Social media is a must when selling a business

About 58% of people that have internet access have a social media account that they are actively using.

Out of ages 18-24, a common marketing target group, 98% of people claimed to have a social media account. There are a total of 1.4 billion Facebook users across the globe, spending a total of about 700 million minutes on their social networking accounts.

With this amount of popularity all targeted towards one area, it’s impossible to ignore it when trying to sell your business.

How can you sell your business on social media?

It all depends on the social media network, but seeing as is currently the most popular, it’s good to start there. Facebook allows businesses to create a page for either a product they sell or for the business itself. A page allows you to display information about your business, offer promotions to users, and directly link to your business’s website.

In order to create a page, you need to have a personal account that the business page will be attached to. You can then set up moderators that have permission to post on the page and ban people who abuse the content of the page. There are different levels of admin privileges that you can set, from editor to mod.

Showcase your business

Think of your social media page as an area where you can display all of the pieces of your business in one convenient area that is available to anyone. Social media pages will allow you to:

• Post images
• Directly communicate with potential buyers
• Show the potential profit of the business
• Connect with people

Showing works a lot better than telling. Use images and albums to show your possible clients what the business they may be purchasing has to offer.

Try to pique their interest with graphs, charts, and other tools to show them how the business can earn them a profit. You can show images of employees working with customers and much more. By organising it into albums, you make it easy for clients to go through the images in the areas of the business that they are curious about.

Connect to your website

You can use the Facebook or other social media page to try and connect your potential clients to a website that may share more information about the business, including a way to talk to you more personally. In this way, the social media page acts more like a gateway that directs traffic for you.

Locals

One of the biggest advantages to using social media to sell your business is the fact that it allows you to see and communicate with local people in the area. You have a much higher chance of selling your business to someone who lives in the area than an outsider. You can directly target a community when trying to get the word out and pull in some interest.

Next to each person’s name is a location that they reside. This gives you information as to who is sharing your business. You may even be able to push them into doing a little advertising by sharing your page onto their own wall so that others in the area can see it, and hopefully grow your popularity and increase your chances of finding a potential buyer.

Always respond

You should never ignore people, or at least take your time to respond. If you really want to get your business sold, check your messages at least twice a day so that you can keep in touch. Facebook likes to place messages from sources that you haven’t communicated with in the past into a separate “other” or spam folder. Make sure you check this area as well, as it may hold messages that you would otherwise miss.

Conclusion

Social media is very important to marketing a business properly. It serves a variety of purposes and can help you make the sale. It can also direct people to a business website that can offer deeper information about the website as well as personal contact info. Social media websites can be very efficient and shouldn’t be ignored when trying sell a business.

Peter Watson is the chief executive of BizListings.com.au.