What are your tips for turning your social media followers into clients?

Hi Becky

Carol and Mike are spot on with these two points: it's about conversations and it all depends on why they are following on a given medium.

In a sense, followers are already customers. Though in many cases no cash has changed hands, your followers are already buying your chairs; they have ascribed value to having a relationship with you.

The biggest tip I can suggest is to keep consistently providing sincere, relevant, compelling value to followers. Once they reach a tipping point, if they have a need, they will ask for more. Couple this with an outreach plan to broaden your network and "build an army" of constituents as Chris Brogan puts it.

One big mistake I see is businesses trying to use social media as push marketing. It's not about cramming crap down people's throats. Nobody's buying that! Social media is about pull marketing; creating an environment where your customers want to be, when they want to be there; then they tell their friends, and those friends tell their friends, etc. etc.

Don F Perkins
mindmulch.net

Hi Becky,
All of the above advice is spot on. But I'd like to build on it. Once you've grown a good sized social media following and are having good interactions with them, you definitely can convert followers into customers using social media promotions.

Small and large companies have had great success using coupons to drive social media fans to either online stores or even to retail stores. And by "coupons" I don't just mean 20% off. You can get pretty creative - everybody gets $1 off, but someone wins $10,000 (Jamba Juice did that one with great success). Or have 5 possible coupons that range in value and someone won't know which one they got until they bring it into a store.

But the most important thing is that the offering really resonates with your target clients. That's more important than anything else.

I work for a company called Wildfire Interactive and we have a suite of applications (sweepstakes, contests, coupons, group deals, etc.) that companies use to grow, engage, and monetize their fan base. We've run over 70,000 promotions for thousands of clients, so we have plenty of stories to share and expertise to leverage when planning a promotion, so I'd be happy to chat with you (or any Focus members reading this) about what it is you're looking to accomplish to see if we can help. And if we're not the right fit I'll be quick to let you know and help you figure out what might be the right approach for you.

Cheers,
David
david@wildfireapp.com

Converting social media followers into clients begins with having the right community. Some people amass thousands of followers to find that they have very few that fit their target market. When that happens, conversion is impossible.

The best community begins with your customers. Invite them to join. You know what motivates them. Test different strategies so you know what works best in the social media channel. I've found that one strategy that works wonderfully for a client will fail another in the same industry. This is due to the uniqueness of individual corporate culture.

Integration of different social media platforms with your corporate website is a must. The goal is to move people into a dialogue that includes information about your services. It is unlikely that someone will see a tweet or a post that makes him or her decide to hire your firm. It is the series of consistent messages across platforms that move people to action.

Don't be afraid to share promotional information about your services. If people don't know what you do, can you realistically expect them to ask you for help? Sharing information about your business and how you can help your community is a service as long as you don't overdo it.

The goal is to build trust among your community. This means not constantly pitching them in channels like Twitter. You can't build social currency by acting like you are in a outbound marketing environment. Twitter, BTW, is an excellent tool used properly. Consumers have tired of traditional marketing that serves up messages for customers to dodge. Just how many of those Lexus, Mercedes and Audi ads have you seen over the holidays with a high fatigue factor among their audience. Inbound marketing holds that customers value content and recommendations from friends and colleagues much more. Social media is about to overtake traditional media in 2011. Focus on building a solid social media strategy.

Mark Burgess
www.bluefocusmarketing.com
Twitter | @mnburgess

The key is understanding what your potential clients are looking for in social media. Research the type of problems/issues they have that you provide a solution for. Listen first, then swoop in and provide answers.

Patience - you will be there when they are ready to buy.

Great answers here - the most imperative thing for businesses in social channels is to be of value. This is different for each company & community. Focus on value and the business with follow.