At first glance, starting an online business seems like a better idea than a brick-and-mortar business. E-commerce is a rewarding business venture but you need a lot of preparation to set it up. Are you looking to grow your reach and improve your sales? If the answer is yes, social media is the answer for you.
Social media is one of the most powerful marketing channels in the world. It can give any e-commerce business the boost that it needs and skyrocket your sales if you do it right. Here’s how social media can help your e-commerce business.
1. Social Media Builds Brand Awareness
One of the best ways that social media helps an e-commerce business is by building brand awareness. Whether you’re a small online seller or you’re a company that sells expense management solutions, branding is your lifeblood. Branding tells your story, keeps people invested in you, and establishes trust.
Social media values creative branding by design. It helps show off what you are as a company and tell what makes your brand unique. It can underscore the depth of your expertise and show why you deserve your sales. Social media is so versatile that you can even show empathy to your audience.
Depending on your branding goals, you can do everything from making customers laugh to inspiring them with your campaigns. Outsourced social media management is excellent for initiating inspiring campaigns and fresh ideas. Branding makes you memorable and it’s your most important weapon. Brand awareness helps you clinch a sale and create allies within your target audience.
2. Shows Brand Value Through Customer Engagement
A common misconception among rookie E-commerce merchants is they can simply use social media to hawk their wares. Before you even start trying to sell, it’s important to show value to your audience. You want your target audience that you are worth their time and work engaging. Social media can help you underscore value.
From fake email generators to big beauty brands, they know that showing value is not simply about linking back to their website. They need to show good content that will establish that they are worth engaging. Brands need to show that they can provide benefits to their followers.
With social media, they can connect with their target audience and learn what they want to hear about. It will help the company understand what customers want to see, their issues, interests, and even paint points. Social media posts let you connect on an even deeper level.
3. Improves Your SEO Through Branded Keywords
SEO is not limited anymore to websites and blog posts. For e-commerce sites, social media is a powerful SEO-building tool that will help you rank. When you use e-commerce automation tools, for example, you’ll be able to pick and choose keywords that you can use to maximize your ranking.
Social media is most useful when it comes to something called branded search. Branded search means using specific keywords that are almost exclusively used for your brand. These include searches that include your brand name.
With social media, you can get search results connected to your social accounts. Everything from your brand name to your products and services can be searched. Branded search means better traffic to your social media and website, which also means a better ranking for your e-commerce business.
4. Provides A Dedicated Marketplace and Social Commerce
Almost every social media platform now has a marketplace for its customers. Social commerce is a powerful tool that lets you sell products and services. Facebook Marketplace, Instagram Checkout, and even Product Pins with Pinterest are just a few options that you can use for e-commerce sales.
Use them and take advantage of them.
Social media marketplaces are not only free, but they also have several integrated processes that make sales that much easier. They’re also a great way for small businesses to get would-be buyers clicking. There’s also more to social commerce than using the marketplace.
For branded social media pages, they can use these to add videos about their products. They can post reviews, show off use cases, upload photos, and even point customers to the nearest stores. Some social media sites like Facebook even have the ability to view products and show up price tags as it is.
5. Useful For Customer Service
Whether you have strong marketing skills or not, one strong benefit of social media for e-commerce is its value as a customer service platform. Social media interactions are powerful ways to create customer loyalty and what better way can you show you care other than providing customer service?
If you’re looking to utilize a social media page for your customer service, there are several ways to do it right. For starters, creating a dedicated but branded customer service page on social media can segregate your marketing channels from your customer service channels, as well as embed social media feeds on website will be helpful.
You would also want to monitor conversations that involve your products and services. See if there’s a way to insert yourself into the conversation and help your potential customers.
For customers who regularly ask the same question, run a help campaign. Run images regularly that answer these questions so you can unclog your support lines.
6. Helps Proliferate Brand Trust Through Influencers
Another benefit of social media for e-commerce is the existence of social media influencers. Influencer marketing is a great way to leverage an internet celebrity’s reach and propel your brand for more sales. Tapping their power over their fans can create followers that will love your product or introduce you to a bigger audience. Top influencer marketing agencies can assist businesses in navigating the complex world of social media influencers, enabling them to harness the potential of these online personalities to expand their e-commerce reach and boost sales.
Influencer marketing does not even have to be with celebrities. You can connect with your most loyal customers and have them create videos for a contest. Encourage them to show people how to use your products and services.
Asking followers to post about their experiences will help create a solid community around your brand. Leverage these engagements and compile them. Use the power of a loyal audience to create a bigger, stronger fandom. Doing so puts you much closer to your target audience and builds a cycle of loyalists influencing other loyalists.
Final Thoughts
Social media is one of the most powerful marketing tools in the world. It is purpose-built to boost businesses, especially e-commerce brands who are looking to sell products and services.
If you’re on the fence about the value of social media in your marketing efforts, we hope these can convince you. Social media done right can hack your growth and skyrocket your brand to success.
