The 4 Must-Have Social Media Accounts for Ecommerce Businesses

While you should definitely have a great eCommerce website which you can get by contacting one of the top BigCommerce web design companies, you also need some more online presence. Here’s our overview of the must-have social media for any business to help you get more customers as a part of your overall internet marketing strategies for eCommerce.

Why Your Ecommerce Social Media Strategy Doesn’t Generate Sales

90% of social media strategies implemented by eCommerce companies fail because they don’t understand how social media works from a commerce perspective. Poor execution, bad timing, target audience misconceptions, and lack of social media marketing planning are common mistakes.

Whether you’re struggling to pinpoint why your social media posts aren’t converting or why you’re not getting the engagement you’d hoped for, our expert team has the answers. We’ll teach you how to use social media for eCommerce and get your strategy on track, saving you time and money while maximizing sales.

Facebook — Create and Customize Your Business Profile with Descriptions, Photos, and Videos

Considering virtually every business with a website also maintains a Facebook page, Facebook is still the king of social media. And it’s easy to see why. With well 829 million people using Facebook on a daily basis (an increase from 802 million last quarter), Facebook is the Internet’s “front page” for a vast population. It has become an electronic gathering ground where people socialize, find news articles, and – believe it or not – make purchases.

In fact, Facebook users bought $234 million dollars worth of virtual goods and gifts on Facebook over the last quarter and it drove more than 85% of purchases made through Facebook in 2014, making it our number one must-have social media account for eCommerce businesses. Not bad for a site people claim is “dying”.

Tip from a Digital Marketing Agency: Since Facebook has recently changed what content appears on the users’ feed page, make your brand posts more interesting so users will like your posts and you will appear in their feed.

Twitter — Register as a Member to Micro-Blog or “Broadcast” Short Posts Called Tweets

Twitter offers much of the same functionality for eCommerce businesses like Facebook. Twitter’s 750 million users look for companies who tweet short-burst, rapid, entertainment-oriented content. Commentary and opinion abound. Interestingly, Twitter makes the process of interacting with companies and other specific users very easy. 70 % of small businesses are on Twitter and 85% of followers reported feeling more connected with a business after following them. Successful companies can harness that goodwill and facilitate the spread of brand positives – all “on the fly” by an increasingly mobile generation of millennial consumers.

If You’re Still Not Convinced That Twitter Can Positively Affect Your Business, Check Out These Statistics:

• 67% of Twitter users are more likely to buy from the brands they follow on Twitter
• 42% of consumers learn about new products and services via Twitter
• 63% of people follow Small Business to show their support for them and promote their content to their followers, aka: potential new customers.

Google+ — Replicate the Ways in Which People, eCommerce Business Owners Included, Interact Offline

Their mantra: “Real-life sharing rethought for the web.”

Even with 90 million users, Google+ has not become the Facebook-killer for which Google had hoped. However, it continues to gain followers due to the search giant’s ability to leverage products and services in an onslaught of complimentary offers to eCommerce businesses.

While it may feel redundant to add a Google+ account to your company’s longstanding Facebook account, the SEO advantages you will enjoy far outweigh the hassle. Because sites are already indexed by Google, if you have a Google + page, they will show you a little favoritism by expediting your indexing process. Naturally, Google privileges its own social networking site when determining page ranking (especially over Facebook. They’re a little bitter). Read our blog post about Google+ effectiveness. As a Chicago SEO company, we follow Google+ trends very closely.

Pinterest — Upload, Save, Sort, and Manage Images and Videos

Images are electronically placed on “pinboards” to showcase products and services for sale via your business’ eCommerce.

Pinterest brings the intrigue and fun of department store shopping to the era of eCommerce. The minimalist, visually oriented design of the site allows users to browse various products across brands and stores without the pressure of being “sold to” in a more formal sales environment. In fact, 93% of Pinners shopped online in the past six months. For many businesses, Pinterest is only second in visitor count, lead conversion, and online sales to powerhouse Facebook.

One of the biggest benefits of Pinterest is the fact that the number of people who see your pins is greater than your number of followers. This means a potential customer does not have to be following you to be exposed to your message and promoted pins perform long after campaigns end. As a web design agency, we recommend using a Pinterest channel to many of our Clients that sell directly to consumers.

A Winning Social Media Strategy for Ecommerce

A profit-generating social media strategy includes time for interacting, asking questions and connecting with potential customers you’re trying to sell to. Our social media marketing specialists will tell you achieving this type of success comes down to planning.

1. Set Social Commerce Objectives

You need to set SMART goals, i.e., ones that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound. If you’re focussing on sales, your goal might be, “we want to increase sales by 200% this year.” Keeping goals clear and simple gives your social commerce strategy a direction.

An effective strategy always has measurable goals. Many businesses make the mistake of saying they want to increase sales or generate leads, but don’t specify any numbers, which makes it difficult to track progress and accelerate strategies.

2. Develop a Social Media Plan

A social media plan is a summary of everything you plan to execute and hope to achieve on social media. It determines your target audience, the social networks to join, and the type of content to develop and share.

The more specific you are, the more effective your plan will be. Social media plans are usually applicable for at least a year, so it’s good to keep this in mind when setting your goals and quarterly KPIs.

Examples of meaningful goals include increasing brand awareness, generating leads and sales, and improving community engagement. Remember, you can have more than one goal! An expert digital marketing company can help you refine your plan to ensure your social media platform use aligns with your business objectives.

3. Set Your Budget

The first resource you need to achieve your eCommerce social media marketing goals is a budget. Remember, your budget is not just the amount you spend on social media advertising, but also how much you’re willing to invest in content creation and software tools.

Businesses typically spend around 20% of their total marketing expenditure on social media. It’s important to set a budget early, so you can strategize accordingly and have the right expectations about what’s achievable.

During this time, also consider what marketing matrix you’ll use to determine whether your strategy is making the right progress. A marketing matrix is the combination of product, price, place, and promotion for a business. It will help you optimize your online tactics for the highest possible growth.

Once you’ve figured out the details, you’ll want to monitor and measure your progress, so you can adjust and optimize your social media strategy when necessary.

Top Two Social Media Marketing Mistakes

The two most widespread mistakes we see on social media are:

1. Focussing too much on sales with no real strategy; and
2. A lack of consistency.

You can’t tweak social media campaigns and optimize sales without getting the fundamentals right first. Fixing these two things will improve engagement and ROI across multiple social media platforms.

1. A Sales-Only Approach

One of the biggest misconceptions about social media platforms is they’re meant to bring you sales. Social media networks are full of businesses trying their utmost to sell to audiences that aren’t listening. This is because social media should primarily be used to build brand awareness and connect with your target audience.

Imagine if your favorite brand only shared hard-sell advertising messages with their latest products and prices. No doubt, you’d get bored and disengage. Yes, your online store needs eCommerce sales, but customers have to deem your brand trustworthy before they make purchases.

If you saw a company had a poor social media presence or no presence at all, then you’d think twice before buying something. So, how do you build trust? By developing a strong online presence, bolstered by social media.

Social media allows you to exercise your expertise and establish a relationship with your target audience through the content you share and the community you build. That doesn’t mean you can’t use paid advertising on social networks, but rather that it shouldn’t be the sole focus.

2. Inconsistent Engagement

For your audience to recognize your brand, you must be consistent. Keeping with a regular social media strategy creates a better customer experience and builds credibility, reputation, and brand trust.

To achieve consistency, you need a content calendar. These schedules typically include upcoming content pieces, status updates, planned promotional activity, partnerships, and updates to existing content, as well as which platforms you aim to share content on.

Social media platforms are flooded with ad campaigns and visual content. One post a month definitely won’t cut it with so many social media accounts out there. Instead, set a goal to engage with social media users a few times a week, aiming for daily interactions with your audience.

Your social media profiles provide existing and potential customers with live PR updates, helping them keep in touch with your eCommerce store. This maintains an engaged audience and develops interpersonal relationships that lead to brand loyalty.

Be Social

Depending upon the social-savvy qualities of people in your industry, you will achieve better results on some platforms compared with others.

For antiques and collectibles, for instance, Pinterest and Instagram drive more sales than Facebook or Twitter. Digital products—from electronics to appliances—on the other hand, sell much better when product endorsements appear on Reddit or YouTube.

Ultimately, social media is a tool to help you reach and interact with your customer base. When you understand and honor what your customers want and like, you are halfway to creating engaging content that boosts your business’ bottom line.

Analyzed properly, it will also provide a treasure trove of insights into your customers’ behaviors and purchase patterns that would be impossible to know, fewer than ten short years ago.

Conclusion

Once you’ve followed these steps, you can put your eCommerce social media strategy into practice. Before doing so, why not contact Comrade Digital Marketing for an in-depth digital marketing audit? We work with many clients as their digital marketing partners to boost eCommerce sales in real-time.