Funnel of fans - from fan to paying customer

5 stages of your social media funnel

In 2019, there were 3.48 billion social media users worldwide, which is almost half of the world’s population. It grew by 9% in the last 12 months of 2019. This alone gives you 3.48 billion reasons to look at your social media strategy for your business.

Regardless of how well your business is doing away from social media, one thing is very clear: everybody is using it in some shape or form and so should you.

Fan of the funnel? Look at your funnel of fans

We are big admirers of the traditional marketing and sales funnels, and for years we have tried to understand how to interact with our funnel of potential customers. With social media it’s no different, the fundamental concept is that reach is the key to driving customer acquisition.

Once converted into customers, the company’s main challenge becomes extending the customer’s lifetime, which refers to how long the customer will continue to make use of a service and/or make repeat purchases. The average spend of a customer, whether in subscription fees or by buying products, contributes to what is known as the customer lifetime value.

Social media is quickly becoming the most dominant customer touch point available to a business. An effective social media strategy that produces interesting and eye-catching content to your target market can keep potential and existing customers engaged with your brand whether the customer realises it or not.

For your social media funnel, or your funnel of fans as we like to call it, there are 5 different areas you need to consider:

1. AWARENESS - How will potential customers find you on social media?

By your content that’s how! Be informative, be relevant, be helpful, be interesting, be involved, be topical! What is it you can offer potential customers directly and indirectly? By following your page what does a potential customer gain? Make your business relatable to current trends.

2. EVALUATION - How will potential customers use social media to compare you to your competitors or similar products?

A lot of businesses are on social media but they don’t actively use it. There are many well-established brands that have lost market share to newer brands in their industry by not building a social media presence. Reviews are of paramount importance here, the more reviews the stronger your social reputation is.

3. ACQUISITION - How will you get potential customers to buy or convert today?

Is your product or service suited to online sale? And is it easily advertised across the medium of social media? These are a couple of the questions you have to ask yourself when evaluating your social acquisition methods. Social paid advertising might be a good option to consider here depending on industry/product or service.

4. ENGAGEMENT - How will you use social channels to keep in touch with customers (so you can sell them more things later)?

You put a huge amount of time and work into acquiring customers, now use social media as a way to retain and engage them. Use your social media platforms as a way to communicate with your customers and manage the relationship. If potential customers see positive interactions between a business and existing customers this will build trust and validation. Solve customer queries and complaints via social as efficiently as possible. Use it to highlight new product developments. It might be effective to set up Facebook groups for customers to discuss your product on.

5. ADVOCACY - How will you get them to recommend your product on social channels to their friends?

Credibility and trust are key on social media, and using your existing customers is the best way to help build this. . All social media platforms have a review feature which is a very valuable asset to your social media portfolio going forward. Invite customers to review their experiences interacting with your business and product/service.

And there you have it! A brief outline on building your funnel of fans on social media. Remember, your customers and target market are always evolving and therefore your business must too!

If you have any questions on building your social media strategy don’t hesitate to get in touch by scheduling a consultation - your first one is free!