Corporations spend a lot of time, money and effort to build brand awareness through social media channels.  And oftentimes if the research points to a high number of hits and clicks and pageviews, the marketing team celebrates and waits for the sales to come through.

But if the initial visit to Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn didn’t drive the visitor to take the next step to learn more about your product and your company, then the exercise has failed.  In a post by Pamela Vaughan on HubSpot.com, she suggests that there are 8 foolproof ways to increase your social media reach.  In addition to basic tips like interacting with followers, sharing useful, valuable content and adding social sharing buttons to all your content, she also includes offering incentives for fans and followers.  In other words, give them a reason to buy.

Gift with purchase, customer loyalty programs and limited-time product specials are a few of the tactics that build brand awareness by motivating customers to purchase your product.  Consider a spot gift-with-purchase program with a limited budget that only allows for an inexpensive item like an umbrella or tote bag.  But rather than making a quick decision to go with the off-the-shelf umbrella idea, you offer a custom-designed eco-friendly insulated grocery tote embellished with your logo and marketing tag line in a subtle and distinct way. The cost would be about the same, but the customer reaction may be quite different.  Or, design a simple loyalty program that distributes points for sales, referrals, surveys, etc, and give the customer the opportunity to spend those points on your company products, or other lifestyle items that are branded with your logo.  In any case, the idea is to turn a visit to your Facebook page into a loyal customer.

Nearly everyone would agree that marketing through social media can be effective, but only if it is combined with well-designed supporting programs aimed at driving the followers to “drink the water”!  Schedule a meeting with your marketing team, advertising/social media specialists and preferred branded merchandise professional, and design a multi-faceted social media strategy that will ignite the interest of even the most passive on-line visitor.