Let's do a simple exercise, let's assume that you have the idea of starting your own business.
There are several questions that an entrepreneur immediately asks himself when he wants to start selling his product.
Who do I sell it to?
Who can be my client?
What do I do to advertise my business, so that they know me?
If you still don't have the answer to the first two questions, we recommend you read our article on how to start your business.
Online sales
Currently there are many tools that an entrepreneur can use to benefit his business thanks to the Internet.
With a minimal investment and from your own home, it is viable today to develop a successful business.
It is important that each one at the time of making the decision to develop their own business establishes some objectives, clear goals, that allow evaluating the results and establishing improvements over time.
One of the first objectives will always be to optimize resources; as the capital in money that I am going to invest and the time that I am going to use in the business.
The money you have is limited and the time too, so you have to make the most of it.
Optimize your resources
So the first objective is to optimize resources, it is there where we must look for tools that help us achieve the goals proposed at the beginning and those objectives set; In this way, the business idea that they want to develop as independent entrepreneurs can be put into operation.
In this digital age, every business idea must consider the internet and different communication channels such as social networks.
Positive aspects of Social Networks
Real-time communication
Contact with people from all over the world
Share information immediately
Free education and content
Create community and engagement with a target audience.
Segmented advertising
Making himself known step by step
The first thing an entrepreneur does is communicate to his family, friends and closest people, what is being done. In this way, from the beginning, the support of the environment in which it operates is sought.
If the internet and social networks did not exist, the activity to follow would be to contact one by one, each known person, friend or family member and tell them what you are selling; But now with a few clicks on the cell phone or on the computer, this entrepreneur could communicate to all his friends who follow him on Facebook or Instagram what he is doing, what his new project is and begin to create a community around his business.
Use Social Networks to publicize your business
If you have an account on Instagram, you can do the following: Check how many people among family and friends follow it, take note of the number and for this example we are going to work with the number of 20 as the followers, then time on your watch, how much delays in uploading an image? less than 1 minute and voila! 20 Potential customers found out about your product.
If these 20 people impacted, in turn, have other followers and if we assume that 5 of your followers share the publication, it will impact other people who do not know you; but what if they are going to know the promoted product. If they wanted to buy it, they can contact you through the account that they follow and so on, converting a publication that did not take more than 1 minute to be published in more than 30 people impacted by the product.
My product much closer and easier to buy.
People are currently giving added value to those activities that they can do and make their life easier.
If I don't have to leave the house, get on a means of transportation, go to the shopping center to buy a product and at that moment there is no time to do it, it may take this person much longer to make that purchase he needs and postpone it if it is not a priority.
On the other hand, if this same person sees the product they need published on a social network (from a friend or an acquaintance of their friend or from a referral) either Facebook or Instagram, they may contact the offerer and buy easier.
In this period of time, the person values the time they will spend traveling to the store, the convenience of shopping from home, the time they will possibly invest in activities with their family instead of going to the supermarket, the warehouse or the mall.
Basic Facebook and Instagram functions that you can use
Each of the social networks that exist have functions that can be used in favor of the commercialization of products. Next we are going to mention some that help in the process of disclosing products to sell and also in acquiring new customers.
Live Videos
Facebook and Instagram have a feature where you can make live videos. With this option, live videos are made in real time to offer your clients nte valuable content, tutorials, tips, talk about the benefits of the product and much more.
The publications that are made in networks must in some way create a link, which is achieved by uploading publications of the marketed product and going further; for example; If in a video you explain how to use lipstick, blush, highlighter, or foundation, the person viewing the publication will feel much closer and more experiential than simply seeing the image with a price.
stories
Another option is to upload images in the story. In both networks, the publications made by this function can be viewed for 24 hours, there they can place a specific offer; for example, a product that has few units available and you want to rotate the product quickly, additionally you can place images with tips for use or images with benefits of the product offered.
Hashtags
There is another functionality that is used in social networks and is called Hashtag, it is essential in the creation of content and serves to increase the participation of people in relation to a publication made; it also makes it much easier to find posts related to a specific topic.
A hashtag is made up of a short phrase or a word (without spaces) preceded by the # sign. This phrase or word must be short and concise, it must be related to the publication that is being made. Example: You have just published the image of a blush, the hashtag that would accompany the publication can be #lucirbella or #RuborRosa, # makeup.
In this way, if a person who does not follow your social networks and does not know where to look can enter Facebook or Instagram and by the search option write #rubor and he will immediately see all the publications that contain this word, in this way you will to generate a better reach, improve the presence of your products and people will be able to find you easier.
Recommendations to start selling through Social Networks.
It is recommended that for the first publications and while the business idea begins to emerge, you start doing it from personal accounts in this way as mentioned before, the people closest to you will find out, and help you in some way way to take the first steps to start building a community.
With each publication that is made, the use of the functions of each of the networks to be used will become more familiar; then a time goal should be set; namely; for example a month after starting with the first publication, create accounts only for your business.
When they are created, you should start with the task of inviting your friends, acquaintances, referrals and regular customers, to follow the accounts.
Creating the accounts to start marketing cosmetics can be done from the beginning, it does not have to be done initially from the personal accounts if you do not want to, it is simply a way to do it.
It is suggested that it be adopted when starting work on social networks, because it has an activities agenda, an agenda to make the publications in the created accounts; In other words, with a calendar in hand, initially program which days to publish product with a price, which day to publish tips for use, which day to make a video with an explanation of use.
The content that is published in the accounts and the frequency with which it is done depends on the followers feeling that link that we have mentioned and detecting the added value that is placed on each publication, the above is a suggestion in the work methodology, not it means that it should be done like this.
Post to Facebook Groups
Another activity that can be done on social networks and that is no less important than those already described above are public Facebook groups, created to buy or sell products and are free to use, you can make publications in them of the product you want market, they are searched, you give them the option to join and then you can publish online publications, as they are public groups they have a very large reach and what is shown there will be seen by many people.
Go ahead, and use Social Networks to promote your business.
The invitation is to dare to use social networks and the internet as a work tool that allows them to develop the business idea they have or have not started; since the evolution of the world is now demanding in the sense that it seeks more! ... closeness, immediacy, and comfort.
