How to Build a Social Media Marketing Funnel That Converts

There are hundreds of strategies out there when it comes to marketing your brand using social media. These strategies encourage creating content, building a social media marketing calendar and orchestrating creative campaigns to keep your audience engaged.

But when it comes to building a customer journey that takes potential customers who are hearing about your brand for the first time to a point where they become brand advocates and recurring buyers, there tends to be a gap.

In this article, we'll break down the five phases of the marketing funnel. By the end, you'll understand exactly how social media fits into each stage.

What is a social media marketing funnel?

A marketing funnel is a path that your customers travel through. From the initial stages when someone learns about your business, to the purchasing stage, marketing funnels map routes to conversion and beyond.

With careful analysis, a marketing funnel lets you know what your company must do to influence consumers at certain stage. It starts the moment they become aware of your brand and continues until after they make a purchase. The social media marketing funnel ends with a customer becoming a true advocate of your brand.

Different industries and experts might have varying opinions on the phases of a social media marketing funnel. Despite what you call the phases, there is a basic framework to a customer journey that ultimately results in a sale and long-term brand advocacy.

The most common social media sales funnel framework, and the one that applies to most businesses, consists of five phases:

Awareness ' Attracting new people who are currently unaware of your brand.Consideration ' Standing out among your competition so that new audience members remember you.Action ' Compelling your audience to take action and make a purchase.Engagement ' Using social media to stay top-of-mind and keep your audience engaged after they've purchased.Advocacy ' Building enough trust with your audience that they want to recommend you to others.

So how does social media fit into these phases?

If social media is a significant part of your marketing strategy, you'll be able to incorporate social posts into each stage of the funnel. Depending on the platforms you use, you can guide your audience through the customer journey organically.

The marketing funnel works as a unified whole. When every section works towards specific goals, friction in the journey is reduced, creating a customer journey that continues to build trust with your audience and raise awareness of your brand.

Streamline your social marketing funnel with Sprout Social

Sprout can help you make every step of your marketing efforts more efficient.

Plan posts and tag them by funnel stages so you can find out where your funnel is working and where it needs more attention.

Test out Sprout with a 30-day free trial to see how it can enhance your marketing efforts.

1. Awareness

The social media marketing funnel begins with potential customers finding your brand and becoming aware that you exist.

As a business, you should be able to identify a problem that your audience needs help solving. Even if your audience is not aware of your brand, you can relate to them by offering a solution to a common problem.

This initial touchpoint is not the time for a hard pitch of your product or services. The goal is to offer value and support. This information should be valuable enough that potential customers remember your brand and seek more information on who you are.

Instead of just promoting your product, create content that answers your customer's questions and solves their problems. https://t.co/PYc0BOKEXJ

— Sprout Social (@SproutSocial) February 14, 2020