How To Use Social Media For Your E-Commerce Business

Ever since Six degrees went online in 1996 social media has become one of the fastest growing platforms ever in the history of the internet with social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube having billions upon billions of people on their platforms daily! With these social media platforms gaining the attentions of billions on the daily, the opportunity for eCommerce presented itself to businesses across the globe. Since that point eCommerce has grown alongside social media as well.

Many businesses now have a social media profile on many of the platforms available, so now is the time for you to create a social media profile.

Here’s a complete guide to creating a successful social media profile and social media strategy.

Is Social Media a must have for my business?

Do you have to use Social Media for your eCommerce business?

The short answer is yes, and here’s why. Customers expect reputable businesses to have social media accounts. That is where they do their research before making a purchasing decision. on top of this nearly all 4.8 billion users of the internet have a social media profile, if we cut this number down to say 4 billion, that is still a potential audience of 4 billion users that you are shut off from just because you do not have a social media profile.

In the following section, we’ll outline the steps you should take to create an effective social media strategy for your eCommerce business.

Step 1: Creating a Social Media for eCommerce Strategy

The most common mistake by new businesses when it comes to social media is trying to create a presence everywhere, with no clear idea of why or what they want to achieve.

Social media is part of your online marketing strategy. You need to go into it with a clear purpose and a clear plan.

Do Your Research

You don’t need to know the ins and outs of every social media platform, but familiarising yourself with them pays dividends.

Start by creating a personal account on the best social media platforms for eCommerce businesses like your own. You will get a feel for what they are, how they work, and whether they’ll be of value to your business.

Look at demographics. Not all social media platforms attract the same types of people. It’s essential to align with your target customer (it’s also vital that you have a clear idea of whom you are targeting).

Another thing you may want to research is your location because, you can initially focus on building that local following on social media. For example WTBI are a digital marketing agency based in Corby so we would try and build a local audience comprised of people in Corby, Kettering, Peterborough, Northamptonshire.

Selecting Your Platforms

We’ve already hinted at this, but it’s essential that you understand that an excellent social media strategy doesn’t necessarily mean having a presence everywhere.

You can choose to focus your time, effort and money on one or two platforms instead.

Choosing a few social media platforms will allow you to concentrate your growth on those platforms, learn the ropes, and get a result before you expand elsewhere.

If you don’t have a dedicated social media team to do all the work for you, that is important.

Turn profiles into sales

The last part of your social media strategy for eCommerce is how to turn those profiles into something that will help you generate sales. Now previously the best way to do this would to create a funnel from your social media profile to your landing page. While you can still do this, there is a much more efficient way of getting users to buy your products.

This is where Social Commerce comes in. Social Commerce has now been described as the next global shopping revoultion. Social Commerce allows users to stay on that social media platform but, still have access to a shop created by your business which will contain all the products that feature on your website. So instead of running the risk of losing the user during the funnel process you can keep them on the platform they are comfortable with.

Step 2: Create Your Accounts

When you’ve outlined a broad social media strategy, it’s time to get your social media accounts in place.

Aim for consistency in your accounts when it comes to names, handles and logos. That’s not always easy if your preferred name isn’t available, but try and use special characters to create something unique.

When writing your social media profile, think about what you can write to try and grab the attention of people online, the best way to do this is through humour after all, everyone likes to laugh.

Social media is a fun place for people to hang out, so people don’t expect formality. Show your personality and tell people a bit about why they will fall in love with your company.

Step 3: Decide on Your Marketing Approach

Now it’s time to dive deep with your social media strategy and decide what eCommerce marketing approach you will take.

There is more than one way to market on social media. You can try multiple strategies or focus on one. Here are some great ideas on digital marketing for eCommerce approaches to get you started:

The Growth Strategy: Working With Big Numbers

Growing a social media following takes time, and the bigger your following, the more response you’ll get from your promotions. So it makes sense to work on attracting as many followers as possible from the start.

You can do that by:

• Being very active on your accounts
• Posting multiple times a day
• Using hashtags 
• Connecting with established communities on social media
• Producing fun and original content that has the potential to go viral

If you are going to do this, take note of a few essential tips.

First, be authentic. It is easy to get sidetracked into growing followers for the sake of having a large account. But if you use viral content to attract attention that isn’t aligned with your business, that’s not a great idea in the long term because you will have gained an audience, however that will be an audience full of people who couldn’t care about what you sell.

Second, if you outsource this work, use a reputable company. Finally NEVER EVER buy followers, as you may end up with fake accounts that will hurt your social media profile and could end up getting you banned off that platform.

The Supercharged Strategy: Paying for Ads

Proper organic growth on social media rarely happens overnight. If you want immediate results and have the budget, your best option is to pay for social media advertising.

The beauty of social media advertising is that you only pay for results, whether likes on your Facebook page or clicks to your website. So you can try advertising even with a tiny budget.

Social media advertising is a sophisticated business. It is possible to get very specific about the people you are targeting with your campaigns.

For that reason, only try advertising once you have an unmistakable idea of who is most likely to buy your product i.e- your target audience.

The Engagement Strategy: Getting Intimate

One of the most successful but underutilized social media marketing strategies is all about high engagement: getting to know your fans and followers on a first name basis via comments and DMs.

Many eCommerce businesses treat their social media accounts as a platform from which to shout about their promotions. But consider how you can use these accounts to start a conversation instead.

This strategy works beautifully in today’s online age, where customers are subject to hundreds of online ads every day.

If you can start a one-to-one conversation, you’ll build a personal relationship. That creates trust and loyalty from customers, something you can’t put a price on.

The Superstar Strategy: Finding Social Media Influencers

Our final strategy is the celebrity approach. Before you have an audience, you use someone else’s instead.

Influencer marketing is growing, and it’s easy to see why. Suppose you sell handmade jewellery. Consider a big-name influencer with millions of followers wearing one of your necklaces and the impact that can have on sales. This happens all the time on platforms like Youtube with influencers doing sponsored videos for many different companies.

You can pay influencers to promote your products but keep in mind country regulations and rules. The ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) have specific rules on how influencers declare their paid promotions.

A top tip: avoid the biggest celebrity influencers and instead focus on smaller influencers closely aligned with your niche. You’ll likely achieve a better ROI (Return on Investment) because it’s a more targeted audience.

Step 4: Measuring Your Social Media Results

Once you know what marketing approaches you will pursue, your next and final step is to make sure that those strategies are working well for your business.

Measuring your marketing strategies using data and analytics will give you a snapshot of how effective each new tactic is.

Analytics will tell you the social media platform is bringing you the most traffic and which one converts that traffic into paid customers.

By doing this, you can begin to refine your efforts, putting your time and money into the approaches bringing you the best returns.

What analytics platform you choose will depend on what social media platforms you are on. But do your research before selecting the right tool for your business.

Many analytics features come as standard in social media publishing tools. So you can measure how each social media campaign does once new content is published. A tool that provides a social media tracker is SEMrush and while you do have to pay, you can use a free trial to see if you find the tool helpful.

Accelerate Your eCommerce Success

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when it comes to mastering social media for eCommerce.

After all, to win the attention and adoration of fans, you are competing with companies with millions of followers. That’s not an easy task. But here is something to think about, those massive companies used to be in the exact same position as you. On top of that, you can be proactive with your social media strategy and make your social media profile a profitable avenue for your eCommerce business.