Social Media For E-Commerce: A Quick Guide

30th Sept 2021

People in recent times are spending most of their time on social media, sharing posts, liking photos, messaging friends, and making videos. Apart from all these activities, people are using social media as a purchasing guide as well. According to much research, it is seen that 43% of internet users use social media for searching for products and discovering brands.

DigitalCrafts

What is social commerce? Social commerce is a way to advertise and sell products through various social media channels directly. Social commerce enables customers to buy from their favorite e-commerce sites, such as Facebook or Instagram, through either in-app or through links to a brand's e-commerce website. Customers can tailor what is shown to them based on their preferences, and it makes use of tailored advertisements and personalization, which increases the chances of them buying a product.

Social commerce is a common term now, and it includes the following features that make it easier for businesses to make their customers purchase their products:

  • Action buttons are also known as (Call-to-action) like Shop Now and Add to Bag, making customers add products to wish lists directly.
  • Product tags in images or videos clicking on which customers can directly reach the business website.
  • Product information and checkout are directly available in-app.
  • Links directing the audience to reach the brand's page or website.

Many businesses are taking advantage of how customers use these platforms for purchasing products and are taking up their business to the social media platforms like Facebook and Pinterest. The confluence of social media and e-commerce is now known as social commerce.

SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS

There are many social media platforms where businesses are turning up for social commerce. However, before deciding social commerce strategy, consider particularly which your target audience most uses platforms. Here are the top social platforms used by people every day.

facebook

Why is Facebook constantly bombarded with news feed advertisements from e-commerce brand pages? Because Facebook offers a unique opportunity to reach the right kind of audience that is interested in a particular product. The platform has over 1.65 billion users, making it the largest social network. Facebook is where people are most comfortable purchasing products online, with 68% of users saying they are likely to make an offline purchase after viewing a product on Facebook.

Facebook's latest update is designed to make it easier for businesses to sell their products on social networks. The new Facebook Shops product, which is set to launch in beta soon, enables businesses to create Facebook stores without having an e-commerce site of their own.

Facebook offers the ability to create direct sales pages on your products (just like 9GAG, Walmart, Amazon, etc.) and make sales without anyone ever leaving Facebook. This feature allows anyone to directly purchase branded products using the internet's largest social media platform. Facebook aims to use its users' information (Mail, Phone number, Shipping Addresses) for your reach and impact!

Instagram

Instagram is home to youngsters, as the research says more than two-thirds of people between 18 to 30 use Instagram daily. Instagram has a unique feature that enables two types of accounts- regular accounts and business accounts. Business accounts let you see insights into personalized posts, promote them and sell products easily in-app. It also allows shoppable posts with tags that will take the audience directly to the brand websites.

Pinterest

Pinterest is a popular platform for sharing images of things in different categories like food, fashion, home and garden, and beauty. Companies can use Product Pins on images to direct users to their e-commerce websites. Businesses can list their products and add a link to their post to directly take their customers to the product page.

Snapchat

This photo messaging social media app has more than 300 million global users and is very popular with young audiences, particularly 13- to 29-year-olds. Its users are highly engaged, and Companies can run Dynamic Ads to drive their targeted audiences to their brand's website or mobile app to purchase goods. Ads here are linked directly to the product page, and pricing and availability are always updated.

DigitalCrafts

SOCIAL MEDIA BENEFITS

Today's consumers are constantly connected to social media. Take full advantage of these platforms to give your business an incredible opportunity to connect with a wider audience, drive more traffic, build an online reputation, and increase customer loyalty..

Make engaging community

Engagement is the level of activity of your customers. It depends on how interesting the content is, how fast the response to users' questions, the level of acknowledgment and appreciation about their feedback, etc. Bring about engaging posts and make the audience believe they are more than just sales. Keep the audience engaged and remember you.

Formulating dialog: create an environment where one can converse and continue the conversation that has been started on the website. Engaging content plays a key role in this process. Revamp the blogging approach and focus on engaging your customers by sharing new ideas and comments to feel more connected to the company and keep coming back.

Build Customer Loyalty

Keep your company's social media content real and engaging to create positive impressions on your audience with the brand and build trust over the long term. Try out random giveaways on Instagram solo or by partnering with other brands. This will help build community roots and healthy relationships with the customers.

DigitalCrafts

Ease your customer's experience

Social media simplifies the purchasing journey and makes your customer's experience as effortless as possible. Shopping pages in digital media put the product information right at their fingertips, making the transactions possible with simple, few quick taps. Coming to life more often and engaging with your customers can also grow your business.

Reach a global audience

Social media platforms are truly global, which means that when you put your business on social media, there is a greater chance that audiences from over the globe can reach your business easily. They are available in multiple languages and countries, giving businesses special access to customers worldwide.

GET STARTED WITH SOCIAL MEDIA

Now that you know the opportunities and benefits of using social media let's explore how to get started. Here are the tips to help you start well with social media for improving your chances of success. Always remember that "well begun is half done":

Spotlight your best products

It is always captivating to upload as many products as possible to your social media platforms. However, starting with a few best products that are sure to sell well is the best way to get started. Lower-priced products can truly encourage sales, as they are seen as less investment risk and as a sample purchase by first-time buyers.

Partner with influencers or promote your products.

One of the simple ways to get your products to reach a wider audience is to either team up with a social media influencer with followers who are your target audience or promote your products using available social media tools. Influencers can endorse or review your product, offer promo codes to followers, and even host a giveaway.

Know your success

It is necessary to know your success after using the social media campaign, and one of the best metrics of success is conversion. Brand awareness and customer trust are also important building blocks of success. You can also consider other measurements like traffic to your e-commerce website, customer engagements, increased followers, and sales.

SOCIAL MEDIA & BUSINESS STRATEGY

Social media platforms can help your business reach a wider customer base. However, you must have a proper strategy to grow your overall business online and not just increase customers. Here's how a proper business strategy can help you boost your business on social media platforms.

Insights

E-commerce platforms collect detailed user data to utilize this information to understand better your customers, website traffic, and what pages visitors are browsing when they open your site and their purchase history. This information can help personalize a marketing campaign to the customers and explain how your overall sales strategies are working.

Security

The growing popularity of social commerce raises questions on security. Not all users are ready to purchase on a social media platform until they are sure that the sites are completely secured. A secured ecommerce website can reassure your concerned customers of the safety of the financial information they provide and allow them with alternatives for purchasing.

Final Thoughts

Social media enables customers to buy from their favorite e-commerce sites, either in-app or through links to a brand's e-commerce website. The e-commerce platform is tightly integrated with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Linkedin, Google Analytics 360, and Google Adwords. Synchronize product inventory, customer information, analytics, and social media streams across all channels, enabling you to engage with customers in real-time.

The social commerce platform is absolutely "tied" to social media. By integrating these two elements, businesses can boost their operations and synchronize product inventory, customer information, and analytics across all channels and keep their audience engaged with the information gained. The vast majority of e-commerce websites use social media at least doing the same time as selling online.

Book Free SEO Audit Download E-book
whatsapp