There are 2.9 billion people active on Facebook, 1 billion users visiting Instagram monthly, and a similar number joining TikTok for fun. The global reach of social media platforms has made them a powerful marketing and sales tool and unprecedented for your e-commerce business.
These platforms are the right place for your eCommerce business to capture new customers, build brand identity and drive traffic to your website. And do you know the best of all? They are free! Follow these tips for a winning sales strategy if you’ve just started selling through social media or are already doing so and still feel you need to adjust your offer.
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SELLING ON SOCIAL NETWORKS IS ABOUT FINDING YOUR AUDIENCE
Sales Rule 101: Be where your target audience is. There are many social media platforms, but there is no point in being on all of them just for the sake of being. You must carefully assess which ones are most suitable for your business. Choosing the most related ones will help you reach your target audience and tell your brand story in the best way.
If you are new to the social media ecosystem, Instagram is a great platform to start with. The e-commerce functionality enabled on this platform, Instagram Shopping, makes it much easier for SMBs to set up a storefront for their online store so that people can browse and purchase products directly from photos and videos. The fact of not having to leave the platform to make the purchase generates more sales. It is easy to use, and the purchase process is fully guided. As this platform mainly uses visual content, you can capture the attention of customers by posting stunning photos of your products.
MAINTAIN A CONSISTENT BRAND IDENTITY
Your social media channels should be a perfect extension of your e-commerce website. You’d better use the same colors, fonts, tone of voice, and visuals across all touchpoints to strengthen your brand identity in the minds of your customers.
THINK QUALITY OVER QUANTITY
It is common to make the mistake of posting too much. People don’t want to feel bombarded with sales messages. Instead, you should post interesting and engaging content that is relevant to your customers’ needs. Remember: your presence on social networks goes beyond getting a short-term sale. There are valuable opportunities to enhance customer relationships to create long-term value for your business.
REMEMBER: ATTENTION SPAN IS SHORT
We are a fast-moving society, so make sure your written content is concise and to the point. To sell on social media, prioritize more visual formats (take photos, make videos, and use the platforms’ “stories” functionality) to keep people engaged.
TIME IS A DECISIVE FACTOR IN A WINNING SOCIAL MEDIA SALES STRATEGY
What you post is just as important as when you post it. The essential thing is to be able to reach your followers with new content when they are most interested. A quick Google search about this reveals that there are many conflicting theories about the best time to post. In any case, this is something personal and exclusive to each company since it depends on the habits of your followers.
The best strategy for posting when selling on social media is to take a trial and error approach. Social media analytics will help you understand your audience’s online behaviors. In this way, you can program more personalized content to the tastes of your audience. If your audience is global, you will find yourself with the additional complexity of working with different time zones. Therefore, it’s important that you consider using a content scheduling tool like Hootsuite to automate your posts.
ENCOURAGE A CONVERSATION
Your presence on social media is not one-way. You have a valuable opportunity to understand your customers’ needs and use this information to establish future growth plans for your business. Read the conversations of the users who follow your page, respond to comments, ask questions and ask for their opinion. Most of the algorithms of social media platforms reward interaction, and in this way, you will improve your ranking.
SHARE UGC (USER-GENERATED CONTENT)
You may know that user-generated content is much more effective than branded content at converting sales? Review posts and photos in which your business has been tagged. If a customer posts about your product, they repost it on your social media profiles, and this content will appear more authentic to potential customers.
#VISIBLE
Hashtags are an essential way to link your content to people who have similar interests. In any case, it is not recommended that you overdo it. Including too many hashtags in a piece of written content can be distracting. Detailed and specific hashtags will generate better results than generic terms, which are at risk of getting lost in a multitude of unrelated content. You can also use hashtags to study your competition!
CREATE AN EDITORIAL CONTENT CALENDAR
There are many holidays that your company can take advantage of Valentine’s Day, Black Friday, Christmas. A content calendar will be very helpful for you to prepare and schedule your social media sales campaigns ahead of time.
MEASURE, TEST, AND REVIEW
Discover all the possibilities of Google Analytics. This tool is your new best friend on your social media sales success journey. The free analytics dashboard gives you a wealth of valuable data about your e-commerce website and your visitors, including:
How much traffic is coming from your social media channels?
Which social media channels are working best for your business.
How many sales conversions your business gets through social media.
Once you have this information, you can update, improve and change aspects of your social media strategy until you reach the optimal performance level.