How to Ace Social Media for Ecommerce

Intro

• 57.5% of the online population buy product or services every week
• 26.5% of social media users visit social media platforms to look for products to buy

With this article, I will walk you through using social media to grow your ecommerce business.

What is social media ecommerce marketing?

Social media ecommerce marketing uses social media to generate brand awareness for your store, interest in your products, and drive additional sales.

Popular social media ecommerce tactics include things like driving traffic to your ecommerce site, selling products directly on social media, engaging with prospects directly, providing support to customers, and building a thriving community online.

Most successful brands use all of the above tactics to create a thriving social media ecommerce marketing strategy.

Social media ecommerce marketing

Social media ecommerce marketing is when businesses use social media as a vehicle to promote their brand, product, or service to drive more sales and connect with new customers.

Social selling

Social selling is when a brand connects and nurtures prospects through social media. With social selling, a business can reach and engage with a large number of sales targets on social media.

Social selling isn’t very different from building a relationship online. With this, you connect with potential customers and offer them guidance as well as support. Then when that person wants to buy something it's your product that comes to mind.

Social commerce

This is where brands sell products or services on social media with solutions like Facebook shops, TikTok and more.

Social commerce lets customers shop, select, and complete purchases without leaving social media apps.

How brands can use social media for ecommerce

1. Build brand awareness

There are very few marketing channels that are out there better than social media for your business. Social media helps you promote your services, events, and promotions and it’s also great for promotions. It’s also great for creating conversations with your target audience.

To build brand awareness start with a strategy that posts a unified message on different channels in different formats. Create content that speaks to hot topics, hashtags, and direct messages with users.

Building brand awareness takes time. Showcase your brand personality by being consistent and uniform in your message.

Ultimately use the opportunity to respond to feedback and demonstrate your value to the target audience. SEO for Yahoo or other search engines for that matter also takes social signals into account.

Here are examples

Tentree is a clothing company that promotes sustainable clothing. They bake this message of promoting sustainability on social media. This tweet for instance shows sustainable living cabins in Findland. The post doesn’t showcase Tentree’s products but is in line with what they stand for and reinforces the brand’s personality. The lesson here is that you need not tie every social media post to a product. You can also post something relevant interesting that connects to your brand peripherally.

2. Advertise

There are few advertising channels more powerful than social media. The global reach from social media is huge and keeps growing.

Here’s the ad reach by social media.

• 2.17 billion on Facebook Ads
• 1.44 billion on Instagram Ads
• 1.02 billion on TikTok Ads
• 849.6 million on LinkedIn Ads

These audiences are big.

To advertise effectively on social media, make sure you:

• Select a target audience to market to
• Set down your targeting parameters
• Create a compelling content strategy to speak to your audience
• Define both goals and KPIs for your channel
• Choose ad types that speak to your goals

The goals you have for social media advertising will dictate the ad types, KPIs, and conversion metrics you choose. And the platforms you invest in.

You can drive brand awareness with image or video carousel ads.

You can also drive store visits or boost lead generation, ad impressions, as well as higher engagement with ads.

Get started, select your goal. Then define the type of ads and targeting you need. And then define how you’ll track success.

3. Sell products directly on social media

With the abundance of channels, it’s easier than ever before to market and sell on social media. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok etc. all have built-in integrations with Shopify that help you create a store on these channels.

Twitter(X) and Snapchat have also partnered with Shopify to create social commerce tools of their own.

This is where the brand you’ve built online transcends into social commerce.

Social media is free to begin with and they create memorable and interactive experiences for their followers to like and share what they say.

They extend places where you can sell

They give you a chance to create live shopping experiences.

Boohoo’s Instagram for instance combines shoppable products and lifestyle marketing. They showcase the professional and fun life.

Boohoo primarily uses influencer endorsements to enable the brand to target a relatively young audience on Instagram where it has over 12.6 million followers. 4 years ago they just had 6.6 million followers. They’re spending millions on influencer marketing and therefore maximize their campaigns.

4. Increase sales with an ecommerce chatbot

With more sales you expand your footprint and sales capacity on social media. Ensure that you scale customer sipport too.

Ecommerce chatbots are one way to succeed with this idea. Leverage AI powered bots to connect with customers in no time.

Offer pre and post sale support.

• On different channels on social media
• Offer discount codes, coupons and highlight promotions
• Answer FAQ questions
• Guide users through the buying process.

5. Customer support

Social media ecommerce strategy seems incomplete without taking customer support. These platforms are great for nurturing and supporting current customers. As a result of that they are the most common support channels.

Customers may come to your profile to:

• Discover new things about you
• Understand your brand better
• Use the channel to get support
• Provide feedback
• And generate conversations about your brand

Brands and social media managers should be prepared to handle comments via DMs.

Aside from customer experience, social proof is another big reason to make social profiles interactive. Prospects see public interactions with customers. They make an impact on whether they want to purchase or not.

How you handle complaints spaks volumes regarding how you handle things privately.

Customer support example: Depop

Being on socail media means you get both positive and negative feedback and sometimes negatvie commentary pretty directly. Depop has an official Twitter(X) id but also a support id called @Askdepop for support.

6. Social listening

With the right set of tools, social media can be a goldmine for your brand. Social listening is when you use social media channels

And try and find relevant conversations..

67% of marketers say social listening is a useful way to track and listen to customer needs.

• You get product ideas
• You can see recurring problems people face
• Public sentiment toward the brand
• Where recurring problems or issues might lie

e to meet market demands.

3. Use video as much as possible

Video has become the most popular content type on social media with 88% of people saying they want more video content from brands.

Video has quickly become the most popular—and influential—content type of social media. 88% of people say they frequently watch videos.

TikTok and Instagram stories are the two most popular channels for social media. Both offer ways for brands to post paid and organic video content that engages users.

Creating a video doesn’t need to be expensive. It need not be of high production value. It should showcase pesonaltu and speak to the customer. Take Warby Parker for instance. They post tons of reels on Instagram to promote products, share brand and career stories, and generally create a more engaging experience.

4. Post user-generated content

User generated content receives an enormous amount of value online. It can be online reviews, user reviews, product unboxing, and anything else that customers use to discuss things online.

This content ties to the importance of reviews social proof and influencers. It’s a real-world commentary about your product. An account based marketing software can help you automate plenty of your marketing activities like social media, B2B messaging and email. So think of that when you feel its too much on your plate.

Encourage customers to share pictures and videos of products on social media. This makes customers connected to your brand and creates engagement.

How to Optimize Social media Posting

Start with a Strategy

You need social media strategy for your ecommerce venture. Consider your goals, resources and platforms that will help you reach your target customers. Once you get these parts of the strategy right, expand on each element to create effective campaigns.

When you integrate a social media strategy, you’re also likely to use best practices to be more effective. Begin with a clear idea of your target audience and where they spend time as well as their worries and similar things. With this information at hand you will be able to properly plan your strategy and check which platforms are apt for your target demographics.

4. Determine Which Social Media Channels Your E-Commerce Company Should Target

Different platforms both offer features and a target market for your brand. If you sell apparel, Instagram an image based channel where customers discover products is ideal for you. Next consider more platforms with your target demographic. Say for instance 60% of Pinterest users are women and 98% of Facebook users use mobile to access the app.

5. Optimize Your Social Media Accounts for E-Commerce

Another step to take is to flesh out your social media profiles completely. Add helpful information whenever you’re able to. Enable people to find the information they need at a quick look and buy more from you. Perform research into existing keywords and hashtags so you start being visible on search results. Link to pages where customers can find products they clicked through. Use CTAs to understand what people want from you and more.

6. Run Social Media Paid Campaigns Optimized for E-Commerce Companies

Every social media platform offers paid advertising to help you raise organic visibility and it becomes even more challenging.

There are different types of ads on each platform. So exploring different areas can be difficult. You can try retargeting ads on Facebook, shoppable ads on Instagram. Make full use of targeting features on every platform.

7. Use Automation Tools

If social media is a part of your sales strategy, you’ll need to explore automation tools and use what you can. Automation can be your key to selling better on social media. People increasingly expect instant timely replies on social media. It’s not possible to run a successful business while also breathlessly answering customer questions. Social media’s storefront is open 24 hours a day so don’t turn people away with their requests or concerns. Just use a bot.

9. Optimize Landing Pages for E-Commerce

Optimizing your landing pages for e-commerce helps create a better user experience by providing people with all the information they need to make a buying decision.

As and when people click through on the site, you want them to better understand they’re at the right place. They should move from simply browsing to purchasing the item they want. Ensure you have quality product images as well as videos to facilitate this.

Ensure your copy outlines both features and benefits. Including specifications on the product pages as well as backing them up with clear calls to action. Consider

calls to action (CTAs) to help them convert. Also, consider offering subscriptions to allow customers the ability to purchase your products on a recurring basis.

10. Create Clear CTAs on Social Media Optimized for E-Commerce

CTAs are what motivate your user to become a lead and convert into a customer. Take the time to craft these carefully and include them in each interaction you have with potential customers.

You can use different CTAs, like asking questions, including hyperlinks, or simply adding clickable buttons. Your page design might include banners with clear offers, sidebar clickable buttons, or pop-up ads to help customers convert.

11. Ensure Easy Website Navigation

User experience (UX) is another critical piece of the information puzzle. The easier you make people to purchase the more will buy from. Organize your site with clear labeling for product categories.

12. Offer Easy Payment Options for Customers

If you’re going to run a successful e-commerce site, you need to offer reliable and trustworthy ways for people to pay for your products and services.

You can explore a wide range of payment options for your e-commerce business, each with its features and policies. Options include Square, PayPal, Stripe, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and many others.

Some social media platforms allow customers to purchase directly from the app, depending on what features you choose to use. A few of these options include Facebook (with Facebook stores, Messenger Chatbots, and Ads), Instagram (with Stories, Shopping, Live, IGTV, and Ads), and Pinterest (with Promoted Pins, Rich Pins, and Shop the Look Pins.)

You also can investigate third-party websites as a way to advertise and sell your products. Keep reading to learn more about a few of these that may support your e-commerce business.

Conclusion

These and more strategies are what you need to be successful on social media with ecommerce. Do let us know what you think in the comments below.