Social media has become an important aspect of e-commerce. It is needed in sales growth for a lot of companies and can help upgrade your marketing reach. 

Keep reading to find out how you can use social media for your e-commerce business’ benefit. 

Here Are Some Effective Steps On How To Use Social Media For Marketing

A person spends an average of two and a half hours on social media channels per day and social media platforms have become a regular part of our daily lives and marketing has to keep up with the changes.

It’s fair to say that it should be an important part of marketing. 

Following industry leaders in your feeds and keeping up with tabs on trending topics in your industry can help you stay on top of new developments.

You can in addition thoughtfully keep an eye on what other companies are doing that seems to gain traction.

While social commerce is still rather new, it has an impact on e-commerce businesses.

As each platform upgrades its features to help users sell, opportunities grow for businesses to tap into these audiences to boost their marketing.

The following steps can help you optimize your social media for e-commerce:

1. Be Sure That You Want Your Business To Be On Social Media

You can use social media to market your e-commerce products.

It involves everything – bringing awareness to the products to sales. You can even use the social media app for the whole process. 

Social media works great for those companies that are selling a product that can be evaluated based on a picture. Usually, it’s an impulse purchase. 

For example, if your e-commerce business sells clothing, then social media is a good option for marketing. Since the products can be showcased through pictures and videos. 

Keep in mind that there are times when social media might not work the best for your products.

If you are selling higher-value products that the customer might want to see in person for quality, then it is trickier to get sales through social channels. 

Regardless of the focus group, you should always provide social media marketing.

An active social media channel will help you build credibility, boost traffic and get to know your customers better. 

2. Make Your Social Media Goals Clear

It’s important to know what your clear goals are, so you can make a plan on how to achieve it.

Are you more focused on driving traffic on your e-commerce business website or are you looking to drive sales? 

Strategy and implementation of marketing without goals will not take you very far.

It’s important to know where you’re heading, so the road there is thought to be the most effective and successful. 

If you haven’t set clear goals that can also be measured, you won’t be able to know which approach works and which doesn’t. 

3. Put Together Social Media Strategy

Once your goals are clear, you need a strategy that can help you fulfill them.

When you start building your plan to the end results, keep in mind every aspect that plays a role in the execution of your social media strategy such as budget, platforms and focus groups. Once you have established your plan, you can start the work process. 

Make sure to find the most effective practices for your social media strategy. That plays a vital role in the success of the whole plan. Do the necessary research – what is your focus group like, what are their concerns, and where do they spend time?

With that information, you can find the correct social media platforms that your audience uses.  Working from a social media strategy, it’s important to use the best practices you possibly can that help you be more effective overall.

Once you have a clear vision of that, you can implement your strategy.

4. Make Sure To Optimize Your Account For E-Commerce

First things first. Getting all important information to your profiles is important. Your account has to look appealing and professional. 

You want the info about your company to be easily accessible. Making the steps to get in contact or find your website too complicated, will drive away visitors. Use hashtags and keywords in the description, so you can be easily found. Put in the correct contact information, as well as the location. 

Be direct and clear in your text and CTA, that’ll guide people to making a purchase. Add links to your website, so it can build more curiosity for other products as well.

5. Find Out Which Social Media Channels You Should Use

You might need to use several channels because they align with your plan. Features the platform offers, options to advertise and sell – they play a big role in your decision-making. 

Going back to the previous example of a clothing store – with an e-commerce business as such, you would probably want to use TikTok and Instagram. It’s focused on content sharing which allows you to market well and is already set up to make sales. Users of the platform are familiar with that type of CTA and are more likely to make purchases. 

Just make sure your target audience uses the apps because that is how you will find potential customers through social media.

6. Be Mindful Of People Using Phones

The mobile experience is an important one to keep in mind. Most people use social media apps from their phones. You want your mobile design to be user-friendly and look aesthetically good. Your clients should have a smooth experience buying your products through social media.

You will want to add a payment option that can be also used via phone. For example, Apple Pay lets people buy things from their iPhones. 

Pay attention that your content format is in alignment with social media measurements. Your visitors are more likely to want to buy your products if the overall experience is positive.

7. Paid Campaigns For E-Commerce Businesses

Since the algorithms on almost all social media platforms have developed so much that it can detect business pages, they can cut back on your organic reach. There are options for paid promotions to widen the spread of your reach and get more traffic through that. It has shown lots of positive and successful results for e-commerce companies. 

Social media platforms offer paid ads as well. Setting up your correct focus group for advertising can bring great results and potential sales. Taking advantage and using your budget for that is definitely something to consider.

8. Take Advantage Of Automation Tools

You want to get to know automation tools and use whatever you can if social media is a part of your sales plan. It will help you meet customers’ expectations of personal interactions. Meeting your audience’s needs is only beneficial.

Doing it all – being in charge of your business fully and getting back to every comment and message immediately – is not sustainable. Running a successful business and spending every possible minute online answering questions and replying to comments is simply not possible. We can look at social media like a fast food restaurant that is open 24 hours a day, day after day, so don’t risk missing significant requests or concerns, set up an automated reply that will leave the customer with a good user experience on your profile.

9. Put Focus Onto Logical Website Navigation

Using User Experience (UX) helps your website visitors get to desired items smoothly and without complications. That takes them to the end goal of making a purchase. You want your website navigation to be easy and logical.

Making the whole experience a positive and pleasant one, leads to more buyers turning into regular customers. Remember, less is more. Make the navigation process simple and use designs that fit your brand. Put the focus on good organizing, so moving around on your website is intuitive. 

10. Put Effort Into Creating CTAs

Call to action is what pushes a one-time buyer to become regular. Make sure they are clear and motivating for the reader. 

Inspiring the visitor to engage by asking questions or adding clickable buttons are some of the ways where an effective CTA can be used. People want to be able to relate to your product in some way and feel an urgency for it. 

11. Landing Page Optimization

People will want to get all the important information they need about your product, in order to make a purchase. Making sure your landing page is optimized is a key element. 

Anyone visiting your site should be able to move around smoothly and know instinctively how to make a purchase. You want your clients to feel called to browse through your website and know that they are at the right place. 

Make sure that you display high-quality product videos and pictures. Add engaging copywriting that has a clear CTA. 

12. Payment Process Shouldn’t Be Complicated

Reliable payment method is non-negotiable. You have to have a way that is trustworthy for your clients to finish the purchase.

Some payment options for an online business are Square, Stripe, PayPal and Apple Pay.

There are more, so it’s a good idea to look at the range of options and pick the best fitting for your e-commerce website. 

13. Track the growth of Your E-Commerce Businesses Social Media Strategy

You want to keep track of your strategy’s implementation. This helps you know where your plan needs improvements, as well as what works really well. 

Keep track of your website’s traffic. A great way to measure engagement is through social media post results. Such as follows, likes, comments or retweets. Follow your sales, how many come through campaigns, social media marketing or straight from the website. 

Knowing your metrics helps you make changes to parts of the strategy that are not working efficiently and continue practising the ones that do.

14. Use Third-Party Websites

Using third-party websites is a good idea because it can help your sales even further. It reaches people beyond your website and social channels. It is a great way to grow traffic for your site.

Amazon, eBay and Etsy are some examples of a third-party website. Selling your products there helps you reach more people and bring in more sales. 

Conclusion

Social media can be very beneficial for your e-commerce business. Using it the right way, with the correct strategy, can bring great results. It also allows you to bring more awareness about your products and build a strong brand. 

It’s an important step to take if you are selling things online. Not using social media channels is a waste of resources. Follow the steps above to make the addition of social media to your marketing plan a smooth and successful process. If you want help and know more about marketing for e-commerce, get in touch with us.