There is no doubt that eCommerce business owners have so much to gain from social media marketing. And even though there is a popular belief that social media is destroying this kind of retail, this is nowhere near the truth. In this comprehensive guide, you’ll learn how to master social media for eCommerce to win more customers.
Social media is just there as a tool that can benefit retailers if used properly, so we can look at these platforms as valuable places that can help businesses evolve. But how can you master the social media game for eCommerce and win more customers?
One option is to turn to a proven social media agency and hire their experts to create the campaign for you. That way, you can rest assured that your campaign will be carefully planned and executed.
Another thing you can do is go at it yourself. If you choose this path, take a look below to find some useful methods that can help you master social media for eCommerce on your own.
Social media for eCommerce
The best bit about social media for eCommerce is that your business can engage with people at almost any point of the customer lifecycle. However, this is easier said than done.
In order for your business to make the most out of social media platforms, it is important to understand the methods and tactics that are proven to work among industry giants.
So, let’s start listing the methods and tips that can work for your business. As a result, an important part of our guide for mastering ecommerce social media.
Combine organic and paid strategies
The best way to approach social media marketing is to go for a combination of organic and paid methods.
The Sprout Index Above & Beyond states that customers find businesses on social media in a wide range of ways. Around 40% of consumers find new brands from their personal networks, around 35% learn about a business from influencers they follow, and around 32% gather info by word-of-mouth.
Two out of the mentioned three methods of discovery are organic. However, these also have the potential to be conducted through paid social strategies.
These are the organic social media strategies that work well for eCommerce businesses:
- Providing excellent social customer care
- Using user-generated content to further your social proof
- Turning to social listening to improve your product and discover new customers
- Maintaining presence and use of product reviews on your social media accounts
- Adding relevant hashtags to increase the discoverability of your business
- Creating personalized interaction with customers on both your account and theirs
On the other hand, paid forms of social media strategies used by eCommerce businesses to include creating a brand ambassador program, forming brand partnerships, creating a referral or affiliate program, running boosts and advertisements based on any of the mentioned organic strategies, paid advertisements, and post boosts, as well as using lookalike audiences and website visitors to fuel your advertising.
Set up your shop on social: Social media for eCommerce to win customers
Instagram and Facebook have made it easier than ever to shop within a network. Therefore, it should be your top priority to use these platforms’ features to make shopping and product discoverability on social media a smooth experience for your customers.
Facebook and Instagram have the same backend infrastructure for shopping. Once you load in your product list or link your website’s eCommerce platform, you will be able to start tagging products in the posts.
When products are displayed on Instagram posts, they can be tagged, allowing customers to look at purchase details with a single tap.
Clicking on the tagged product will lead the user to the product’s website page for a given product. The browser pops up within Instagram, so when a user closes out or finishes their purchase, they can go right back to browsing.
Boost your social media customer service
Almost 90% of people will hesitate to buy from a business that has negative online reviews. Negative reviews usually come from customers who didn’t like your products or your customer service.
Customer service on social media is now what most people expect, so if you don’t answer a complaint, you decrease customer advocacy by as much as 50% with social media for ecommerce to win customers.
When talking about social media, people check followers’ unanswered comments on your posts and how fast a brand responds to private messages. This will impact them to either think you’re unreliable or safely make a purchase knowing that your customer service agents are there to help.
So, take some time to answer messages, tweets, and comments, and always be there to listen to what people have to say about your brand.
Try out giveaways: Ecommerce social media guide
The benefits of social media giveaways and contests are numerous when done properly and effectively. Giveaways and contests are great methods to provide businesses with a boost in terms of awareness and customer engagement.
So, keep in mind that when you execute a contest properly, you actually invest in building a bigger community.
When talking about the benefits of social media contests. Building a community is definitely one of the strongest points we should bring up. With contests and giveaways, participants are often urged to speak up and tell their friends and family about it.
It almost feels like the businesses of today aren’t building their own communities. Rather, they’re simply getting accepted by their audience’s respective communities, which is important, unintrusive, and valuable.
Give these contests a try and you will see how effective they can be once you discover new visits and improved audience engagement.
Only produce and post valuable content: Social media for eCommerce to win customers
The vast majority of people will tell you to share content that your followers will love. And while this is true, you should make sure you share content you like first.
Produce content that aligns with your brand’s lifestyle, products, and services, mission. Goals and don’t limit yourself to only a few content types. Keep reading to explore more form our ecommerce social media guide to master it.
Take a look at a few different categories of content you can share on your social media pages:
- Behind the scenes images
- Customer reviews
- Product images
- Sale or promotion
- UGC (User Generated Content)
If you’re not entirely sure what type of content to post. Look for other brands’ social media accounts that are similar to your business. To see what types of content they’re posting and get inspiration.
Once you gather ideas and inspiration. So, try to produce content that is better than what you saw on your rivals’ pages.
Social media for eCommerce to win customers: Final words
All of this may seem a bit overwhelming and it’s completely normal to feel that way. After all, eCommerce business owners do have their hands full when it comes to social presence.
But as we already mentioned, they also have so much to gain from social media. This covers gaining new customers and increasing the value of the ones that you already have. Since the amount of creative business opportunities available on social media is enormous.
So, take this mini-guide as your helper to achieve your business goals. Ultimately, dominating social media marketing will help you win new customers, but it will also have a positive impact on your bottom line.
