Social media for e-commerce has become a crucial element in sales increase for many businesses. Using social media to increase your marketing offers many advantages to grow your business, so don’t wait to explore these important channels.
Sprout Social reports after following a brand on social media, and users continue to engage in other ways. 91% check out the brand’s website or app, 89% make a purchase, and 85% recommend the brand to someone they know.
Let’s see what you can do to promote your e-commerce business with social media and which tools and best practices you should use.
14 Steps for E-Commerce Businesses to Find Success Using Social Media
The more people combine social media platforms into their regular routines, the more it makes sense to market to them here. Users spend approximately two and a half hours per day on social media platforms.
Why not approach them with social posts where you know they spend an important amount of time?
How can you stay on the peak of new developments and know what you should be doing to serve your consumers best? Follow business leaders in your feeds and keep tabs on trending subjects in your business. You can also carefully watch what other companies are doing that seems to get traction.
While social commerce is still nearly new, it’s creating a significant impact on e-commerce companies and how they market to consumers. As every platform updates its features to support user’s sell, opportunities grow for businesses to tap into these audiences to increase their marketing.
The steps here can help you improve your company’s best methods to optimize your social media for e-commerce.
#1. Define Your E-Commerce Company’s Social Media Purposes
There are two main methods to use social media for e-commerce: to drive traffic to your business website or drive sales. While each can be valuable in its way, it’s necessary to recognize which you value most so you can definitely plan how to use your devices.
It’s necessary to establish your goals before investing time into strategy and implementation to ensure you’re getting action to move you closer to your purposes.
If you don’t establish goals, you can’t measure your progress or repeat what works.
#2. Build a Social Media Strategy for Your E-Commerce Company
You’ll require a social media strategy for your e-commerce company that considers your goals, your devices, and the best platforms that will benefit you reach your consumers. Once you clarify these elements of your strategy, you can develop each element to build effective campaigns that fit your purposes.
When you manage from a social media strategy, you’re also more likely to use best practices to help you be more productive overall. Get a clear view of your target audience, where they spend time, and their concerns. From here, do some analysis to check which platforms are most successful with your target demographic.
With this data, you’ll be better able to plan where your time and effort will pay off.
#3. Determine If You Want to Become a Social Commerce Company
Social commerce is selling straight to your consumers on social media platforms. Everything from discovering your service or product, to a purchasing decision, to the checkout process appears in the platform or app they are already using.
Facebook Target’s page, for example, has a shop built directly into it where consumers can browse and buy products.
You might discover success with social commerce if you sell products that a potential customer can immediately view online from a photo and might buy on impulse. Think lower cost points and items that aren’t expected to need returning.
A clothes business might successfully sell their clothing and accessories on social media as the process suits how people tend to purchase these products.
When is social commerce possibly not a good fit? If your services or products are higher ticket items where consumers want to see the quality in person. A consumer purchasing an engagement ring will want to give more time evaluating choices and vetting retailers than social commerce might allow.
Start by concentrating on the networks your ideal consumer and target public uses the most. Take time to engage your audiences and reply to their questions and comments.
Whether or not you want to try social commerce for your business, you should still be spending on social media marketing. Social channels can help increase your visibility, increase website traffic, generate leads, and help you engage with your consumers.
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#4. Optimize Your Social Media Accounts for E-Commerce
One of the initial steps you’ll need to take is to optimize your social media accounts. Fill out your profiles entirely, adding helpful knowledge wherever you can.
Make it simple for people to find the knowledge they need at a glance to know your business and purchase from you. Perform research to recognize relevant hashtags and keywords to use, so you show up in search results. Make your location visible.
Be sure to link to pages where consumers can find the products they clicked through to see. Use clear CTAs, so people understand what to do to purchase from you.
#5. Run Social Media Paid Campaigns Optimized for E-Commerce Companies
Almost every social platform has a version of paid advertising that can permit you to increase visibility even as organic reach grows more challenging to achieve.
There are also various ad types on each, so it can be important to explore multiple options. You may try different kinds of ads on each platform. You might try retargeting advertisements on Facebook, but use Shoppable posts on Instagram. Take benefit of audience targeting capabilities on each.
#6. Decide Which Social Media Channels Your E-Commerce Company Should Target
First, look for built platforms that provide a range of features, different ways to promote and sell products, and focused targeting.
The clothes brand we discussed earlier would likely want to use Instagram because it is image-focused, and customers are already used to seeing and buying clothes on the app.
Next, consider which platforms bring your target demographic. You’ll want to go where your perfect consumers spend time.
What kind of data might tell your decision? With some analysis, you might discover 60% of Pinterest users are women, and 98% of Facebook users reach the site via mobile devices. From these and additional data points, you’ll be able to pinpoint which platforms might be best for your business.
#7. Use Automation Tools
If social media is a piece of your sales strategy, you’ll require exploring automation tools and using what you can. Why automation so key to social selling? People assume timely and personal communication on social media networks. To satisfy their expectations, you’re going to require help.
It’s just not possible to maintain a successful business and spend each waking moment online responding to comments and responding to questions. Social media is similar to a storefront that is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week (plus festival holidays!), so don’t take the risk of turning people apart or missing necessary inquiries or concerns.
#8. Optimize Landing Pages for E-Commerce
Optimizing your ‘landing pages for e-commerce helps build a better user experience by giving people all the knowledge they need to make a buying decision.
If people click through to your site, you need them to learn quickly they’re in the correct place. People should be able to move seamlessly to buying the item they desired.
Ensure you have high-quality product videos and images, if relevant, with well-written product copy describing features and benefits. Add sizing or specifications on the product page and clear calls to action (CTAs) to help them convert.
#9. Create Clear Call to Actions on Social Media Optimized for E-Commerce
CTAs are what drive your user to convert to a consumer. Take the time to craft these accurately and include them in every interaction you have with potential consumers.
You can use various CTAs, like including hyperlinks, asking questions, or simply adding a clickable button. Your page design might add banners with special offers, sidebar clickable buttons, or pop-up ads to help consumers convert.
#10. Consider the Mobile Experience
More people are reaching social media networks and websites through their mobiles than ever before. When it comes to social media to e-commerce, however, mobile design is just the initial step. The whole shopping journey needs to be seamless.
Payment choices should be mobile-friendly. For example, Apple Pay allows you to let users make shopping from their phones.
#11. Offer Easy Payment Options for Consumers
If you’re going to manage a successful e-commerce site, you must offer safe and trustworthy methods for people to pay for your services and products.
You can explore a wide variety of payment choices for your e-commerce company, each with its policies and features. Options include PayPal, Stripe, Square, Google Pay, Apple Pay, and many others.
Some social media platforms enable consumers to buy directly from the app, depending on what features you want to use. Some of these options include Facebook (with Messenger Chatbots, Facebook stores, and Ads), Instagram (with Shopping, Stories, IGTV, Live, and Ads), and Pinterest (with Rich Pins, Promoted Pins, and Shop the Look Pins.)
You also can study third-party websites as a way to promote and sell your products. Keep looking to learn more about some of these that may boost your e-commerce business.
#12. Assure Easy Website Navigation
User experience (UX) should be your preference when you launch your e-commerce site. You want customers to find products fast and learn how to move from browsing to buying without confusion.
The simpler you do it for people to purchase from you, the better the possibility they’ll convert from visitor to consumer. Keep your navigation simple to learn and avoid design components that are too unusual for people to use comfortably.
#13. Sell and Advertise on Third-Party Websites
There are different options for increasing your sales traffic beyond your website. Third-party websites enable you to benefit from built functionality and huge audiences while growing your legitimacy and website traffic.
Amazon is one of the best examples of third-party website selling. While customers on Amazon may realize they’re purchasing from you instead of straight from the retail giant itself, you still profit from the credibility of their brand and buying capabilities. You also get to tap into their large audience of visitors with a solid intention to buy.
Another choice is using sites like to Know It, which enables readers to buy an item from Instagram by linking the products emailed to them.
Reward Style is an invitation-only affiliate network focusing on lifestyle, beauty products, fashion, and providing sellers to make money through content creation featuring several products.
#14. Follow the Success of Your E-Commerce Company’s Social Media Strategy
It’s necessary to track your strategy’s effects as you implement your plans, so you can carefully analyze your progress and where you need to improve.
Choose quantifiable metrics describing engagement (such as likes, comments, shares, or retweets). Follow your website traffic and how much traffic you are receiving from your social media platforms. Keep track of sales created by social media marketing and sales performed online or through your campaigns.
It’s not always simple to tie your efforts to your decisions, but you can try. With particular metrics, you’ll be properly able to repeat the working tactics and return the areas that don’t seem to be giving you the same return on investment.
Conclusion
Social media is a huge part of daily life for many people and provides an excellent possibility to get in front of potential consumers and sell your services and products. You can use different platforms to strengthen your brand, develop loyal fans, and increase sales.
