The top dogs behind social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest are steadily integrating the eCommerce business model into their media platforms.
This also means that numerous affiliate marketers have jumped on the social media hacking bandwagon too for building profitable web-based businesses, and the concept is becoming more popular and competitive each and every day.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t compete with those folks…
If you need a helping hand when it comes to leveraging social media, I would love to share 5 top marketing hacks that will help to boost your brand and create a successful business for free using ethical growth practices.
How does that sound?
OK, so let’s get down to the nitty-gritty…
Table of Contents
#1 – Selling on Facebook, Twitter & Pinterest
While it’s not the best idea to be selling affiliate products directly through status posts and fan pages, tweets and pin boards; the smartest way is to build a website for showcasing your products/affiliate links and socially sharing the site.
In this day and age, you really do need your own website if you’re going to make a success of yourself, whether you choose to utilize social media or any other digital marketing strategy.
So if you wanna compete with others in your niche market, a blog is a must!
However, if you really wanna spice things up and have the edge over your competition, then also build a sales funnel. 😉
#2 – Monitoring Trending Hashtags
This is a topic I also discuss on my Instagram hashtag hacking post. Hashtags that are trending can create an absolute “gold mine” of opportunity if you monitor them in the correct way.
When you use both the right and relevant hashtags with Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram combined, you can generate a nice flow of targeted traffic to your website and/or the landing page of your sales funnel.
But how and where do you find the tags?
A super awesome tool that I highly recommend for finding trending hashtags to use for your social media campaigns is called RiteTag.com – It’s a totally free tool that’s gonna help you to stay on top of the hashtagging game like a boss!
#3 – Highlighting Your Reviews on Social Media
It’s no real “expert secret” that folks are drawn to product reviews like moths to light.
eMarketer.com has reported that a whopping 86% of consumers feel that blog post reviews are extremely trustworthy.
Believe me, reviews work like a charm!
Reviews are what generate the most organic traffic for my blogs from Google, Yahoo, Bing, and social media.
If you’re not implementing this strategy right now, then you’re missing out on a HUGE opportunity to help folks and generate an income from your website.
You can very easily share your reviews on social media using the right hashtags to target your audience and bring in free website visitors.
However, before jumping in at the deep end when it comes to publishing reviews – aim to buy the products to test out, be as thorough as possible with your content, show some real honesty by weighing up the PROS/CONS, and also share your true opinions.
The reason I’m giving you these important tips is because:
- It will separate you from the jackasses (especially launch jackers) who create “biased” reviews for the intent of making a quick buck, whether the products are good or bad.
- You will earn an awesome reputation for helping folks and putting your audience first. This, in turn, will generate more affiliate commissions.
Do you need help with writing effective product reviews and turning a blog into a full-time income?…
See my #1 Recommendation For Step-by-Step Training!
#4 – Live Streaming Videos
Live stream videos are becoming extremely popular on Facebook with its new “Facebook Live” tool, and now even YouTube has jumped on the bandwagon to give you a new live streaming opportunity to get your brand out there to the masses.
In addition to going live with your video broadcasts, you can drop in links to your website, product review blog posts, and sales funnel for driving more traffic and customers.
#5 – Asking Your Fans For Help
Sometimes it’s not enough to make assumptions that your followers will automatically visit your website, buy something and earn you an affiliate commission.
When sharing your stuff on social media, you must be precise with your requests. Give your fans “commands” but be polite when doing it. For example, use dialogue like:
- Please comment, like, and share with your friends
- Please retweet my blog post
- Read my review of “product x”
- Click on my website for more info
- Visit my website to buy “product x”
- And so on…
These are simply known as “call to actions”, and they can work extremely well when you “tell” folks to do something in a friendly manner.
Another effective cool idea is to actually add social sharing buttons to your website. If you have a WordPress blog, there are numerous social plugins to choose from.
SumoMe is also a great platform for growing your website’s traffic through social media sharing buttons. And it’s also free to try out.
My Final Thoughts…
By implementing the techniques and resources (some 100% free and others will free trials) I’ve mentioned, you can build a successful digital business using multiple social media platforms combined.
It’s all about building yourself a website, writing honest product reviews, socially sharing them under the correct hashtags for driving streams of targeted visitors, and of course, creating ‘call to actions’ within your social media posts too.
When it comes to the use of trending hashtags that work, don’t go “tagging crazy” because folks will see you as a spammer, and that’s the last thing you need as an online biz owner. So use only 5 – 7 tags in each social post you do.
One last thing – If you really want to grow your brand using the power of social media, then “consistency” is the key.
To gradually branch out, you will need to publish a new product review each day or a few reviews per week and socially share each new post on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google Plus, and also YouTube if you have the confidence in shooting videos.
Your Friend, Neil 😀
(P.S – This article was created from a training course at Marketers Paradise).
If you have any questions or feedback to add on the 5 social media hacks, please do post your comments below…
Neil, thank you for sharing these important social media tips. I found all 5 to be informative and useful. I especially like your pointing out the importance of doing honest, unbiased reviews.
I’m going to follow up on using the hashtag tool you recommend. I know hashtags are popular and have a practical purpose for search and traffic building. I see them widely used in G+ and Twitter. But is it my imagination or are hashtags less popular in Facebook than in the other social sites that you mentioned?
I enjoyed reading your post – very helpful. ~Jude
It’s no problem, Jude! I’m glad to hear my article has helped you. 🙂
As for Facebook – Hashtags do still work for sending traffic to your website’s content, but the strategy isn’t as effective as it used to be because I think the guys behind the social media giant prefer marketers to spend money on FB ads and fan page post boosts for keeping shareholders happy, etc. So organic reach isn’t exactly FB’s top priority anymore.
But if you want the best results from hashtags, then I highly recommend using Instagram.
Good stuff! Neil