Social Media Insights for Ecommerce

The phrase “social media” is supposed to be a broken record, the meaning of which everybody is aware of, but doesn’t place much emphasis on it. However, social media is a powerful weapon that helps to promote your business and boost sales.

While you still doubt whether to focus on the tool or not, many retailers have been using it for years soliciting more and more customers. According to the Pew Research Center, 72% of adults use social networking sites on a daily basis and the number is constantly increasing.

At the same time, 5 out of 10 shoppers surf online before making a purchase in a brick and mortar store. They’re attracted by ads posted on such popular sites as Facebook and Instagram. 47% of users were influenced by posts their social network friends shared on their pages. By the way, Facebook has 2 billion monthly active users.

Now you’ve got to know that social media is the environment where your customers live. Make smart use of it and your business will grow like a rocket.

Key steps of a social media campaign

Create social profiles

First off, you need to create social profiles on the most popular websites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and LinkedIn. Your profiles should contain valid and accurate information about your business including your phone number, email, address to make customers easily contact you if needed.

Since the profiles represent your brand, your logo must be posted on all social media pages to make the business recognizable. Besides, add the link of your website to the page too. Make sure it is placed front and center to get users taken to the site when clicking.

On Facebook, Twitter and Google+ there’s an option “auto reply” implying auto replies to all incoming communications while you’re on break. Customers can message you at any time including weekends and public holidays. They, certainly, expect your reply and become nervous when don’t get it. You can avoid the situation by using the “auto reply” option. In the settings fill in the form “Thanks for messaging us! We reply Mo-Fr 8:00 h – 17:00 h”. Customers are provided with necessary information and ready to wait for your reply.

Make unique profile pages

People always judge by appearances.

Your account is an appearance of your brand. It must mirror and attract the visitors to turn them into regular customers. Think out the digital image which is closely connected with the main idea of your business and keep it. Moreover, use the sort of content that delivers your ideal customer. While elaborating the idea, pay attention to the fact that each social network has its subtle aspects.

For example, the number of characters that could be used on Twitter was limited before (140). Now it’s allowed to use 280 characters to convey your thoughts.

LinkedIn is the perfect tool to make industry contacts and make more people involved in your business.

Pinterest is used for representing your products visually.

Issues you may face: When creating a header photo on Twitter, we faced the following issue. The picture was blurred if the colors were bright. That’s why it took much time to find suitable colors that could look clear. In order to prevent you from such kind of problem, follow our advice: a header photo should have dark colors.

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Gain your core audience

Actually, there are two ways how to build your audience:

• invite your friends;
• welcome new users.

As for the first way, it’s quite easy. You have your own circle of friends and acquaintances who are engaged in social media life. Invite them to join your business account is a proven way to build the background for your followers.

Then you should draw users’ attention to your account. The possible way is to like various accounts that are closely connected with your business. Besides, commenting is also necessary, as it shows that your account is not fake and run by a real person. These techniques give you the benefit to be noticed and draw visitors.

Don’t use accounts that are considered to be followed by many users, but in fact, they’re not active. It can have a negative impact on your reputation.

As for customer engagement, there are two possible ways: free and paid.

The first means you can encourage your customers to become your follower by providing bonuses. If you send unique promo codes after a user gets subscribed to your account, it makes him loyal to your brand.

According to the second way, you need to use targeting ads based on clients’ emails database. People who have already been your regular customers subscribe to your accounts more likely if it contains useful tips as well as a special being run. In this case, customers get involved in the online interaction that triggers other users to subscribe even if they haven’t purchased anything yet.

Interact with your visitors

If you want your customers to spin around you, you should keep their interest constantly. Focus on the tips suggested below:

• Post fresh content daily: when posting content, you need to be creative. People will not be interested in what they’ve already seen. Make them eye-caching to encourage users to click and share.

• Use images: this is considered to be useless to post without an image. Actually,  about half of Facebook and Twitter users are just observers. They roam around on the Internet viewing pictures. They are not attracted by the text posted on your page, but eye-catching pictures can easily solicit users.
• Put social buttons on the website: these buttons are notifications for users that you also use social networks and encourage them to follow your pages. Put social media buttons on your page to allow users to “like” your products. You can simplify the process by installing Facebook Connect extension. It allows adding the button “like” to products as well as logging via user’s Facebook account.
• Make a promotional video: the content you’re going to use in the video should be creative and generated from your original idea. It helps to stand out your business.
• Use ads: this is the simplest way to double your sales. It’s not necessary to pay much money for expensive ads, you can use ads on Facebook, Instagram and other social networks that definitely boosts your traffic.
• Use auto posting tools: it helps to save time while keeping your users involved with your profile completely (Hootsuite.com, Buffer.com, Tweetdeck.twitter.com).
• Write mistake-free: your content should be free of spelling mistakes. Use tools (for example, Grammarly, which we use on a daily basis) that check your content and find possible mistakes.

Final word

The impact of your social media campaign will not be obvious at once. Sometimes it takes time to attract first visitors and turn them into regular customers. In case, if you follow the advice described above, success is not long in coming.