How to Use Social Media for Ecommerce Marketing

Overview
Being an online business owner or e-commerce seller means one needs to give more detailed thought into how the business is going to be managed on a day to day basis. This will invariably depend on individual circumstances, resources, time constraints, overall objectives, preferences as well as service and production needs.
Marketing is a powerful business tool. The internet age has provided a whirlwind of opportunities for every hardworking dreamer that wants to fly without wings. The world of eCommerce and internet has proven to be a lucrative arena for those who want to benefit from the promises it beholds.
Regardless of the parameters, one thing is certain: online business owners crucially ‘need’ to plan and manage resources effectively, to ensure continued profits, growth and consistent success. And one of the most vital of these resources is the art of Marketing!
Another important question is do you think that you are doing great as an online marketer?
Here are 5 ways online businesses and e-commerce entrepreneurs can successfully market and grow their businesses while increasing profits:
Social Media Branding
Make sure your company’s vision and products are effectively communicated online via powerful branding.
Make the branding of your company, products, and services on social media visually appealing!
Human beings are creatures of visual stimulation. We thrive on it. And we act on it.
Think about ads on television about fast food; the way they trigger your visual senses with close-ups of juicy burgers on a bun, splash of ketchup and mayo, steamy golden fries and cool soothing soft drink! It’s all visual; making your mouth water!
Thus, make your visual branding inviting to look at – since if the ad didn’t invite and entice the eye, no one would read it!
Post daily across major platforms like Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and others for maximum audience engagement and brand positioning.
Knowing Your Audience
Knowledge is power! Being aware of the “market landscape” and knowing who your competitors are and what they are offering, is a powerful weapon!
Whether it’s running FB ads, sending Emails to your list, writing Landing or Sales Pages or simply promoting a Blog post, the art of persuasive social media marketing and attention-grabbing content depends on understanding your audience!
Do your research on what are your audience’s pain points, their needs, wants, desires, struggles, preferences.
A successful e-commerce social media marketing strategy should understand people, have a strong insight into their needs and wants and be empathetic towards providing a solution to their problems.
In essence, great social media for e-commerce business and the associated marketing is simply a direct conversation between you and the consumer.
Remember, writing something doesn’t mean that you’ve “communicated” it.
For example: if you’re selling a mattress, then communicate the benefits of the mattress to the audience (relieving back pain, uninterrupted good night’s sleep, etc).
Customers don’t buy products, they buy the experience, the vision and the benefit THEY believe they can get out of them. And it’s your marketing efforts’ job to MAKE them believe of it!
Keep Track of Costs for SMM
SMM (Social Media Marketing) is your backbone for global audience engagement, lead generation, brand recognition, product visibility and other integral factors that determine your success as an eCommerce business.
So, keeping track of your SMM costs is crucial. You don’t want your costs to negatively impact your SMM.
To make your SMM tactics and campaigns more effective, you need to:
- Layout a clear plan for your goals and objectives with all your social media presence
- Dedicate a strong team to manage your social media channels and platforms
- Assign a realistic cost range to each social media outlet for advertising and promotions
- Use measuring tools to keep an eye out on progress and social media effectiveness
- Utilize Google Analytics and other resources to keep you in the right direction
How to Create Catchy Social Media Posts
As human beings, we are creatures of emotion. Love, hate, jealousy, fear, pity – all are forms of emotion that make us beings of empathy and intellect. We use that intellect to make decisions via ‘Free Will’. Human behavior can be controlled if the free will can be controlled.
How do you control free-will? Through the power of sheer persuasion! And words have the ability to fuel persuasion via creating beliefs, images, stories, and narratives that captivate the heart and consume the mind.
So for your social media marketing, if you’re writing to persuade, you have to hit the gut before you get anywhere near the brain. The part that decides “I want that” is emotional and often subconscious. If your premise doesn’t work emotionally, logic will never get a chance to weigh in.
If you flip that emotional switch, the sale (or other action) is yours to lose. Because our logical minds do eventually step in (usually in a way that makes us think we’re driven by logic in the first place). If your premise is not credible (as in it’s too good to be true), you fail.
Create catchy posts by:
- Using powerful and interesting images, captions, headlines
- Use audience psychology and pain points address their concerns and problems
- Offer solutions and features/benefits, by differentiating yourself from competitors
- Use easy to read the language, no technical jargon or complicated words
Use Paid Promotions
Paid promotions are powerful for generating warm traffic that is already looking for what you’re offering online. Platforms like Google, Bing, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and AdWords are critical when it comes to harnessing successful results from paid promotions.
Paid promotions give you:
- Large audience outreach, connecting you to millions of people
- Brand positioning by enhancing the visibility of your product to the masses
- Opportunity to build credibility and trust
- Earn higher profits through solid lead generation and sales
If you don’t have paid promotions already in your Social Media Marketing strategy for E-commerce, you need to do so as soon as possible. It will be game-changing and will pay dividends down the road.
Omer Riaz is an eCommerce strategist, Forbes and Entrepreneur contributor, and adviser to many eCommerce businesses. He is passionate about empowering others to maximize the potential of their brands as well.