel monitors your social media activity and offers a tool to turn tweets into leads on Salesforce.

· RSS feeds alert you to what others are writing about that is pertinent to your business.  RSS feeds that you choose to subscribe to can be managed in a reader, such as Feedly.

· NutshellMail tracks your brand’s social media activity and emails a summary to you.

· Sendible monitors blogs, news, comments, and social networks and analyzes results, highlighting posts to which you should respond.

Social media truly has the power to bring a business together through both informal and formal means of communication. It also brings out a method of sharing ideas between employees and employers that could improve the company overall. And that’s just the beginning. When it comes to businesses and social media, think outside the box. Ask yourself: is my business reaching its full potential on social media?