You can use numerous strategies to market your brand via social media. Each strategy requires the creation of content, the development of a social media marketing calendar, and the construction of creative campaigns to keep your audience engaged. However, when it comes to building a customer journey that takes potential customers who hear about your brand for the first time to the point where they become brand advocates, there is typically a gap. In this post, we’ll break down the five stages of the social media marketing funnel, and you’ll understand how social media fits into each stage.
What is a Social Media Marketing Funnel?
A marketing funnel is a bath your customers must travel through. Marketing funnels outline routes to conversion and beyond, from the first point of contact when someone learns about your business to the purchasing stage.
Through careful analysis, a marketing funnel highlights what your company needs to do to influence consumers at each stage. It starts when they learn of your brand and continues until they convert. A social media funnel ends when a customer becomes a genuine advocate of your brand.
Different industries and professionals have varying views on the phases of a social media funnel. Regardless of what you call each phase, there is a general framework to a customer journey that eventually ends with a sale and long-term brand advocacy.
The most common social media funnel framework, which applies to most businesses, consists of five stages:
- Awareness: Attract new people who are not aware of your brand.
- Consideration: Differentiate your brand from your competition so that new audience members remember you.
- Action: Convince your audience to take action and purchase.
- Engagement: Employ social media to stay top-of-mind and keep your audience engaged post-purchase.
- Advocacy: Build trust with your audience, so they recommend you to others.
Next, let’s discuss how social media fits into each phase.
If social media is a significant part of your marketing strategy, you’ll have no issue incorporating social posts into each stage. Depending on your platforms, you can successfully guide your audience through the customer journey organically.
A social media marketing funnel works as a single unit. When every section works towards a specific goal, friction throughout the journey is practically non-existent. This creates a customer journey that builds trust with your audience and raises awareness about your brand.
1.) Awareness
The social media marketing funnel opens with potential customers finding your brand.
As a business, you need to identify a problem your audience needs help solving. Even if your audience isn’t aware of your brand, you can connect with them by offering a solution to a common problem.
This first touchpoint is not the time for a hard pitch of your product or service. The goal is to provide value and support. This information should provide enough value that consumers remember your brand and seek more information about your business.
You can show the value of your brand via content, such as blogs, videos, guides, and webinars. It is best to answer the questions your audience is asking. This will attract potential leads and guide them to your website. Once they enter your website, you can build additional awareness and trust.
If your budget allows for it, paid advertising is a great way to generate awareness. If you target a specific audience or interest group, you’re targeting people who likely deal with the problem you aim to solve.
When you create blog content, make sure you utilize SEO and content marketing to appeal to new users organically.
Video marketing is a great way to build awareness. If you can create videos for Facebook and Instagram, you will increase the odds of new users connecting with your brand organically.
2.) Consideration
As potential customers work their way down your social media marketing funnel, they will look for more specific information when deciding whether to purchase your product or service. This includes researching why you are better than your competitors.
During the consideration phase, you must provide more detailed information that convinces potential customers to take action. Providing potential customers with the correct information, such as case studies or webinars, will help develop trust during this phase.
For B2C businesses, the consideration stage can include testimonial campaigns, in-depth tutorials, or product reviews on your Facebook Business page.
3.) Action
If you’ve successfully nurtured the relationship up until this point, customers will feel receptive to being sold at this stage in your funnel. You should check the data from your analytics to see how your audience has engaged with the previous phases.
You will need to trust that your audience has made it this far down your funnel and that they will convert during this stage. You’ll want to continue to nurture potential customer relationships until they’re ready to convert.
It’s okay to nudge your customers to make the leap and purchase by offering incentives like a new customer discount or free shipping. 67% of consumers said they would likely engage with discounts or offers.
During the action phase, you need to use remarketing campaigns to target users who have expressed interest by engaging with the previous stages of your social media marketing funnel.
4.) Engagement
You can’t forget about your audience once they convert. It’s more common than not for brands to not focus as much time on this part of the funnel.
It may seem like since a customer has converted that they’re a lifetime fan, but this is not true. YOu still need to nurture the relationship and keep your brand top-of-mind.
You can stay connected with your customers and make them feel like they’re part of a brand community. You can create social media content that supports them based on their purchase history.
Hashtag campaigns can make users feel like they’re part of a community and encourage brand loyalty. For less visual brands, you can use a similar strategy on Twitter by creating a hashtag or organizing a Twitter chat.
For B2B or SaaS companies, the engagement phase can involve sharing tutorials. Some brands create a private Facebook page or community for users to connect with the brand and each other.
5.) Advocacy
At this point, you’ve made the sale and added value for customers after they convert. Now, it’s time to take the funnel one step further.
This is when you convert your customers from fans into advocates.
Show gratitude to your customers and reward them for spreading the word about your brand. Collect customer testimonials and reviews or offer incentives encouraging customers to share their journey with their friends.
Continuing to nurture the relationship will take your customers from fans to brand ambassadors who will influence their network to trust your brand as well organically.
Continue to build and share valuable content and nurture your customer relationships. Make it easy for customers to share their stories and advocate on behalf of your brand. Allow customers to share reviews or testimonials on your website or Facebook page to voice their opinions.
You need to work with existing customers during the advocacy stage to create user-generated content.
Closing Thoughts
Traditional funnels have their time and place. However, social media marketing funnels can engage your audience, build trust and create a genuine base of fans for your brand.
A common mistake many marketers make is investing in only a few stages. You need to invest in all of them. Your audience and potential customers will quickly pick up on overly sales-focused content without first building brand awareness or trust. This marketing style will turn potential customers away who are unfamiliar with your brand. If you’re worried about having limited resources to build your social media marketing funnel, then pick one or two tactics to focus on for each phase.
Incorporating the proper steps into your customer journey will help your brand grow. Rather than building a list, you’re building a loyal fan base.
