Social media platforms can do wonders for e-commerce businesses. Nowadays, to connect with your audience or target market, you need to be able to reach them on their social channels. Here, you can build your brand, build interest, build community and engagement, promote products through organic and paid methods, and more. It might be a good idea to get a social media manager to help with your business’ e-commerce marketing. Or you can start doing it yourself.
Why is social media important for e-commerce marketing?
Social media is essential for e-commerce marketing. It can help build up interest, gather valuable insights, enable real-time interaction, improve sales, and so much more. In a way, social media can be an indispensable tool for success in the modern digital marketplace.
Here are a few ways social media can increase e-commerce marketing efforts:
- Boost brand awareness
- Engage with customers and prospects directly
- Learn more about the audience or target market
- Address issues or customer needs
- Minimize marketing costs by leveraging organic posts
- Drive traffic to your e-commerce website
- Keep up-to-date with industry news and trends
- Build brand reputation and trust
- Increase leads and sales
- Highlight brand values
- Get feedback and reviews
What are the best social media platforms for e-commerce?
The digital space of social media can get exciting and overwhelming all at once. This is especially true if you’re trying to enter the space as a brand. Before you can get to posting and promoting your e-commerce business, you need to be wise and choose the best platform for you. There’s no need to create accounts on every social media platform out there. Rather, you need to pick the platforms where you’ll be able to find the most success.
Here are the best social media for e-commerce:
Facebook for e-commerce is a good choice, and most of the time, it is a must. Having a Facebook page for your business helps build authenticity and trust among your audience. It’s also a good starting point for businesses trying e-commerce marketing through social media. It has roughly three billion monthly active users, making Facebook the most-used online social network worldwide. Facebook also has a wide variety of features to help businesses connect with their audience and advertise their products.
Next to Facebook, Instagram is the next best social media platform for e-commerce. It has over 1.35 billion monthly active users, and Gen Z is known to spend over five hours per week on the platform. Instagram is a great way to connect with your audience through visual content. It’s also a great way to advertise your products since Instagram lets you connect your Shopify to your account. This allows your audience to see and shop for your products without them leaving Instagram.
Pinterest also makes for a great social media platform for businesses. Pinterest is a visual platform that relies on photos, graphics, mood boards, and aesthetics. With every pin or board, you can start building your brand identity, boosting brand awareness, highlighting your products, directing traffic back to your website or online store, generating leads, and more. Pinterest has over 450 million monthly active users, and it’s only growing year after year. E-commerce businesses can take advantage of this.
TikTok
TikTok is fast becoming an incredible platform for e-commerce. The platform has amassed 843 million active global users since its launch in 2016. This is a great way for you to engage with your audience through short-form videos and viral content. Features like Q&A, Stitch, and Duet are also great opportunities to build a community and garner interest. TikTok has also started adding features and capabilities for businesses. Those with business accounts can apply to TikTok Shop to get exclusive features like a dedicated shopping tab, live shopping, paid advertising, and more.
YouTube
YouTube, being the second-largest search engine next to Google, is also a great social media platform for businesses. With over 2.1 billion monthly active global users, brands will be able to engage with their audience through long-form videos, live streams, and more. If video content will be a regular part of your e-commerce marketing, YouTube will be a good choice for your brand. Tell your brand’s history, showcase your products, highlight events and behind-the-scenes, and more.
6 ways to use social media for e-commerce
#1 Showcase your products
Social media is the perfect platform to showcase your products. This is because a lot of social media platforms are visual and rely on photos, videos, graphics, and more. It’s also important to know that most Gen Z consumers nowadays (97%) say they use social media as their top source of shopping inspiration. This means if Gen Z is your target market, or is a part of it, this is a good way to reach them. They are actively using social media to shop. Now is the time to showcase your products in various unique ways that will catch the attention of your audience.
If you sell electronics, phones, and devices, you can create photos and videos featuring these products. If you sell clothes, apparel, and other items, you can share outfit inspirations featuring your products. This helps boost your reputation and brand awareness and will help drive your audience toward their buyer’s journey.
#2 Build brand awareness
Apart from showcasing your products, you can also build brand awareness for your e-commerce business through social media. This is a great way to connect with your target market, engage with them, and tell them more about your brand.
Use your social media platforms to tell the audience about your brand’s story, showcase your values, show the audience your personality, and more. You should also tell them about any events, promotions, and more. You can do this through photos, videos, Stories, All of these can help you build your brand and reach the right audience.
#3 Get on with the trends
Using social media for e-commerce marketing means you have to keep up with the trends as well. Two of the top reasons why people use social media are that they want to fill their spare time (37.3%) and find content (29.8%). This means that aside from building brand awareness or promoting products, you need to be able to entertain your audience as well.
Social media trends can boost exposure for people and brands. It also offers one-of-a-kind entertainment for people. Take the time to see what kind of posts are trending for the month and see how you can apply them to your brand.
#4 Facilitate customer support
Social media is also a good way when it comes to facilitating customer support. According to Freshworks, 40% of consumers expect brands to problem-solve in the social channels of their choice. And according to a Facebook IQ survey, 53% of respondents said that they’re more likely to buy from a company that offers customer service via chat. This means that for your e-commerce marketing to work, you need to be able to provide various forms of customer support via social media.
Answer product inquiries and concerns, offer after-sales service, or even ask for feedback. You can also use chatbots in social messages to make sure that the audience will get an answer within minutes.
#5 Utilize social listening
Social listening is known as the process of scanning or monitoring various social media platforms for mentions of your brand. Not only that, but it also applies to relevant conversations about your products, your competitors, or your industry. According to Hootsuite’s 2023 Social Media Trends Report, 67% of marketers say social listening is a useful way to track and understand customer needs.
For e-commerce businesses, you can use this to know more about the customers’ sentiment towards your brand or the industry, their preferences, their needs, their complaints, and more. You can use all of these insights to strengthen your e-commerce marketing strategies, address any issues or concerns, and offer new deals or products for your customers.
#6 Collaborate with influencers or creators
Using social media for e-commerce also means it’s a good opportunity to collaborate with creators. Influencers and creators have a huge impact nowadays on internet users, marketing, and commerce. For instance, one of the ways that Gen Z is using social media right now is by trusting content creators. This is because they value authenticity and personality, which content creators are good at.
You can collaborate with influencers or content creators to promote your products. You can send them a few products in exchange for a review or a feature. You can also look for specific creators who are already fans of your business and collaborate with them officially. Whether it be to promote your products and build brand awareness, they can help e-commerce businesses with their goals.
Social media for e-commerce can be an exciting and flexible means for brands. Take the time to study each platform and keep these tips in mind so you’re ready to market your e-commerce business.
Need more help with your e-commerce or digital marketing? Twin Rams experts are here to help you. Talk to us today to get started.
References:
https://www.iconosquare.com/blog/7-social-media-marketing-strategies-for-ecommerce-websites
https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-ecommerce/
https://www.techtarget.com/searchcontentmanagement/answer/What-is-the-role-of-social-media-in-e-commerce
https://www.yieldify.com/blog/best-social-media-platforms-for-e-commerce/