Are you struggling to convert your social media fans and followers into paying customers? Understanding how potential customers behave on active social channels is crucial to driving sales through social media.

From Facebook to Pinterest, customers visit your social media pages for a variety of reasons, but frankly speaking, many are looking for access to special deals and coupons, and others want to see if you have any contests or promotions running that will be of benefit to them.

If you don’t give social media followers what they’re after, they likely won’t return. With that in mind, here are some key tips on How to Sell on Social Media:

1. Use a Social Marketing Suite to run contests

You can use a tool like Woobox or Wishpond to capture leads from your landing pages, contests and coupons, and automatically store them in your Contact Database. This will enable you to learn about your contacts, see their demographics and interests and export your contacts to your Email and CRM (customer relationship management) services for more targeted marketing.

2. Use a giveaway tool to incentivize your customers

Omni-channel loyalty platforms like Punchtab allow you to reward users for performing simple actions on a blog or site. In fact, with over 40+ actions on your website, social channels, mobile, email marketing and more, PunchTab makes it possible to engage users anywhere and everywhere.

3. Make people an offer they can’t refuse

Post a one-time or limited time offer to encourage a rapid response. Readers who feel that opportunities are time-sensitive are much more likely to engage. (For example: “This offer good only to the first 100 respondents!”)  

4. Offer a guarantee or warranty

Customers want to know that theycan get their money back easily if they are unhappy with their purchase. The 365-Day Free Shipping Both Ways returns policy was the cornerstone of Zappos success. It's all about reducing the percieved risk for customers making their first purchase.

5. Offer platform-specific deals

Though “like-gating” (offering a deal only to someone who might “Like” your Facebook page) is not without its critics, it is widely used as a way to generate new fans. Just remember – you must continue to offer valuable content and conversations to establish an ongoing relationships on ALL social media platforms even after someone has hit the “Like” or “Follow” button.

6. Use a referral system

Sites like Curebit, InviteBox and ReferralCandy are designed to get existing shoppers to invite their friends to shop. In turn, those original customers are rewarded for the referral once their friend has made a purchase.

7. Make it a habit every day to friend, follow or connect with individuals who fall within your demographic

How? Conduct a search on each social networking website using a resource like socialmention.com to find people who are talking about your industry or using keywords related to your industry. Then comment on their posts, answer their questions, or share something they say to get them to ‘follow back.’

The most important thing you need to know is that social media is a relationship-builder. You can develop good leads and attract new customers, but only if you are willing to monitor and listen to what they are saying and engage in meaningful dialogue with them.

Once you develop that relationship, nurture it so that it becomes second nature to talk to that contact about a product or service they want or need. That is the true key for selling on social media.

Have you had success using social media as a sales channel? Got any tips or tactics on how to get the most out of it? Let us know in the comments below.

Image: Demarque