It can be challenging to stand out from the crowd if you’re an eCommerce business, especially if you’re a small one. There is, however, one sure-fire way to increase sales on your eCommerce site: engaging with your customers and prospective customers via social media.
Social media engagement is so powerful, companies who market their products and services on social media sites net 20-40% more income than those which don’t.
How Does Social Media Work for Your eCommerce Business?
To engage and sell to consumers, you need to go where they are and, increasingly, where they are is on social media. However, they’re not just on social media to share photos of their grandkids and cute pets, though. Consider these head-turning social media metrics from HubSpot, for example:
- Of Facebook’s 2.38 billion active users, 74% are there for “professional purposes”
- 2 million businesses use Facebook as part of their marketing strategies
- 80% of Millennial Pinterest users say they go there to get help on what to buy
- Twitter is comprised of 16% of referrals to “longer articles” from social media sites
- 97% of marketers use social media to reach their target audiences
- Social media and video viewing are the 2 most popular online activities
What Are the Best Ways to Market Your eCommerce Business with Social Media?
Well, there are many tactics you can use — probably as many as the eCommerce businesses using social media as part of their marketing strategies. According to Forbes, however, there are a few standouts, including the following 4 points:
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Using the Facebook Pixel
What is the Facebook pixel? Here’s how Hootsuite explains it:
“The Facebook pixel is code that you place on your website. It collects data that helps you track conversions from Facebook ads, optimize ads, build targeted audiences for future ads, and remarket to people who have already taken some kind of action on your website.”
According to SalesForce, businesses need to touch prospective customers 6 to 8 times to make a sale. One of the best ways to do that is through “retargeting,” which is basically putting ads in front of consumers who’ve already engaged with your business. Using the Facebook pixel, retargeting is easy — and effective. You simply add some custom conversions to your site (namely, view content, add to cart, initiate checkout and complete purchase). Doing this enables you to effectively segment your audience based on where they are in the sales funnel. This makes communications more relevant and leads to increased sales.
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Using Live Video
This one’s a no-brainer: more than 80% of consumers prefer viewing live video to reading a blog and 82% prefer live video to any other kind of social media post. Additionally, live video is increasingly more accessible, inexpensive, easy to use, and you can do it on any social media site. Of course, you should be aiming for those which are most successful for your business.
The bottom line is live video works. It brings an immediacy and realism to your eCommerce brand that no other strategy can. One caution: when employing live video, keep it real. Remember that what consumers like is the unscripted reality live video offers.
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Harness the Power of Split Testing
Split testing, sometimes called A/B testing is a simple concept. You create two versions of an ad (or a web page or email subject line, for that matter) and test them to see which performs best before you “go live.” The two ads can differ based on any number of factors, from design to content to the market segment at which the ads are targeted. Platforms like AdEspresso, Optimizely, and Adobe Target are especially strong in enhancing your split test marketing.
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Give Them Some Proof
Customers in your eCommerce store are not going to necessarily trust your business or your products simply because you say so. They want social proof, so by all means, give them some. According to Forbes, a whopping 92% of consumers will trust recommendations and reviews from strangers over those made by the company selling the product. One of the best ways to leverage social proof is by identifying key influencers (people your customers are more likely to trust and follow) and making them the centerpiece of your social proof strategy.
Conclusion
eCommerce marketing can be confusing and it’s certainly competitive. However, that doesn’t mean your business can’t ascend above the crowd, even if you’re relatively small (the internet has a tremendous leveling effect). If you follow the best practice strategies, like the ones noted above, you can grow your profits — and the power of your brand.
