Marketing your eCommerce brand can be difficult, especially with changing digital marketing channels. One of the most complicated channels is social media. 54% of consumers learn about your products on social media before they are ready to buy. It can often feel overwhelming to use social media to market your products. We compiled 12 social media strategies so you can feel more confident. To simplify your social media marketing:
Posting promos every week can start to feel like hitting your head against a wall. Rather than boring your audience with obvious product posts, relate to them with stories. Your audience has emotions, and they want to feel understood, entertained, and comforted.
Some ideas to help tell stories are:
As a rule of thumb, use the 80/20 rule for posting promotional content. For every 2 promotional posts, publish 8 story-driven content pieces.
Become an authority on your solutions for free. Your audience will more likely follow your account if your content contains useful information. You don’t have to be perfect, just share what you are learning every day, and your audience will follow along.
Think of what your product solves, and brainstorm education around that subject. Sammy from Banks Jewelry shares free tips on hair tutorials to go along with her products.
Banks Jewelry educates the audience on tips and tricks for hair and jewelry
Authenticity and transparency are effective ways to market your business. Consider using live streams to let people know what’s going on with your company in real-time. Ask questions and engage with people.
Ideas for increasing your authenticity on your social channel:
Customers are more likely to follow you if they have an opportunity to engage with you. Prove to your customers that you are not a robot. Have a sense of humor and be social on social media. Ideas on how to engage with your social media followers:
Invite your most satisfied customers to share their thoughts about your products. Positive reviews earn the trust of potential customers faster. Share the stories of followers who mention your brand. These free social mentions are User Generated Content. To learn how to use UGC, check out our free guide with Insense.
To get your customers to share reviews on social media:
Customers recall your brand by the words they understand and the images they see. Customers will remember your brand 65% better when associating an idea with an image. Don't make your customers think about your product, make them feel something. 80% of marketers use visuals for their marketing to evoke emotion, and so should you. 114% of website visitors are even more likely to buy after viewing a product video.
Tips for posting images and video:
Invite 10 of your closest friends and family to share your content. People are more likely to read information shared by friends or connections they trust. On a good day, only 10% of your own followers will see your story. But if you have 10 ‘micro-influencers’ with 200 of their own friends, you are now publishing to 2,000 new potential customers.
To get your tribe of micro-influencers to share:
If you haven’t already, integrate your Shopify store into your Instagram account so consumers can purchase directly from the app. Tag your products on your photos for a much higher conversion rate. To set up your Instagram Shop, follow these 7 steps to open your shop on Instagram. eCommerce stores who convert their instagram account into their shop see amazing results. Keep in mind that Instagram charges a selling fee of 5% per shipment or a flat fee of $0.40 for shipments of $8.00 or less.
Nothing is more frustrating than figuring out what to post today. Keep a social media calendar and schedule your posts ahead of time. To grow your social channel accounts, you need to be posting 2-3 times a week. Here are a list of social media schedulers you can use to help you stay organized:
If your brand is ready for more advanced marketing, consider reaching out to industry-specific influencers. Influencers hold the trust of hundreds of thousands of followers, and can greatly increase your sales if an influencer likes your product. To start your own influencer marketing:
Convert your social followers into SMS Marketing subscribers. Texts see higher conversion rates from your most loyal customers. Because of new data privacy restrictions on social media, eCommerce brands are seeing lackluster results from their ads. Many are switching their direct marketing over to data-owned channels. SMS Marketing is like email marketing, but more effective. People open 90% of texts within 3 minutes. To invite your followers to join your SMS list:
eCommerce brands who use Via get 36% conversion rates, and between 5x to 10x+ ROI. We are here to help guide you through the success of SMS marketing. To try our software for free, schedule a free consultation with one of our product specialists.
Too many brands think they have to have the perfect account to post anything. Don’t fall into this trap. You know your business better than anyone, and you have excellent ideas. Share what is in your heart, and what you believe provides the best value to your customers. And then do it.
Social media marketing can be complicated, but it doesn't have to be. Try out one or two of these strategies this week, and see how you’re feeling. Remember why you started your business in the first place. Follow your instincts to be yourself and tell your story. People follow stories and especially emotional and heartfelt ones.
If you are ready to simplify your marketing even further, sign up for a free demo of our software. Convert your social media followers into SMS Marketing subscribers with our list growth tools. Connect with your customers in more powerful ways today.