Ultimate Guide to Ecommerce Social Media Marketing
Social media presence is essential to grow and build brand awareness, bringing traffic to your website and increasing sales and leads. However, your accounts are not merely platforms for sharing content and engaging with visitors to accomplish them. From Facebook to Instagram, social media can be a powerful way to market your products and services to your followers.
Canadians are big social media users. A report of 2019 said that 75% of females and 62% of males use it daily. And according to PayPal’s Social Commerce Trend Study, 47% of Canadian users are shopping on social networks, spending an average of $77 per month.
Despite all these stats, several small business entrepreneurs including aluminum screen makers still don’t get the value of these popular social media platforms. That’s why this guide will help every aluminum screen supplier understands how crucial e-commerce or social media marketing is but to enlighten them on actionable tips to attract traffic and generate sales.
Organic Social Selling
First, it’s important to understand that there’s a difference between social selling, using paid ads, and actually using a platform as a marketplace.
Social selling means you’re organically connecting with sales prospects and nurture relationships to hopefully convert them into customers. It’s about building relationships and credibility naturally by getting to know your potential customers.
You can do this by asking them engaging questions, answering their questions quickly, and always responding to comments or complaints. The more loyalty and trust you construct, the better your chances of converting a mere follower into a paying customer.
For example, one of our clients, Rose Marie Swanson, asks engaging questions to connect with her audience.
Selling on a Social Media Marketplace
Selling within a particular marketplace or platform is a bit different. It means using the platform’s selling power to actively market your products. Here are two examples.
Facebook Shops
If you have a Facebook business Page, you can use Facebook Shops. This new feature lets you add products, organize them into different categories, communicate with customers, and see data around things like views and clicks.
And because Facebook owns Instagram, customers can also access your store on IG. People can find your Facebook Shops on your business Facebook Page or Instagram profile, or via Facebook ads or Stories.
Social media is among the best marketing sites out there for aluminum profile manufacturers in China. They can reach and grow a wide audience with content and advertisements. Also, people who follow or like aluminum accessories, are their fans.
On the flip side, people can feel resistant to selling on the mentioned platforms. You have to approach the right way or could alienate your audience, causing them to unlike or un-follow you as they expect a two-way engaging and conversation content.
Shoppable Instagram Posts
Canada got this cool functionality in 2018, which enables businesses to tag brands and products in their organic Instagram posts. Your audience can tap it to see more details, and then click to buy the product.
To take advantage of this feature, you’ll need to set up an Instagram Business account. And, your business profile must be connected to a Facebook catalog.
Using Paid Ads
In addition to social selling and selling on a marketplace, you can also utilize ads to drive traffic to your account page or website.
Depending on the type of small business you have, you may choose to run paid ads on:
• Google Ads/display ads on the Google Display Network
• YouTube (and in-video ad placements)
Keep in mind that you don’t have to stick to static images when it comes to using these paid advertising options. When using social media marketing for e-commerce, you can integrate videos into your ads to make them more engaging.
Within every platform, there might be multiple ad choices. For example, on Facebook, you can choose from carousel ads, slideshow ads, collection ads, Messenger ads…
One example is Canadian grocer SPUD.ca who combines social selling (offering valuable info) with product marketing in their Facebook ads.
It can be challenging to understand all the ad formats and set up and manage accounts and budgets. That’s why it often makes sense to hire a professional marketing company for your small business.
Wrap Up
No matter why you’re considering social media for e-commerce, it’s essential to put in the time and effort to ensure your communications are not only engaging but empathetic. Learn more about using empathetic marketing on our website.
