Social Media Marketing Tips and Ideas for your eCommerce Business
In today’s digital age, eCommerce businesses need to have a strong social media presence to stand out from the competition and reach their target audience. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter offer a unique opportunity for eCommerce businesses to engage with customers, increase brand awareness, and drive sales. However, creating an effective social media marketing strategy can be a daunting task, especially for small businesses with limited resources. In this blog post, I’ll provide you with valuable tips and ideas to help you optimize your social media marketing efforts and grow your eCommerce business. From social media marketing strategies to best practices and case studies, we’ll cover everything you need to know to succeed in social media marketing for eCommerce. So, let’s dive in!
We all buy products/services online as it is convenient and offer us a range of choices. eCommerce is getting popular, today there are numerous eCommerce websites, each struggling to catch the consumer’s attention. They have to reach their target audience in a way that visits on the site get converted to sales. Social media sites step in to create an awareness of your business and pull the right audience. Social Media can help in increasing user engagement, dissemination of information about the new product additions, schemes, offerings, etc. It helps in building and retaining audience for your eCommerce business.
Here is how Social Media channels like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter etc. can build and grow your business in this volatile and competitive business environment. Especially when studies have revealed that 4 out of 10 buyers have made a buying decision on social media channels.
Facebook –FB Social Applications
To achieve business success, having a large customer database is a crucial prerequisite. This is evident when we consider the user bases of major retailers like Walmart and Amazon. However, building a customer database is only half the battle; the other half depends on how you utilize it. One way to build your customer database is through Facebook. If your business already has a fan page on Facebook, why not create a Facebook app as well? By creating a Facebook app, you can incentivize customers to fill out a form in exchange for a voucher, and their data is automatically added to your customer database. While this approach does come with a cost, many companies see it as an investment in acquiring new customers.
Grab Attention With Creative Graphical Posts
What kind of posts grabs your attention on Facebook? Picture posts, isn’t it? A picture gets your message through real quick. So as you engage your audience through social networking sites try to post pictures of products that are sold on your website. For an e-tailer, pictures of T-shirts, shoes, purses can be posted and then the description can guide the consumer to the website. Pinterest is catching up in India; do try the experience of being on it.
Twitter – Connect and Interact
Share updates on Twitter about your business vertical, interesting facts, infographics, videos, links to products, special discount coupons. Connect with people having mutual interests, find relevant people and provoke and make people engage in an interesting conversation over Twitter. Twitter is much dynamic platform and requires continuous monitoring. If someone is asking you a question over Twitter make sure that query is addressed as soon as possible.
Pinterest & Flickr
These websites can be used to promote your products and services in an appealing visual manner. Upload creative images with product description, product links, discount coupons etc. There is no limit to how you can use these visual platforms; literally sky is the limit here.
A Blog Within Your eCommerce Website
The entire business of eCommerce revolves around pulling traffic to your website. Create a blog that gives facts and suggestions about your products. Consequently make this blog popular on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. to engage the audience. This builds interest among the visitors to click and visit your website. This blog becomes a place which people visit to know more about various products and the trends. It creates a pool of dedicated followers who need information and it stimulates the visitor to buy whatever fits their choice, style and life. Blogs attract visitors through search engines and these visitors being relevant, there are higher chances of them converting and making a purchase. Blogs increases brand recall value.
Woo the Customers Through Contests
This has become quite common because it works. Engage your audience and pull visitors to your website by running contests. You can host contests on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and create buzz around your brand. But, before you start a contest know your followers in order to have them attracted and participate. Have the right vouchers, discounts, free offers, etc. ready and offer it to customers as an incentive for participating in competition and winning.
Paid Advertisements and Promotions
Facebook has this great way to promote specific campaigns to people whose interest and behaviour pattern matches your product offering. There is a reservoir of followers you have on social media network. Give them special offerings and have these promoted through the “Offer Claims”. Facebook ads will help you to reach targeted audience based on age, gender, location, interests etc. This will help you to reach to specific set of people. Facebook offers will help you analyze the number of people opted for these offers. Insights will gives you a clear picture of what part of TG is looking out for your offerings. Similarly you can promote tweets on Twitter.
Two-Way Communication
Social media is crowded, it is necessary to pull attention to create a furore and promote your offerings. It is equally important to listen to what consumers are saying. Social media is a two way communication channel where you don’t just keep on pushing your message but at the same time shall listen to what customers are saying. You can use your social media channels to know more about your customer choices, lifestyle, and changing consumer behaviour. Listening and interacting with customers will help in developing a bond resulting in a trusted relation. This will always pull your consumer to your website in spite of the harsh competition out there.
Don’t push your consumer, don’t hard sell. You should try and create a brand experience by engaging and making your brand’s presence felt. When you reward your customers for participation, recall value increases. You build a loyal customer base which further pulls more followers through word of mouth.
The possibilities and way in which you can market your products on the social media channels are numerous but, what fits your marketing strategy is apt for your eCommerce business. You have to observe, understand the consumer and draft the right SMM campaign. Otherwise you will end up spending money, time and efforts with no tangible results. You cannot blame the social media platform in such a case. The basis of any marketing campaign whether social media, print or TV is understanding and interacting with your customer. Social Media for sure can give a booster dose to your eCommerce business.