Creating an agile social media eCommerce strategy is an essential component for any online business. While having an SEO strategy and email campaign is important, it is your social media strategy that is most likely to drive new traffic and secures leads if it is well planned and executed.
In the fast-changing online environment, it is important to have a social media plan that can be quickly adapted to shifting attitudes and a global economy in flux. To secure your business online, using social media to your advantage can be made easier when you know a few insider tips that elevate your brand.
Post user-generated content
Posting user-generated content (UGC) has become one of the most important aspects of eCommerce marketing. While positive reviews and customer testimonials are a form of social proof, UGC reaches audiences in ways your advertising can’t. Word-of-mouth marketing is powerful, and social media is a tool that can help you leverage that power.
Encourage your customers to share pictures and videos featuring your products to their social media, tagging your brand. Then share these posts to your own profiles, crediting the creator. This not only helps you establish and nurture a relationship with that customer, but it encourages other customers to do the same. Brands that promote their customers using their products are very successful, as it personalizes your brand and creates a ‘tribe’ for customers to have a sense of belonging with, and at this time, that sense of community is vital to the mental health of many people who are unable to leave their homes.
Every time a customer shares a picture or video featuring your product, their followers can see it and interact with it. This also expands your organic growth and drives traffic to your website.
Promote your personality
Social media is a great space for your brand to really develop and show a personality. People want to know what your brand stands for, and especially for online retailers, social media provide a great way to connect your brand with an image, a cultivated personality, and assert values that your customer base will want to be associated with.
Remembering your brand is made easier when you have a recognizable personality. The quirky brand is common and fun, often adopted by brands that cater to pet wonders of those with children, while the sophisticated chic is often adopted by retail brands in fast fashion.
The personality you choose to promote should represent your core values and remain true to stereotypes. While the brand personality is two-dimensional, it is easily used to your advantage to attract customers online and keep people engaged.
Short-form video content
Interactive content formats like Instagram Stories, Instagram Reels, Instagram Live, and TikToks have become the new way to connect with audiences, especially younger audiences. For those brands that are chasing a younger market, interactive content and short-form video cannot be ignored as social media marketing tools.
More than 500 million people use Instagram Stories every day, and brand Stories have an 86% completion rate. The platform is often updating the tools and ways people can create fun videos that keep audiences engaged.
Other social media platforms, such as Facebook have also implemented ways to share time-sensitive video content, like Stories and Fleets on Twitter.
One of the best ways to use short videos is to vary the message. It doesn’t always have to be about sales and promotion, you can share video content that is fun, informative, or related to projects you are undertaking. Perhaps your company has participated in a fun run for charity, and short video content of your team crossing the finish line gives people a new way to connect with your brand without you doing any hard selling.
Collaborate with others
Pairing up with another complementary brand or social media influencer that your audience loves can expose your brand to new audiences. Collaboration needs to be carefully considered to ensure that it benefits you both, but successful collaborations can improve the brand image, recognition, and following for both partners, and can improve sales and drive organic growth.
You can use purposeful collaborations in the following ways:
- Partner with a brand that caters to a similar audience as yours, and put together a high-value giveaway for your combined audiences. Promote the giveaway on all participating brands’ accounts. If you are a swimwear retailer, perhaps pair with a resort and offer a weekend away.
- Have an influencer demonstrate your product and share an honest review with their audience.
- Host a Q&A session on Instagram Live with influencers affiliated with your brand.
- Take professional photos of your products and that of your collaborator being used together, such as a floral display from your partner, who is a florist, with your homewares.
Post frequently
You need to have a social media posting schedule to ensure that your brand stays consistently connected with audiences. Whether you post weekly or monthly, you need to set an editorial calendar that keeps you regularly connected with your online community.
You should also aim to post different types of content, such as short-video, blogs, shares of UGC, and promotions.
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