3 Reasons You Aren’t Seeing Sales On Social Media

3 reasons you aren’t seeing sales from social media

Social media, oh how we love you, hate you, and love to hate you. I think I’ve been in more conversations about how to use social media for business, how to scale on social media, Social media strategies, and beyond than I can even count! It’s a HOT topic. It’s also a confusing one.

There are hundreds of “Guru’s”, strategists, and coaches JUST for social media. Believe me, I think I’ve bought a course from ALL of them!

I’m honestly so tired of all of the misinformation and confusion. In this blog post, I’m going to tell you what I’ve learned from spending a collective of thousands of dollars for over the past year on learning social media. I’ll be covering:

• 3 reasons you aren’t seeing sales on social media
• The plan for sales using social media
• What to do after they buy

So, if you’re tired of the confusion swirling around what to do with your social media when it comes to your business, product, or offer, buckle up! You’re about to get the TEA!

1.) 3 Reasons You aren’t getting sales on social media

Sales on social is something that ALL business owners want. We are all trying to figure out… how to do it, how to be good at it, and the changes we need to make to make it happen. There are hundreds of different strategies on how to do this. Chances are you’ve come across tons of people trying to sell you on this. Well, here’s the deal…

• Reason #1: You are watching what influencers/social media gurus are doing and trying those tactics to grow your business

If you have a business you are trying to scale online, here’s the difference between your business plan and the influencers.

-You are trying to drive new traffic to your website and turn that website traffic into sales

-An influencer is entertaining to hook in a viewer and continuing to cultivate a relationship on their account to sell them their offers in their stories, while still entertaining them.

It is SO important that you know this difference because I don’t want you to give up on your business like I almost did. Now, if you’re trying to be an influencer with a product thats totally different but we are talking about having a traditional business online. Neither is better than the other they are just different, and unless you are going to start an influencing type of account I would say your efforts are better spent driving traffic from your website/email list to instagram and tik tok.

Reason #2: Your content has too many sales pitches/hard asks

Contrary to popular belief, people still have a hard time being sold to on social media platforms. I know, I know, It’s not what the experts say(The same experts that are making their money by keeping you guessing about this topic). The consumer wants you to to give a lot of free information and entertainment before going to the link in your bio, or commenting ME! in your comments for more information. You really have to set a steady cycle of

1. Reach
2. Nurture
3. Teach/serve
4. Soft Sell (freebie)

And even this isn’t going to convert as well as email marketing or driving traffic in a higher traffic area. Social media just doesn’t offer the numbers to you for any kind of fast results, and then you still have to nurture someone for a long time (most of the time) for someone to purchase. I had an influencer friend say they had someone watching their instagram stories for 5 years before purchasing! Thats a long time! To me, this just means social media can be a good tool for getting to know your audience, (one you already have from somewhere else) but shouldn’t be the only means of marketing for your business, product, or offer.

Reason #3 You aren’t showing a BIG personality

Ok, This one might be a bit controversial 😬 but no one can convince me this isn’t a thing.

Think about it, all the instagram and tik tokers that we know and love all have this trait. Elyse Myers, Brock Johnson, Jessie Lee Ward, Jackie Richards, Kat Fairchild, Summer Alvarez, Derek Hough, the list could go on!

The ALL have a very entertaining personality in a BIG way. But out of all those people I really appreciate Jessie Lee for being super honest and transparent. She has said quite a few time’s, that she is not the “big” personality in real life that we see on social media. She’s a lot more quiet and calm. She says that she’s good at marketing and she knows what people will engage with so she has a persona on social media.

I really do enjoy following her because she is very honest. You don’t feel tricked when you go to her account.

Another big influencer Leslie Burris puts it this way, “You’re just taking one thing about yourself and characterizing that.”

BUT we also know that in-authenticity is a huge NO-NO on social platforms, people can sniff out a rat a mile away. So how do we come across as this “big personality” if we truly just don’t have one? If you don’t want to dance, shout, rant, be obnoxiously polarizing etc… Well, my answer would be that you don’t. If it feels like you’re trying to fit a square peg in a round hole then just do what feels more natural to you.

I can REALLY relate to this. I was trying to sell a Network Marketing Product on social media for a year and hardly had any sales. My upline was a big influencer and I felt like I HAD to do my business this way. Even when I tried to do things my own way it just wasn’t working because I was subconsciously trying to do what I saw modeled. No matter how much she told me to do it differently. It didn’t matter. Humans just do what we see being done. It’s in our nature. We see the successful people doing the things that work for them and our brains just latch onto that. It’s really counter intuitive to do something opposite of what you’re seeing. After a year I saw that it just wasn’t working this way and that was OK. I didn’t need to have any judgements about it, I just have other strengths. It’s so funny, at this point I’ve written business plans, and sales pages and posts for some people in the influencer business model, and that have helped them with sales. It’s what I’m good at. So why was I so hard on myself when It didn’t feel natural to do social media like them? Why did I make it mean that I was less than them? This can be the comparison trap of social media and it’s terrible for our mental health. If you can’t bring yourself to have a persona, or an alter ego that performs, or characterize a part of your personality that will be immediately polarizing. (attract and repel people) then you’re among the majority of us and the good news is theres more than one way to social media! Which leads us to…

2.) The plan for using social media

If you are just a normal person that has a business or service, the influencer/social seller way of doing things is more than likely not for you because there is only so many hours in the day. Making content is not your only job. You have many things to do during the day and serving your clients/customers is a very big one of those things. Try this way instead:

• Find a way to make long form content. A blog post, youtube video, podcast, ect… Use this on your website, market it on Pinterest to bring in leads to your business, and then chop it up into small clips and use that for your social media platfomrms.

• Give free value in your stories and give someone a transformation (about 4 story slides per day) This will nurture the people that find you via reels and the ones that come from your website.

• Send them to the Link in your bio to get them on your E-mail list. Sell them on your offers there.

This is just one way to utilize social media for your business in a proactive way thats not wearing you out. It allows you to do your job that you love so much.

You’re making 1 piece of content, and following up with that on your stories and then YOU ARE DONE. You aren’t spending 2 hours a day making reels or anything crazy like that. You are doing your job and then sharing what you do on social media in a way that doesn’t exhaust you. You aren’t dependent on it to bring you sales it’s just a nice extra bonus. Doesn’t that sound so much more relaxed!?

3.) What to do after they buy

After someone buys from you on social media, you are going to want to get them on your email list or text list. Any way that you can nurture them even further and keep them in the loop with what you’ve got going on that can help them. You can even have E-mail sequences tailored to different groups.

If someone found you on instagram they are likely to want to know more about what it is that you do/offer. Since they are only seeing random little clips of you there is probably a lot to fill them in on.

If someone found you on youtube the could be interested in blog content or some form of written content.

Getting creative about how to serve your community in all kinds of different ways is going to be key in keeping their attention, and keeping them coming back to see what’s next. I like to use convertkit for this. They make sending emails like this super easy!

I sure hope these ideas for selling on social media were helpful! If you are ready to break the social media burnout cycle, I have something that will help you think differently about finding qualified people for your business. Download my Free Find Your Audience Resources Library.

Use the form below to get INSTANT access to this amazing download and change how you think about finding leads for your business.

I also have a free guide with the exact Pinterest strategy I used when starting my business with ZERO clients. Get it HERE

Related Posts:

1. The one thing keeping you from making sales in your business
2. 5 steps to finding your perfect business plan
3. How to use short form video in your business.