Social media has become an enormous marketing tool. In fact, 4.9 billion people are active on social media as of June 2023, equating to about 58.4 percent of the global population.
In other words, all social media campaigns have a huge potential audience base! You just need to know how to harness the power of this incredible resource.
This article will outline how you can use social media to increase eCommerce sales and drive traffic to your website.
Optimize Your Presence With Social Media Automation
Building a social media presence for your eCommerce business can often take up a lot of time and energy, particularly if you’re doing everything manually.
However, if you automate your processes wherever possible, you can focus more of your energy on the creative side of things to improve your engagement.
There are many different ways you can automate aspects of your social media. Here are a few examples:
- Schedule your posts so you can publish them at peak times when people will interact with them
- Set up automatic responses to customer comments or questions
- Analyze your social data in order to determine what type of content performs best
Of course, to automate the appropriate aspects of your social media effectively, you’ll need some help. ActiveCampaign is a company that specializes in helping other businesses to supercharge their social media marketing, making them a fantastic choice.
They can provide you with marketing automation software that will help you optimize a wide range of campaigns, including those you plan to share through social media.
For instance, they can automatically update your Facebook efforts based on your contacts' actions on other social media channels.
In other words, your audience will only see the content and advertising that’s most relevant to their needs, helping you drive better traffic to your website.
They can also automate your email marketing and SMS messaging to help ensure that you have fewer abandoned carts and more sales.
Showcase Positive Reviews Through Social Media
Positive customer reviews can be very powerful marketing tools. Prospective customers will want to see that you’ve achieved great results for people just like them!
So, if you show off star reviews or written testimonials on your social media pages, you’ll build trust with your followers and encourage them to make a purchase.
To collect reviews, you simply need to ask. Consider sending post-purchase emails to your past and future customers to ask them to leave a review or star rating, perhaps in exchange for a small discount as incentivization.
You can even use a QR code maker to generate QR codes for collecting reviews.
Be sure to ask people for permission before posting their thoughts on your social media pages. Ask for their permission to use their name, photos, and username, as well.
Many people won’t mind if you post their reviews, but it’s important to check in with them in case they have privacy concerns or intended their thoughts only to be shared with you.
Once you have your reviews, you must determine when and how to share them on social media. One great method is to simply create and share a graphic that shows off a great review a customer has left.
This will help ensure that people who are visiting your social media account for the first time will see that you provide quality work.
If you’re using a platform like Facebook or Instagram that allows for stories, you could even create a highlight section home to some of the best reviews you have received.
Let’s take a look at an example of a business that showcases reviews on social media as inspiration.
Stryker T-Tops, a retailer of aftermarket t-tops and boat accessories, showcases positive customer reviews on their Twitter page.
As you can see in the image above, the company posts a picture of the reviewed product in question with the relevant testimonial.
They add the customer’s social media username, as well, to give credibility to the review. This type of social media marketing can help Stryker T-Tops build trust with their followers and encourage them to make a purchase.
Consider using your business’s Twitter page to share reviews your customers have left for your products. This will help show your followers that you produce quality work and make them more likely to want to buy from you!
Provide Value With Informative Social Media Content
Many businesses make the mistake of only using social media as a promotional tool. But, in order to build a strong following, you also need to provide value.
One great way to do this is with informational social media content related to what you do or sell.
To develop ideas for these types of posts, think about how you can educate people interested in your niche or what you sell.
Your social media can be used to share quick facts or fascinating information about your field. This will show people that you know a lot about your business, intriguing them and helping draw them to your website so they can learn more.
For instance, you can also create video content that shows how your products or services work.
Let’s take a look at a few examples of companies that do this well to provide you with some inspiration.
DontPayFull, a savings and coupon website, has a lot of informational content on its Instagram page. As you can see above, they post content that is helpful to their followers and target audience — primarily people who are looking for ways to save money.
This particular post highlights some of the items you should never buy used. DontPayFull knows that its target audience wants to save money, but they aim to help by cautioning against buying certain products.
Notice how eye-catching the post is. The bright colors and large font draw the attention of the user and make them want to read more.
Plus, it provides information their followers mightn’t have read before. People who are interested in this type of content will want to read on.
Then, they’ll see that DontPayFull has a lot of content like this on their social media pages and website, making them more likely to use the company’s services.
Consider what helpful facts and figures your target audience would be interested in. Answer their questions or post informational content relevant to your niche. This is a great social media marketing tactic that can encourage purchases.
KiwiCo., a kids’ craft and toy subscription box, has informative content on its Instagram page. As you can see above, KiwiCo has posted a fun fact for kids about the moon, noting that moonlight is actually just light reflected from the sun.
This is a charming way to get the attention of older kids on social media, and parents will see that KiwiCo can help them learn. This type of informational post builds trust with the audience and makes them more likely to purchase.
Consider posting fun facts related to your niche on your social media pages! Posts like this can help you showcase your expertise and make your followers want to spend money with you.
Inspire Your Audience to Get the Most Out of Your Products
Instead of always going for a hard sell on your social media pages, getting people excited about your products can be beneficial by showing them how they can get the most out of them.
For instance, you could show off all of the different applications of a particular product or show pictures of people coming up with creative ways to use your items.
Showing off what your products can do will excite people to buy from your company. So, consider using your social media pages to show off what your products can do, and don’t be afraid to highlight new or lesser-known features!
Let’s take a look at an example of a business that does this well as inspiration.
Apple, a leader in the tech space, never misses an opportunity to show off what its products can do on its social media pages.
On their Instagram page, for instance, they show off the full abilities of what their phone cameras can do. The picture above was shot on an iPhone and shows a very up-close image of a cactus.
This imagery is fascinating and can excite viewers about the iPhone's camera capabilities, making them more likely to purchase one.
Videos and images that demonstrate lesser-known features offer a great way to soft-sell products and generate excitement around your products. So, this is a tactic you should definitely consider trying out.
Drive Website Traffic by Sharing Your On-Site Content
Social media is the perfect tool for sharing blog or knowledge-based content that you have published on your website.
There are a lot of benefits to sharing expert content on social media! For instance, it will help you build trust with your ideal audience, make it more likely that you’ll reach your target audience on social media, drive more quality traffic to your website, and show off what you do without being overly promotional.
When deciding what type of content you should promote on your social media pages, consider looking at what blog posts of yours have been the most successful.
Depending on which platform you plan to share them on, it might also be worth considering which pieces have the best visuals. Promoting them again to a different audience can help draw more people to your website.
Let’s take a look at an example of a business that does a great job of promoting its website content on social media as inspiration.
SchoolLockers.com, a retailer of storage lockers and cabinets, regularly promotes its blog content on its social media pages.
As you can see in the Instagram post above, the company has announced that they have helpful organizational tips on their blog.
They’ve also created a graphic specifically for the post, which is much more eye-catching than just a snippet of the blog post. To draw people to their website, they have also posted a link in their bio!
Additionally, this type of content is seasonal — if January is Get Organized month, this means that SchoolLockers.com can reshare its content around the same time every year without having to publish anything new on its website. This will help them attract customers to their website with very little additional work!
By sharing its new (and old) blog content on social media, the company can draw more eyes to its website and encourage more people to purchase with them.
Be sure to announce your new content on your social media pages. This can help ensure that your followers are always up-to-date on what you’ve been publishing on your website!
If more people know about your content, they’ll be more likely to come back to your website and make a purchase with you down the road.
Summary
Social media is an incredibly powerful marketing tool. And in this article, we outlined how you can use your social media pages to promote your blog content, showcase customer reviews, prove that you are an industry expert, and more.
Need more help? Check out the POWR blog. They have articles that can help you with live chat customer service, social media marketing, and so much more.
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Author Bio:
Adam Steele has been writing about digital marketing and SEO for 11 years. He’s consulted for businesses small and large, including several of the largest companies in the world. If you liked this post, follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn for more like it.
