Social networking and eCommerce are a perfect fit. Marketers have been utilizing social media to communicate with eCommerce consumers for quite some time. For a good reason: an increasing number of internet users purchase online and use social media marketing for eCommerce to investigate businesses. In 2020, 76.8 percent of worldwide internet users will have bought goods online.
Most social media networks now have free built-in solutions for advertising, selling, and customer care – in other words, tools that may help you increase your sales. This post will go over the many methods you can utilize social media marketing for eCommerce. So, if you’re starting from scratch with your social media marketing for ecommerce’s presence or searching for strategies to update your marketing OKRs approach, you’ve come to the perfect spot!
Why Social Media is Important for ECommerce?
Let’s begin with some numbers. According to a poll of eCommerce decision-makers, 25% wanted to sell directly through social media by 2020, and 15% already sold on social media. The statistics are clear: many online business owners now sell on social media or plan to do so in the future. Social media platforms will be an essential aspect of any eCommerce marketing strategy mix in 2021.
We’ve witnessed significant changes in social networks in the last year (Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, to name a few). These developments have considerably impacted the value that social media offers to eCommerce firms. Before purchasing, customers now love window browsing and exploring things online and on their mobile devices. They are also influenced by Instagram and TikTok trends. And this has advantages for corporations.
The most crucial advantage for eCommerce business owners is:
- Increased reach and accessibility.
- Because your shop is now merely a click away, social media expands your audience reach.
- Positive word of mouth, the immediacy of consumer engagement, and a sense of community may all help your product build a strong brand and clout.
- You may also influence purchasing decisions and take advantage of the extraordinary degree of insights provided by some of the most outstanding social media marketing for eCommerce.
This is only the tip of the iceberg. The epidemic has proven the ultimate litmus test for how useful social media marketing for eCommerce is. With everyone cooped up inside their homes, purchasing online became more than simply a convenience; it became necessary. In 2021, social media will catalyze this shift in customer behavior.
Which social media is best for eCommerce?
After all of this, let’s see who cuts at best in social media marketing for eCommerce and why.
Instagram, now owned by Facebook, is another massive sales potential for eCommerce enterprises, with more than one billion active monthly users. It is also used by about 60 percent of American millennials. Because Instagram is so photo-centric, it has a lot of influence on the sales department. Shoppable Instagram posts make it easier for online companies to include product information in their photographs. As such, you’ll need a bg remover for your images to give them a professional look that the best eCommerce shop images have.
Additionally, retailers can include the item’s name, price, and link to purchase when a model wears a particular pair of sunglasses. There are two reasons why this is a necessary feature:
- Before introducing Shoppable posts, the only link a company could feature was in their bio area.
- More than 30 percent of Instagram users have purchased it after seeing it on the platform, according to Yotpo.
For merchants on Instagram, features like Shoppable posts significantly impact the purchasing process.
Almost all of their customers are on Facebook. With 2.9 billion monthly active users, the chances of a brand’s intended demographic not being present on the site are nearly nonexistent. For shops, Facebook provides a wide range of sales alternatives. Creating a “Shop” link on a company page enables vendors to display a wide variety of products, allowing customers to purchase goods straight from Facebook. For retailers, this is a free service that provides a wealth of information on each item’s views, visits, purchases, and much more. In addition to this, Facebook eCommerce offers extensive targeting, monitoring, and advertising aspects to help you reach customers.
TikTok
Since its inception in 2016, TikTok has become one of the most widely used tools for creating and sharing short videos. Users may add a soundtrack and record a 15-second video. One of the most popular applications for younger generations (and not only Generation Z) is TikTok. It has 689 million monthly users worldwide, with 100 million of them in the United States alone.
With TikTok’s latest venture into in-app commerce, TikTok is now squarely competing with Facebook’s giant (which also owns Instagram). It’s a pairing made in heaven: shopping and TikTok. You may include a link to your online store in your TikTok bio.
However, this only applies to a small number of people. Connecting other social media profiles, like Instagram, to your TikTok page may help you drive more visitors to that platform and encourage cross-promotion, which is especially useful if you’re promoting your business on several platforms. As an alternative, you may utilize TikTok Ads to promote your app or online business.
TikTok also ensures a large reach for your advertisements, and an eCommerce marketing strategy can show that it’s similar to the early days of Facebook on TikTok. If you want to get the most out of social media marketing for eCommerce, you should consider partnering with influencers and content producers to advertise your items through their content.
Pinterest is another highly visual platform. But unlike Instagram, it operates on the concept of pins and boards and allows users to “pin” their interests in a collection or board. With around 454 monthly active users, Pinterest is hard to ignore. Especially considering how well-tuned it is to enable online shopping.
Users can search for a product, pin it to their board or go to the retailer’s page to check out more details. Instead of searching online stores, most users complete the search and consideration phase on Pinterest itself. As an online retailer, you can put your online store’s link in your products’ bio add share pins. And even ‘shop the look’ hooks.
Even though it is not as active in eCommerce as the platforms mentioned above, Twitter remains one of the most popular social networks on the internet. In 2019, 22% of American people were using social media, with 42% of them doing so daily, according to Pew Research social media statistics. While this may appear to be a drawback, Twitter’s strength is its ability to drive clicks for shops for a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising methods.
Because of the lack of competition on Twitter, it is less expensive to run eCommerce advertisements than on Google, Facebook, or Amazon. When it comes to generating traffic and revenue, Twitter’s 22 percent American population isn’t anything to be sniffed at.
Tips on how to conduct social media marketing for eCommerce
A well-thought-out and documented social media marketing for eCommerce is essential for merchants to gain the benefits of social media. To accomplish these goals, merchants must:
Decide on Your Objectives
To build the framework for any project, it’s essential to identify the particular goals you must meet. If you don’t have a plan in mind or a way to track your progress, posting material and connecting with your audience is pointless. If retailers don’t know precisely what they’re looking for, they won’t know if their efforts are worthwhile. Merchants should thus contemplate using the following criteria to develop benchmarks:
- There will be a certain level of traffic.
- Measures such as the number of people that follow you.
- Conversions
Retailers can set more specific objectives, but these are an excellent place to start.
Take Part in Influencer Marketing
We seek inspiration from others in business and our personal lives. We’re curious as to how and what they’re doing. Business owners should pay more attention to influencer marketing since we are all influenced by others. All you have to do to identify these influencers is look at the companies with the highest level of interaction.
It’s a win-win situation for internet retailers when one of these influencers gets their hands on their merchandise. All businesses want influencers to promote their products and services on social media and blogs. ” There are several tools and platforms that make it reasonably simple to launch a campaign.
Remember, however, that without a strategy in place, finding the ideal influencers for your campaign might be difficult, if not impossible. You must select the proper people to represent your business and connect with your target market.
Make Use of User-Generated Material
Text, photos, or short films that your customers make themselves are known as user-generated content (UGC). You may use it as a way to get feedback from your members. Giving customers a way to become involved in the discourse about your brand is one benefit of having this sort of information available.
As a result of sharing user-generated content, your community will be more likely to stick around for future updates from you. More good word-of-mouth marketing is generated due to the interaction with and responses from your consumers.
Make Use of Chatbots
With the use of solutions such as Facebook Messenger, you may communicate with your consumers quickly and efficiently via customer service chatbots. You may automate manual processes such as monitoring order statuses and sending tracking information to customers. Customers simply seeking additional information are a terrific source of prospective leads, and personalizing your chats with them is a great approach.
Publish Live Video Content
Suppose you want to stand out on social networks. One of the reasons why live video has taken off is that it allows businesses to communicate with and create trust with potential consumers immediately. However, having a live stream plan for your organization should not be based on the benefits. You should have one since you have several chances to be creative with the stuff you create. Did we mention it’s also an excellent method to stand out in a busy social setting?
Pay Attention to Analytics
Snapchat analytics, Facebook analytics, Pinterest analytics, etc… these days, everyone uses social media analytics to figure out what works and what doesn’t. And it’s simple to see why: most eCommerce firms employ more than one social network, so they must grasp how each one operates. Social media traffic to your website, follower engagement over time, and follower growth are all vital metrics to keep track of which is only possible with the help of prominent social media agency dubai.
To achieve better results in various social media platforms, consider, also working with influencer marketing agencies in Dubai.
Conclusion
There are a plethora of options for your customers. They are spoilt for choice. How do you differentiate yourself from among the crowd is any eCommerce store owner’s most significant problem to solve. Finding the right customers and product is a task even for offline stores. But unlike offline stores, a eCommerce marketing strategy and social media arm you with the power of analytics and features like never before.
Most consumers are active on social media. Many of these sites are now the key hubs for everything online. Increase your online visibility, traffic, and revenue by implementing the strategies outlined above in your eCommerce social media marketing campaign.
Author: Wail Amrani
Wail is a Shopify Expert & eCommerce Growth Consultant. Former digital marketing manager at Shopify I’m helping brands & retailers build 8-figure eCommerce. I’ve been leading digital growth for both online and retail brands for over 7 years.
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