Social media platforms for ecommerce are common these days. Brands use them as to build brand awareness, connect with customers and promote their products using targeted advertising. Other strategies like PPC and SEO have their own advantages, and social media marketing for ecommerce also offers effective ways to create brand awareness and drive more traffic to the targeted website. This article will help you understand social media for ecommerce and how to use it to your advantage.
In this article
- Social Media For Ecommerce Businesses
- Social Media For Ecommerce vs Social Selling vs Social Commerce
- 5 Way Brands Can Use Social Media For Ecommerce Business
- Actionable Tips You Can Use In Social Media For Ecommerce
- Best Social Media Platforms For Ecommerce
- Impact Of Using Social Media For Ecommerce
- Related Reads
Social Media For Ecommerce Businesses
Social media for ecommerce is the practice of using social media to promote a brand’s online store through campaigns with the aim of creating brand awareness, creating interest in products and services, and increasing online sales.
Social media strategy for ecommerce includes using such tactics as
- Driving traffic to an ecommerce website or the app of a brand.
- Using social media to directly sell products.
- Using social media to engage and connect with customers or prospects.
- Offering pre and post-sale support for customers.
- Using social media to gain information about the market and industry.
- Building an online social media community to promote a brand
Social Media For Ecommerce vs Social Selling vs Social Commerce
Social media marketing for ecommerce, social selling, influencer marketing, and social commerce are similar terms but all three are different from each other in specific ways. So let’s take a look at what they’re all about.
Social Media Marketing For Ecommerce
This is where a business uses its social media accounts as a platform to showcase its products and services and as a marketing tool to promote its brand, drive more sales and get more potential customers interested in the brand. Nowadays, many brands own a social media account where they post engaging content and build a connection with the customers.
Social Selling
Social selling is where a brand uses its social media platforms to identify sales prospects and connect with them. It is a marketing tactic that has been trending in the modern age of social media. Brands use social selling to connect and engage with their sales targets using social media networks.
Social selling on social media can be described as a place where a business aims to build a strong relationship with the customers and nurture it. The end goal of this strategy is to connect with people and offer guidance on what to buy and why they should buy it. In this way, when they are ready to purchase a product later, the first thing that comes to their mind would be the brand.
Social Commerce
Social commerce is when a brand uses a social media platform to directly sell its products and services. For example, businesses use social media apps like Facebook shops, Instagram shops, TikTok shops, or Pinterest Product pins.
Social commerce allows people to buy things online without ever having to leave the app.
5 Ways Brands Can Use Social Media For Ecommerce Business
Here are some examples of how brands use their social media presence for ecommerce.
1. Building Brand Awareness
This is the most common cause of why many businesses are shifting towards social media. It is the perfect place for all the things you want your customers to know about your business. Where people come to know about who you are and what you have to offer. You can promote new products, a new store that just opened, events that are about to happen, and more.
When building brand awareness among social media users keep in mind these tips
- Focus on your personality and the values you are offering.
- Be consistent with the message you give.
- Listen to feedback and respond accordingly.
- Focus on appropriate representation and audience.
2. Advertising Campaigns
Social media is undoubtedly one of the best forms of advertising, especially in this day and age. The global reach that social media has is huge and is increasing every day. Social media pages and channels have a massive audience, in fact, there are so many people on social media that businesses use targeting and segmentation tools. This can also be helpful in terms of link building because you have the opportunity to generate leads using campaigns like this.
3. Directly Sell Products On Social Media
Social commerce is conducted using social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest.
Shopify has also partnered with Twitter and Snapchat to create their own ecommerce social media and commerce tools.
4. Increase Sales Using Ecommerce Chatbots
Ecommerce chatbots are computer programs that are used for customer service, answering quick questions, recommending products, gathering feedback, and more.
Additionally, they are also used to
- Easily connect and interact with customers across multiple channels.
- Pre and post-sale support.
- Offer discounts, give suggestions for products, and highlight promotions when applicable.
- Most importantly, guide users through the buying process.
The upside to using this is it costs a fraction of the amount you would pay to hire a support team
5. Customer Support
If you are willing to pay for a customer team there are various benefits to it too. A customer support team will handle the social media accounts of the business and offer guidance to the customers.
These teams must be fully prepared to handle the comments and DM(direct messages on Instagram) from the customers. If you cannot hire a support team, then you can always hire a chatbot as discussed previously. But the best way to do it is with a mixture of both. Hire a small team and then add a chatbot to make their work easier. The team will then get involved and supervise in the right situations.
Actionable Tips You Can Use In Social Media For Ecommerce
Here are some tips to drive your social media ecommerce strategy in the right direction.
- Use social media platforms to showcase your personality. You can use social media to display humor and character so that users will be able to connect with your brand.
- Collaborate with other brands and people. Social media is a place where communities thrive. This is otherwise called influencer marketing. Recent years have seen an increase in influencer marketing thanks to the likes of social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Collaboration is an integral part of modern social media and businesses should take advantage of this.
- Use videos in your posts as much as possible. Preferably use videos with subjects that are trending.
- Take the time to respond to users’ comments and feedback.
- Another great idea is to post user-generated content. User-generated content includes anyone posting a video talking about your product, using or giving a positive review about it. This will help customers feel a personal connection to your brand.
- The most essential tip is to use a social media management tool so that you can create content for your target audience.
Best Social Media Platforms For Ecommerce
Using a social media platform for marketing depends on what you as a business owner are seeking to achieve. Your goals and ambitions will define what type of platform to use. For example, if you want to create awareness for your brand, TikTok is an obvious place to do it because it is the one that almost everyone uses and other brands use it to promote their services.
On the other hand, for businesses looking to improve their sales, Instagram and Facebook are the leading duos for social commerce and direct sales. Apart from this, you also have the option of using Pinterest, which is focused on lifestyle marketing.
Impact Of Using Social Media For Ecommerce
Social media is a great place to build a healthy relationship between the brand and its customers. Social channels also act as good companions for new customers who are just learning about a new brand or product. This is why social media, especially now, has a great balance of building relationships with customers and increasing profits simultaneously.
