Why Social Media? Part 2

In Why Social Media? Part 1 we talked about the individuality of social media and today I’d like to explore how we can utilise our social media presence for sales.

As we talked about in Part 1, social media works because we bring our individual selves to the social media table. It’s here that we get to share our thoughts, plans, achievements and even our businesses.

As soon as we include business we have to tread carefully, just as we would when we’re sitting at a dinner party with friends. Just as we might figuratively roll our eyes at that friend who seems to monopolises the conversation with their new business we have to understand that the same applies within our social media circles.

We are generally more than happy to support our friends and this is obvious as we ‘like’ and ‘share’ each other’s stories through social media. When our friends have businesses we often recommend them to others and as a community we support worthy causes just as easily.

The level of relationship that we have with that friend at the dinner party dictates whether we are annoyed by them discussing the status of their passion or happy to hear how things are going and decide how we might support them or even buy from them.

Within our social media circles it works the same. We want to hear from our friends but less interested to be bombarded by businesses who only want to sell something! This notion of selling suddenly becomes relative.

If a friend sells gym bags and we buy one, do we feel as if they were ‘selling’ to us? Likely not but we might feel that way if that same friend sends us a generic email every day telling us that we should buy one.

Our presence on social media allows for countless opportunities to sell our products or services but the key point is that our aim should be to sharing (selling) ourselves.

Our business page or profile page, depending on which way we have decided to brand our product, must seek friends first.

Gather friends, invite interested people into your social media friendship circle, share about your life, your dreams, your writing, your books, your services, what causes you believe in and even what you 

stand for.

Casually interested people become interested, interested people become friends, friends support each other and that support turns into sales.

Kathy Smail, after her family roles, is a Communicator who loves the impact of words and is 
working on a novel, when she can drag herself away from reading. Her previous role as the Social Media Manager for a national retailer and various roles in Corporate Affairs, Marketing, Human Resources and Learning & Development has fed her passion for getting the message across. 


She can be found chatting:
Facebook: Kathy Smail Social Marketing Business
Twitter: @KathySmail
Instagram: kathysmail_social_marketing
The Web: www.kjs.com.au

Why Social Media? Part 1

Social Media is a gift!

It can be an incredibly rewarding gift but can often feel awkward and clunky like a toddler trying to wear their mother’s high heels, even with the big grin on their face.

Social media gets a bad rap for making us feel as if we have to manage something akin to trying to dress that wriggling toddler however, embracing the ‘why’ of social media before the ‘how’ can be incredibility liberating.

So ‘why’ social media?

Let’s look at what it is. Social media is a ridiculously broad term for many hundreds of sites, platforms and apps which enables users to connect, engage, and share information.

It’s important that we make the point that promotion or sales are not necessarily the reason why most of us use social media. One could argue that social media platforms are all about self-promotion and the popularity for selfies as well as the rise in photo sharing, particularly of staged meals photo would likely support that thought.

Some 1.57 billion people are listed as having a Facebook profile and that doesn’t include the many pages that we also own. These may be for businesses, charities, community groups or for a group of friends who like to keep in touch in a quieter space.

Quieter spaces are hard to find in our busy world but social media gives us space to be ourselves, or a version of ourselves (if we wish, but that’s another article!). We get the chance to show off our children, connect with like-minded people across the world, argue a point, learn from others, increase our areas of influence and do it all from our couch. The Sensis Social Media Report for 2016 shows us that 26% of Australians check their social media sites more than 5 times a day and another 24% at least once a day. So half of us are using social media sites every single day.

I’d like to suggest that the ‘why’ of social media is that our platforms are an extension of us- our hearts, our dreams and our lives. We are individuals connecting with other individuals. A spider’s web of connecting fibres across the world to places that we might only ever dream of travelling to.

The more connected that we are to others, the more influential we become and the more influenced we can be.

It’s the power of influence that is the ‘why’ of social media.

In Why Social Media? Part 2 we’ll talk further about how to use the ‘why’ of social media turns into sales on social media.

Kathy Smail, after her family roles, is a Communicator who loves the impact of words and is 
working on a novel, when she can drag herself away from reading. Her previous role as Social Media Manager for a national retailer and various roles in Corporate Affairs, Marketing, Human Resources and Learning & Development has fed her passion for getting the message across. 


She can be found chatting:
Facebook: Kathy Smail Social Marketing Business
Twitter: @KathySmail
Instagram: kathysmail_social_marketing
The Web: www.kjs.com.au