How fast do I see paying results from my Social Media activity?

Guest post by Sarah Santacroce from Simplicity

How fast do I see paying results from my Social Media activity ? This is a question I get asked a lot. Understandably, since after all, we are all here to do business.

Let me try to answer it:

Social Media is a long term investment
It takes time to get your audience’s trust. You invest time interacting with people, sharing information, building a long term relationship. Seth Godin calls it “building your tribe”. You are not directly selling your products or services, but you are generating leads. Once the lead comes in, your normal sales process takes over.

According to Mike Stelzner’s Social Media Marketing Report 2011 entrepreneurs quoted the main benefits of Social Media Marketing as follows:

• generates exposure for the business
• increases traffic to website, increases number of subscribers
• improves search rankings
• results in new business partnerships
• reduces overall marketing expenses
• and last but not least: increases sales

So, the truth is that you will not immediately see an increase in sales. I would say it takes at least 6 months until you will make the first sale related to your social media activity.

Why does it take so long? It takes time to develop trust. But after interacting on your Facebook page, reading your blog posts and watching your Youtube videos for about half a year, your potential client has a good idea of how your services or your product can help him/her with his needs. And you will be the first one he/she contacts.

So what are you waiting for? Better late than never!

Please share your experience below. How long did it take you to convert a social media lead into a sale?

Here are two other posts that you might be interested in:

• How to measure social media return on investment for the complex sale
• 4 tips for converting social media leads

Sarah Santacroce from Simplicity – Simple Small Business Solutions, is a YNovation partner.

Sarah is a certified social media, internet marketing, and virtual event specialist. She enjoys every aspect of small business marketing. It is her mission to help other small businesses and solopreneurs to increase their visibility and use social media tools as part of their marketing strategy.

She lives and works in Ecublens, Switzerland. To find out more about her business and how she might be able to help you, please visit her website at www.simplicityadmins.com