Social Media Strategy Guidelines to Boost Your E-commerce Business

Today, having a compelling social media strategy for e-commerce has become an absolute necessity. With over 3.8 billion active users across various social media platforms all over the world, social media has transformed from merely a means to connect with others to a multi-layered, expanding amenity. Providing real-time access to people everywhere, the role of social media in e-commerce is incomparable and has spearheaded its status as the primary facilitator of e-commerce traffic. This gives businesses a valuable opportunity to access and redirect this traffic towards maximizing sales.

However, amidst such a massive throng of people and content, it is easy to get skipped or lost in the virtual space. For the social media strategy to be viable, there are a few requisites and must-haves that help businesses steal the limelight. Explained below are 6 crucial ideas for social media strategy in e-commerce that every business should consider.

1. Create Compelling Content:
The primary building block that determines the success of a social media strategy for any brand is the content they create. This content establishes a link between the business and its customer base, giving them a platform to connect. It is imperative that the content produced is aesthetically designed, effectively communicated, in alignment with the brand values, and most importantly, resonates with the target audience. After all, the more appealing the content, the more likely it is to leave a lasting impression! Furthermore, with multiple content formats like static posts, GIFs, carousels, short videos, etc available, a little experimentation can determine what works best for the brand. Lately, many businesses have been investing in video marketing on social media i.e. creating how-to or do-it-yourself videos along with instructional and educational videos about their products to generate leads and drive sales. According to Oberlo, 88% of video marketers are satisfied with the ROI of their video marketing efforts on social media.

2. Build Connections and Foster Engagement:
The next step is to ensure that the social media content induces the target group to interact with the brand. Liking, commenting, and sharing the posts are extremely useful in promoting the business and fostering improved engagement. Constructively planning the content calendar to be a perfect blend of branded and non-branded content is an essential element of a successful social media strategy. A few other factors to consider are including topical, relatable posts, and memes in your content calendar and using the right set of keywords, relevant hashtags, and posting at optimal times. This augments the reach as well as communication with the client base. Other ways to create a buzz and drive engagement also include hosting contests and giveaways for the followers!

 

3. Enhance Customer Service Experience:
The role of social media in e-commerce is not limited to just creating brand awareness and generating leads. Another important facet that is often overlooked by most businesses is providing a seamless customer service experience using the medium of social media. Being a two-way communication platform, customers expect an immediate response from brands on their social media pages. According to Conversocial, more than 54% of customers prefer social media for customer service over phone calls or email. Hence, it is important to cater and respond to the queries, complaints, and leads in your social media account inbox efficiently. One of the easiest ways to do so is by setting up auto-responses or chatbots. Connecting with customers and having positive interactions with them is a sure shot way to boost customer satisfaction and will indeed go a long way.

 

4. Capitalize on User-Generated Content:
One of the most promising approaches to take on social media is to capitalize on user-generated content i.e. honest reviews and testimonials about the brand and product shared by customers themselves! Nothing earns credibility and helps build trust like sharing user-generated content on your platform. It is a definitive way to convert your leads into sales and businesses should be sure to persuade customers to share their reviews on social media. A few ways to guarantee positive feedback is by sending personalized thank you notes along with their orders, providing discount coupons at checkout if they share their cart on social media, or by simply ensuring easy access to social media sharing widgets on your website!

 

5. Invest in Influencer Marketing:
Today, almost all brands and businesses are leveraging the power of influencer marketing to expand their brand reach, increase engagement, and drive traffic to their platforms. Influencer marketing is essentially a combination of word-of-mouth marketing and assurance from a reputable face - the two key elements to establishing trust and facilitating conversions. According to Mediakix, 71% of marketers rate the quality of customers and traffic from influencer marketing as better than other marketing sources. While there are numerous influencers, the key is finding the right one to promote the brand and product. A well-known influencer in the same field generally has a strong fan base and promises reliability. A partnership with such influencers can be established by sending them free product samples, allowing them to take over your social media account for a certain time-period or getting them on board for a paid promotion contract. All of these coupled with the influencer's reach result in a fresh inflow of lifelong customers.

 

6. Run Paid Social Ads:
Lastly, while organic growth is the ideal choice to engender reach, consistently evolving social media algorithms tend to make this challenging. Having become somewhat of an inevitability, paid advertising is instrumental for businesses that want to strengthen the impact of social media marketing. With several ad formats and audience segmentation options available to select from, social ads enable you to reach out to your desired target group. While a powerful ad should have a strong copy and design to appeal to the target group, one dominant factor that shouldn’t be missed out on is inserting calls-to-action (CTAs). Research shows that adding CTAs to your Facebook page can increase the click-through rate by a staggering 285%!

To conclude, integrating social media into your marketing plan is pivotal to the progress of any e-commerce venture. The right, cohesive strategy used tactically, can enable growth, multiply engagement, and ultimately prove immensely profitable.

For further support to grow your business, our team at Parkyd Digital is available and happy to help you. With over a decade of experience in digital marketing, we custom create innovative and strategic solutions for your business to help you achieve your sales and marketing goals. 

 

Found this helpful? Share it with your network!