Companies that undertake or rely on a social strategy in social networks with the sole aim of selling more must analyze their priorities in depth.

That social networks help to sell more we all know is a reality. But that its only objective is this, is a common error. More common than we think. So how to use Social Media as the only advertising channel without off line actions.

When we decide to have presence in Social Networks, our only purpose can not be to sell more. We are in Social Media, because we want in the first place to know what is said of our brand. How they talk about us. What impression our consumers have. What do they think about the competition? In short, it is mainly a listening channel. It is for this reason that in any social strategy 2.0 that is raised the priority should be listening. And we listen to it through perfect monitoring. A detailed monitoring in which the agency or professional separates the dust from the straw. In the world of information saturation the amount of results we can find on our brand or product on the internet can be shocking. Then we need tools and professional staff who are able to extrapolate that amount of information and transform it into data ready to be examined by the relevant marketing team.

Therefore, the first most important function for what a social strategy should serve is to listen through proper monitoring.

Another basic and essential function that must fulfill a correct social strategy 2.0 is to communicate. And by saying “communicate” I do not mean “sell” to our audience, fans or interaction group. Communicating is interacting with our audience interested in our brand or product. It is to understand us, is to know their demands, is to speak with them.

This communication or interaction includes responding to claims. There are many cases of companies that take actions in Social Media and in the face of pressing crises in their boards, profiles, etc. Make the decision to settle the same by removing comments. Leaving a deaf board that only talks and does not listen is not doing a social strategy correctly. If we do not want to hear or do not want to do it, our readers will not be interested in talking to us when it suits us.

It is very difficult to make a company understand that the public should be served for better or worse. Opening a social network may mean opening a pandora’s box. If we have been a company with closed ears that we have never listened to our consumer and we are connoisseurs that exists a reality contrary to our product or even presence is hard to assume it. And the harder it is for everyone to know. With our openness to the social we open the window and in many cases the door of complaints. 
But everything has a process … logically the less attention we have been making to our channel of customer service, the more adaptation process we will need.

But having neglected our usual channel of communication does not mean that we can not enter the digital age. Of course, we must prepare our client for a routine of complaints, complaints and a long etcetera that can last a long time. That extension in time will be defined on the one hand, by the professionals who carry out their social strategy, and on the other hand by the care that the company must now provide to them with total care.

Answering complaints, answering inquiries or clearing faults off line is selling more. It is selling more without telling our customer that how we follow on facebook should buy our product.

The usual user of social networks is becoming more tired of ads and profiles whose goal is to blatantly sell them. “Likes” and “Unfollow” fall like flies every day in a more blatant way. Getting real followers 2.0 that follow our brand is becoming more difficult every day. With everything and with this will continue to exist companies whose final goal will be to get more and more followers, without differentiating if their target or if they get followers from India.

So far we have learned that in our social strategy on the one hand we must listen and on the other we must talk in a bidirectional way. That unidirectional communication with the sole selling objective does not work.

At this point the company you want, either perform your online strategy or review the same, you must meet these essential guidelines. Do I want to serve my clients and therefore sell more, reinforcing my image? If the only answer is I want to sell more using the network as a platform for free harassment and demolition, Social Media is not the right channel to do so.

The problem is that companies that refuse to accept social sales are condemned in the medium term to being victims of their own ego. Because the direct communication with the company that sells us the yogurt in the supermarket is something real. And if that company of yogurts ignores your comments, in the end you will change brand.

At such a point, the brands affirm that in these current moments of crisis their only concern is the sale; And that this sale is marked in a high percentage by its final price in front of the competition. Unequivocally a bad pricing policy can not be saved with an excellent social media strategy. But a correct social strategy can make us rectify those negative points that denote our clients or target audience.

A Social Strategy should not be done to sell more as a single objective. Selling more must be implicit in a possible strategy, but if we set it as a single objective, the whole procedure will be doomed to fail before even putting it into practice.