E-commerce marketers are increasingly using social media platforms to build their brand awareness, connect with customers, and promote their products with the help of organic posts and targeted ads.Â
The practice of using social media to promote your online store is called social media e-commerce marketing. Any social media marketing agency you consult will use social media to drive traffic to your website or app, sell products directly through social media, engage with customers and prospects directly through social media, collect insights from social media about your industry and markets and build an online community that supports your brand on social media.Â
Using social media for e-commerce will yield high success rates if done effectively. Proper social media marketing involves coming up with a productive strategy that will help you run a whole campaign. Here are some of the reasons why you should use social media for e-commerce.
- You can save time: You can pre-plan and schedule your social media campaigns and posts according to your strategy, helping save an immense amount of time in the long run. You can use the saved time to pay attention to other aspects of your e-commerce business.
- You can count on a strong and organic presence: Effective social media strategies guarantee a strong online presence. If you maintain consistency and keep interacting with your audience, your social media presence will become stable, thereby elevating your brand identity.
- You can target your audience more effectively: Social media offers many targeting options based on many factors, including demographics, location, interests etc. Selecting specific audiences for social ads will lead to maximizing conversions.
It is good to use social media for e-commerce businesses because they facilitate communication with customers through social interaction on e-commerce sites. The information you collect through social media will help enhance marketing and research. From Facebook to Instagram and LinkedIn, there are several social media platforms that you can use to your advantage for e-commerce success. You can connect with new customers and stay in touch with old ones through social media. The content you promote through social media has as much significance as a poster or sign you would display at the entrance of your store.Â
Since online shoppers are buying your products without actually seeing them, the more transparency you provide, the more convinced they are. Social media platforms allow you to showcase your products in use and reviews from multiple users. Shoppers can even interact with users for more reviews if their account is public. If your content is useful and convincing, your followers will also increase, which in turn builds brand value.Â
Social media is the best channel to create a buzz. Here are some social media strategies you can use to ensure the success of your e-commerce
- Build Brand Awareness: This is a process that takes time. You need to create a posting strategy highlighting your USP and be consistent with it. You also need to publish on multiple channels and formats, engage your page in popular topics through hashtags etc. and have direct conversations with users. You should pay special attention to being consistent with and showcasing your brand’s personality and values. Also, never forget to respond to feedback.Â
- Advertise: Social media is probably the most effective way to advertise as it has a global reach that is growing rapidly. Before advertising, you need to identify your goals and choose platforms, ad types, KPIs, and conversion metrics accordingly. For example, if your goal is to drive brand awareness, you should focus on image, video, and carousel ads that drive brand awareness. In such cases, you need to track store visits, ad impressions, engagements etc. On the other hand, if your goal is to drive sales, you should focus on showcasing your products and collections through shopping ads that drive sales and track direct purchases and product page visits etc.Â
- Direct Selling: Currently, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok have built-in social selling capabilities. Twitter and Snapchat have partnered with Shopify to create social commerce tools. All these provide interactive online shopping experiences that are free to set up. They are also highly effective in streamlining the sales process.Â
- Customer Support: How you respond to queries and feedback speaks volumes about how you function. If your e-commerce becomes a hit and you need to scale customer support, you can always make use of e-commerce chatbots. They help connect and interact with customers across multiple platforms and offer support at any time. They can answer FAQs and guide users through the buying process for a fraction of the cost you would require for a support team. If you don’t know how to set it up, your digital marketing agency can help you.
- Social Listening: Social listening is a very useful tool to track customer needs. By scanning social media for mentions of your brand and relevant conversations, you get invaluable insights regarding the general public sentiment towards your brand and the root cause for recurring issues, if any, popular products in your brand. It allows you to address issues effectively, seize opportunities and refine your message according to market demands.
