How e-commerce companies can make the most of social media marketing

Social media is a powerful tool, hence e-commerce players are increasingly depending on social media marketing to drive growth and push sales. However, posting content that is line with your overall objectives is very important. For example, traditionally, you wouldn’t find alcohol brands using images or other references of children. Hence, while it is important to share content consistently, it is just as important to be sharing the appropriate content.

You may or may not like it but social media isn’t going anywhere – in fact social media platforms are only growing in numbers as more and more people populate them. As affordable devices and internet accessibility increases, even more people will be ‘signing up’. Social media’s importance is such that businesses not investing in it risk missing out on limitless opportunities. As Gary Vaynerchuk puts it – social media is just a slang-term someone invented for ‘the internet’. So how do you go about making the most of it and using it to your advantage?

Make your social media presence felt

Once you’ve decided that you’re going to be on social media and made up your mind as to which platforms you would be using, the next step is to develop a brand (business and/or personal) profile for each. since you are competing on a platform where users get to view brands across the world on various scale-levels, you need to capture them with intriguing visuals and information. To captivate your target audience you would need –

Effective visuals – effective visuals through images, infographics, etc is very important to catch readers’ eye and therefore attention.

Voice – Your brand’s voice and style should be consistent throughout your posts/updates.

Content – your content needs to be relevant (visual and written) to share your brand story or offers etc with your followers.

Post updates and consistent content

The difference between social media and social media marketing is the content you share. Each post you share should be intentional whether on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat or any other social media tool you choose. While the objective is to generate traffic to your website and ultimately drive sales, not all your posts need to be promotional. You could share a variety of updates such as –

Storytelling of your brand – Photos, videos or written content explaining your brand and the people behind it.

Informational updates – By educating your target audience through blogs or videos, etc regarding your segment and industry helps in setting you up as a reputed trusted source.

Bring a smile – light hearted updates just to entertain or bring a smile to your followers face and engage with you social media.

Customer feedback – Put happy customers in the spotlight, share testimonials or other forms of positive feedback for your brand.

Once you start to work on these you could invest in some automation tools to improve your efforts. When you think more strategically about the content your putting out you will start to see the ROIs on your efforts. If you manage to follow through and execute effectively, you may witness an increased engagement on your pages or increased traffic on your website or better reputation among customers or a boost in sales – if you master it, you could even see an accumulation of all these results.