How to Leverage Social Media for eCommerce Marketing
There is a lot of noise about using social media for eCommerce marketing. If you don’t have a digital marketing strategy, you can consider yourself a little outdated, to say the least. You might have a website and a blog but that doesn’t mean that just your online presence is enough. You will need to start spending time on social media and discover how you can optimize your digital marketing plan with the help of social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. However, do not forget that social media is just a platform and not something that will sell your products magically. Everyone is eager to monetize social media but the important thing to evaluate is to see how it is going to benefit you. Statistics show that only 12% of the companies feel that their social media strategy is working out for them. As Cyriac Roeding, CEO of ShopKick, a social commerce app, said, “Don’t mistake social as the core of the shopping experience. Social is a means to make shopping better, not vice-versa.” You can connect to a large audience and market your product to them. Social media also helps in finding out whether your customers are satisfied with you or not. It also acts as a monitor to show you who is talking about your product, whether they like your product and what are they talking about it. All these provide you with a heads up about where you stand in the market. You need to understand that your objective is to sell. So, use the media to attain that. Also, social media can add to your business other than direct sales. You can use Twitter, Facebook and Instagram as an extension of customer service or to build brand awareness, this can be a place where you can improve customer engagement & gain insight into your customers’ interests. All these contribute in increasing overall sales. Finally, making your social media strategy a success requires time and unwavering commitment. Follow the given instructions to leverage social media for e-commerce marketing. 1. Involve your audience Your website needs to be designed in such a way that it aims at enhancing customer friendliness. Add social media into all aspects of your e-commerce website. Give your customers the option of using an existing profile to log in. By doing so, you can avoid unnecessary steps that require a user to create an account or register. Make sure your home page, product pages and other pages also have easy sharing buttons. The power that a simple share button has can’t be undervalued. New customer would want opinions of the veterans in the business, rather than the companies blowing their own trumpet. Involving your audience can give you an edge over others. 2. Don’t oversell Many businesses who fail to engage their audience on social media commit to self-serving. Talking about new products or sales is great but you need to know where to draw the line. Try to engage your audience with the company itself and not just buying or selling. You can do this in multiple ways by resorting to contests, quizzes and tips. Make the questions interesting enough to generate discussions. Try to keep promotional posts only up to 20% and the rest needs to be what the audience connects to. It could range from current news to popular TV shows that have link to business. However, make sure that all your conversations are related to the kind of products that you sell on your e-commerce website. 3. Visual creativity Visuals attract crowd better than words and there is absolutely no doubt about it. You can use this for your gain. A collective of all social media platforms, photographs are the most shared. Photo sites such as Instagram and Pinterest can be the perfect platform to showcase your company with a creative streak. You can choose a wide range of things to post like photos, cartoons, caricatures and even a small text message in a quirky font and an attractive background to catch the eyes of your audience. Philosophical quotes and motivational messages never grow out of fashion. Build a relationship with your customer that is interesting and fun. Last but not the least, use visual creativity to showcase all your products from their most flattering angle. 4. Scope for improvement Social media is the best place to know where you went wrong or what else you could have done due to the immense information available about your performance. You can measure your activity and learn about social media marketing & the important nuances like the best time to post, the trending topics, which products are popular, who is doing what to promote their brand. Combine all of this knowledge and monitor your own performance to create a power-packed e-commerce publicity campaign. The trick is to never stop experimenting or never stick to one particular strategy. Experiment with your strategies to keep your audience engaged to your company. 5. The third wheel content Like mentioned earlier, you don’t have to limit your posts to e-commerce topics. You can use other interesting matters relating to your business. Likewise, you can share content from other websites that are related to your business but with due credits to them. Even if you curate content from other sites by sharing, try to add a creative description along with the shared content to captivate your audience. For example, if you are a telecommunication brand, and you come across some interesting things related to telecom sector, share it on your web page. But don’t forget to mention and give credits to the source, you got the information from. 6. Crack a sweet deal The secret code to successful e-commerce marketing is to make your audience feel special. Focus on showing what you can offer rather than making them purchase. Talk about attractive deals and exclusive offers to show how special they are. You don’t have to make grand utopian gestures; a simple “thank you” for their purchase will work wonders.