What are the advantages of using social media for e-commerce?
To reinforce the importance of these platforms in e-commerce, we have selected 8 benefits that they can bring to an e-commerce. Look:
Create an extra commercial relationship with consumers
Maintaining exclusively commercial interactions is something that hardly attracts and retains customers. With social media, they expect much more from a company than just buying and selling.
It is necessary to have dialogue, content, trust and even relaxation. These are details that further humanize the relationship between brands and consumers, and create differentials so that the public is not convinced only by price or convenience.
Extract insights into consumer behavior
By being on social media, you have the opportunity to see what people are saying about your store, its content, products, competitors and many other relevant topics.
This allows you to better understand how potential and current customers think and act. In this way, it will be possible to adapt your marketing and sales strategies to the preferences of these audiences.
Bring more visibility to the store
According to the 2021 Social Media Trends report, greater visibility is highlighted by 83.2% of companies as one of the advantages of using social media.
And this benefit is quite evident, isn't it? By creating profiles and executing a social media marketing strategy , an e-commerce is expanding its boundaries.
It becomes more discoverable for people who would hardly find it in other ways on the internet.
Increase brand reputation
A page that promotes interesting discussions, that shares useful content for the followers and that does not get involved in controversies helps to improve (a lot) the credibility of the brand or company it represents.
In addition, the participation of consumers itself can increase trust in the brand . For example, if a customer satisfied with a purchase gives a positive review on the store's fan page , that will be invaluable social proof for you.
Generate more engagement with the audience
These types of behavior that we mentioned in the previous topic increase not only the reputation, but also the engagement of the brand with the public.
People are no longer indifferent to every post referring to your store. Instead, they start to react, opine, criticize, praise and share their publications.
Improve SEO results
Visibility, reputation or engagement on social media is not necessarily factors that will put your store on the first page of Google. However, they indirectly help in this mission.
But how is this possible?
Well, social media can contribute in two ways. One, and the simplest, is with faster indexing of your pages in search results. When a post is shared on a social platform, Google more quickly detects its existence.
The second, and as simple as the first, has to do with gaining traffic. The amount of visits a site receives is one of the ranking factors. So if your store is getting a lot of hits from social media, that will be rewarded by Google and other search engines.
Segment the promotion of your products
Another benefit is the targeting power of networks, especially on their ad platforms.
Tools like Facebook Ads, for example, allow you to practically handpick the people impacted by a campaign.
This is a segmentation that goes beyond demographics. This targeting can be done according to purchase profile, personal interests, pages liked, recently published activities, etc.
All this detailing helps to create more accurate and economical marketing and sales actions.
Boost your sales
Did you have any idea that 75% of consumers bought an offer just because they saw it previously on social media?
Well, this data from Sprout Social shows how a publication on your own page, a post paid to be promoted or content brought by the public can influence other consumers to buy something .
In addition, with greater visibility, it is natural for your store to conquer more business opportunities and, consequently, more conversions into customers.
How to get the best out of social media for online stores?
Well, after you see the reasons not to leave an e-commerce away from social networks, now check out 6 tips to extract the best results from these platforms. Follow:
1. Choose the most appropriate social networks for the store and the public
For starters, don't even consider the idea of being present on all social networks! This can generate unnecessary and unproductive work.
For example, if you work for an e-commerce that sells healthy and natural foods and supplements, LinkedIn may not be the most appropriate social network to promote your content and offers.
In contrast, Facebook and Instagram can work very well to attract the audience you want.
Think about the characteristics of each social media and see if it speaks to both your store's profile and your audience.
2. Adjust the language and types of posts to your persona
Having a well-defined persona is important in all digital marketing actions, especially on social media.
The profile traced will help to choose the platforms of action, the language of the posts, the types of publication, the themes of the content, the best times of posts and much more.
Personas will be your main references when designing your social media presence strategy .
3. Focus on building relationships
While sales are the primary objective in most marketing strategies, they can take a back seat to social media.
That's because users of these platforms are not there to buy and sell products. This may even happen, but it occurs on a much smaller scale than social relationships.
And that's what we can't forget. They are social networks and not ad page ! People are there to chat, see what's new from friends, consume interesting content, among many other things other than seeing products and buying them.
So be social! Build solid relationships with followers. Earn their trust by posting posts that amuse, educate, or add any other kind of interesting value.
4. Look for partnerships with digital influencers
One of the steps in building relationships has to do with digital influencers. If you are a frequent user of social networks, you must have already noticed the enormous influence that some personalities have on their followers.
Perhaps the best examples are YouTubers, bloggers and celebrities who occasionally recommend products on Instagram or personal pages.
Therefore, it is highly recommended to build partnerships with these influencers . Of course, there needs to be well-defined criteria to select these personalities (such as the alignment between their image and the promoted product) and, of course, establish a commercial contract with them.
An indication of a profile with thousands or millions of engaged followers can bring very interesting results to your store .
5. Enjoy the most talked about topics
One of the main characteristics of social networks is to reflect the most talked about topics at the moment. It can be a big event, the launch of a popular movie/series, a bombshell, in short, something that is of common interest to most users.
But what to do with it? Be opportunistic ! Take advantage of the buzz of these subjects and create themed content or offers.
Note that we took advantage of the anticipation and movement on social media for the launch of the 5th season of House of Cards. With that, we created a thematic content talking about our acting universe.
You can do the same too! Try to create a connection between a popular theme and something related to the store's universe. This will be great for the engagement of your pages.
6. Invest in ad platforms
With the organic reach of Facebook, which is the main social network, falling every year, ad spend has turned into a more viable alternative.
In fact, with the amount of features that its platform offers, this strategy becomes even more interesting.
In addition to the precise segmentation that we have already mentioned, we must highlight important aspects, such as:
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