E-commerce businesses are so focused on what they do that they forget the need to engage with their community through social. Especially in a time where organic reach is declining and competition is fierce, ignoring active behaviour on social media can be detrimental to sales.
1. Why does social media even matter?
As a business owner, it’s easy to be completely distracted by all the other responsibilities that are associated with e-commerce, such as sales, inventory, finances, orders, customer service, and the rest.
According to the Pew Research Center report on mobile and social media usage:
– 72% of online adults are Facebook users, amounting to 62% of all American adults.
– 31% of online adults use Pinterest (up from 15% in 2012), and 28% use Instagram (up from 13% in 2012).
– 59% of Instagram users are on the platform daily, including 35% who visit several times a day. This 59% figure reflects a 10-point increase from September 2014 when 49% of Instagram users reported visiting the site on a daily basis.
– 70% of Facebook users log on daily, including 43% who do so several times a day.
Social media will likely never go away, even if it fades a tiny bit. It is the era we live in, whether in a personal or business capacity. The more people gain access to internet and a smartphone, the more accounts are going to get opened. However, the networks are making advertising on their sites slightly more complicated, but that’s for another time.
Business owners are making a mistake by not investing on social media – missed opportunities with many potential customers, especially with a very good product or service.
2. Platform choosing
Being an e-commerce business owner means you may not be very familiar with using social media for business purposes. The problem that these businesses have is jump on every platform to try and develop a presence in. It is not necessarily a good idea!
Unless you have a team managing social media presence, being consistent alone, on all platforms, is going to be very difficult. Pick your networks wisely so that you save time and dedicate your effort for a couple of platforms only. Your customers will also only be using a couple of platforms, so make sure you post content where they can see it.
At the end of the day, you just want to make sure you reach current and potential customers, who will also play their part in helping your business grow.
3. Building the presence
Once you have started setting up your business accounts on social, you need to figure out how to build the presence – this is done through the content, both written and visual, as well as the brand voice. If you have a team managing the pages, make sure you have set policies on what you’d want, otherwise giving an individual too much power can take you in a direction different to the one you desire.
The first weeks of starting social media accounts will keep you busy, so get the most out of it while you’re building a community.
4. Content type
When a new business begins sharing content on social media, they need to be aware of what they are trying to achieve with each message. We have mentioned in previous blogs that making the content all about your products and services will push people away and not get you the clients you need.
The objective with social media is to bring value to the followers through education and entertainment. This does not mean you should not promote the business itself – it should be minimal. The content is meant to be more about the public than about you.
5. Community management
This is becoming the most important part of social media. The best thing any kind of business can do is engage with the public consistently. It shows a human side to the brand and people will appreciate it more. Magic won’t happen overnight, but as long as you are consistently good, your efforts will be rewarded eventually! Do not get discouraged.
6. Third-party tools
These help make social media management easier, but are not necessary. They are useful to track metrics for the website as well as social media insights, as well as scheduling posts in advance.
“If you want to stay in the game, you have to participate.
If you want to win the game, you have to dominate.”