Social media is an integral part of digital marketing strategy for many enterprises. Though the increase in social media use allows enterprises to interact with potential customers, the competition for attention has also increased.

For enterprises to continue thriving on social media, their social media marketing efforts must be conversion-focused. So how can you increase your social media conversion rates? Here are five strategies to help you do just that.

1. Focus on engagement

Social media marketing is an ongoing part of your marketing strategy. It requires you to pay attention to your audience's needs and wants. Otherwise, it can become difficult for your audience to feel connected to you, and they will be less likely to stick around.

The simplest way to create engagement on social media is to create content that elicits a response. Vote-based polls and conversation starters are common examples. You can also elicit responses from the audience through opinions, relevant topics, or any interactive content aligned with your audience's interests.

To optimize your engagement efforts, ensure your team understands what type of content works best for your enterprise. Because what makes great engagement for one brand may not create the same response from your audience for your brand.

So put your audience's needs and interests first to make sure they stay engaged. Doing so will help your team develop the best types of content for your audience, encouraging your audience to keep coming back for more.

2. Post consistently

The amount of noise on social media makes it hard for brands to stand out.

Though it can be tough to post consistently on social media, consistent posts mean greater likelihood that your brand will stay on the top of your audience's mind.

It can be tough to keep up with all the posts and the platforms, of course, but that's OK! The key to posting content consistently across your social media platforms is to create a posting schedule that works for your brand. Otherwise, it can be overwhelming to keep up with social media, and your team has other essential tasks to complete. So it's imperative to stick to a schedule that works for you.

The most important variable to consider is frequency. How many posts per week, for each platform, can you commit to while making sure other tasks do not fall through the cracks? It doesn't need to be a big number. But make sure it's a number that your team can consistently manage.

Another factor to consider when creating a schedule is time: When is your audience looking at social media? If your audience is active on social media in the mornings, you should schedule your posts in the morning— to make it more likely that your post will be at the top of your follower's feed when they are online.

Once you have a sense of the time and frequency, use a social media management tool such as AgoraPulse, HootSuite, or Buffer to plan out the actual posting schedule. Doing so ensures that your team never has to ask, "Do we have enough content to post? When should we post?" and can instead just focus on showing up for the audience.

3. Outsource your social media management

Some enterprises hit a point where it becomes too much for them to handle social media in-house because of other priorities. If that is the case, outsourcing social media management could an excellent option to help you consistently show up for your audience.

When you outsource social media management, begin by deciding how much you want to outsource. You may choose to outsource managing your social media platforms to create more time for other priorities. You may also decide to outsource social media posts for only one account and handle the content creation for other platforms.

Another factor is the frequency: How often is your brand showing up on social media? If your brand is showing up on a single platform 12 times a day, you would have to make sure to relay that to your outsourcing partner to come up with the scope of work and budget. Depending on your desired posting schedule, some platforms may have to stay in-house.

Outsourcing social media management will free up your time to focus on other important relevant to your organization's growth. Your audience will continue to hear from your brand, grow their trust, and become primed to become buyers.

4. Incorporate Pinterest into your content distribution

Creating engaging content and posting frequently are important. But getting your content distributed to a qualified audience that is searching for your content is just as important. That's where Pinterest comes in.

Pinterest is a social media platform that also serves as a visual search engine. It had more than 450 million users as of March 2021, so Pinterest an excellent place for businesses looking to access affluent audiences looking to make purchase decisions on the platform. Your brand's content would be getting in front of people that are actively looking for your solution through keywords.

So how do you incorporate Pinterest into your content distribution? Get started by optimizing your existing content for Pinterest. Pinterest's search engine operates through keywords and visual lens. So take a piece of content you created for another platform and post it on Pinterest with keyword-rich description and high-resolution visuals.

Including Pinterest in your content distribution strategy doesn't take much time or effort, and you can get a lot of exposure for the little amount it takes. Harness the power of Pinterest to share your blog posts.

Pinterest can become one of your most powerful content distribution tools for search engine traffic, so give it a try.

5. Create a high-converting funnel

The customer journey has become increasingly complex. It takes anywhere from 5 to 20 touchpoints before customers make a purchase! Social media can certainly help contribute to building up those touchpoints. But you need a process that can turn your followers into customers as they progress through those touchpoints. That's where a high-converting funnel comes in.

A sales funnel is a process of how your prospects move through the stages of awareness and consideration to become a customer. Funnels exist in many different shapes and sizes, but the objective for every funnel is clear: to convert visitors into customers.

To apply this concept for social media conversion, determine what kind of content to produce to address each step of the buyer's journey. Followers who just came across your content would be very unlikely to click on your checkout page, but they may be interested in reading a blog post or watching a video on your channel.

Having a sales funnel will allow your team to determine what content to create for social media and best optimize resources for other marketing efforts. Know what type of content would add value to followers at different stages of the customer journey, then pair up your social media content with varying stages of your sales funnel to convert your followers to customers.

More Resources on Social Media Conversions

Seven Ways B2Bs Can Use Social Media to Boost Conversion Rates and Generate Leads

From Engagement to Leads: The Psychology Behind Converting Social Media Fans

How to Create Engaging Social Media Campaigns That Get Attention