Nowadays, social media marketing is considered one of the most effective promotional methods. Not only social marketing is trending in the market. But also, it ensures the quickest results for businesses. There are various reasons behind the success of social media marketing. Although if you are doing social media marketing for your eCommerce business. You may have to pay some amount to the respective platform. Yet, spending on social media marketing entirely justifies the expenses because of the assured success rate.
Thus, following the same, in this article, we are going to spread some light on why social media marketing is crucial for online businesses.
What is Social Media Marketing?
In simple words, social media marketing is a modern marketing method in which a brand/user uses social media platforms to promote their eCommerce business. For example, some of the best social media platforms to promote a business are. Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, etc.
Social media marketing ensures promising benefits by getting a business noticed in front of a vast customer audience.
Why it is So Important?
1. Tons of Users:
One of the most sounding reasons for using social media marketing for a brand’s promotion is that. There are tons of social platform users available worldwide. Moreover, social platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram, and WhatsApp are some of the online places where modern users love to spend their quality time.
As an online business owner, it is advantageous for you to get a chance to represent your brand in front of a vast audience. Thus, the first reason for choosing social media marketing for promoting an online business is that. Social platforms have millions of users waiting for their favorite content. The same creates a huge opportunity for small business to show off their inventory.
2. Customer Loyalty:
The other major advantage of social media marketing is that it helps a brand to gain brand loyalty from customers. How? If you are posting your marketing content online, then there are huge chances that customers will have queries regarding the same.
Now, the other benefits of social platforms are that anyone can raise a query to a respective page/account. Thus, while promoting your business online on social media platforms, you can directly keep in touch with your customers can ensure their peace of mind against all sorts of concerns/queries.
In the following way, it is much easier for a brand to gain customer loyalty using social media marketing for promoting their business.
3. Empowers Organic Traffic:
Building an enchanting business page on social media platforms impacts the organic customer traffic for a website. In case you are providing valuable and eye-catching content on your Instagram page, there is a huge chance that users might like your content and further would love to visit your website.
In the following way, social media platforms are securing huge opportunities for online business to enhance their customer traffic by just following a few simple steps.
4. Cost-Effective Marketing Method:
Well, it might sound a bit awkward. Yet, SMM (Social media marketing) is one of the most cost-effective promotional methods available in the market. On top of that, SMM ensures the lowest customer acquisition cost for online businesses. For those, who are unaware, CAQ (Customer Acquisition Cost) entirely defines the effectiveness of a marketing method.
Amongst all the others, Social Media Marketing is one of the most effective marketing strategies that are playing important role in the growth of eCommerce businesses. Following the same, SMM is becoming the favorite all-time marketing method for the eCommerce community. Moreover, if you are using SEO and SMM together, you can easily get the eyes of your desired customer base. You can also check out our other recent content about how SEO is empowering online businesses.
Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing are two different aspects of marketing. Although both have their own characteristics and workflow. Yet, in the end, the goal is to define the traffic on a website. Both social media marketing and SEO are some of the most effective marketing ways that bring traffic to a website.
Even though Social Media Marketing for eCommerce and SEO is entirely different. Yet, Google’s updated SEO algorithms consider the social media presence of a brand while considering SEO rankings.
Difference Between SEO and SMM:
Social Media Marketing is a marketing strategy to promote a brand on social media platforms. For example, SMM teams work on different strategies to improve brand awareness on social platforms. Such as Instagram, Facebook, etc.
On the other hand, Search Engine Optimization is the most effective way of driving organic traffic toward a website. It includes content posting, link building, loading speed optimization, and Google’s search page update aspects.
How Social Media Optimization Impacts SEO!!
According to Google’s recent announcements, links are generated from social media platforms. As Facebook and Twitter impact Search Engine Optimization directly. For example, if you are posting relevant content on your brand’s social media pages. The chances for increased click rate and social sharing are high.
As a result, you will be ending up getting noticeable customer traffic toward your website.
Apart from it, various indirect Social Media Marketing factors impact SEO and the overall traffic of a website. Instance, social media platforms track the analytics data such as click rate, bounce rate, viewing depth, and total time spent by a user on a website. So, let’s discuss some of the indirect Social Media Optimization strategies that add significant value to Search Engine Optimization.
Boost Your Content Performance:
Just content creation is just not enough for a website’s growth. However, if you are just adding content on a website, and not showing the same on social media platforms.
On top of that, social platforms such as Instagram have a huge audience that is going to notice your posted content.
Thus, providing content updates to your social family can grow the organic traffic of your website. In the following method, social media marketing is going to impact your SEO indirectly.
More Backlinks:
Backlinks are the most important aspect of Search Engine Optimization. Well, the question is how it is redirected to social media marketing.
Thus, here is how. Posting your content and other updates on social platforms are going to bring traffic to your website. In case you are deploying valuable content on social platforms, then the chances are higher that you will get to your targeted audience easily. On the other hand, if you are keeping your SEO content to your website only, then it is not going to be helpful for SMM. Thus, adding regular updates on social media is one of the easiest ways to keep your customer base informed about your business activities.
Customer Trust Factor:
Having a healthy brand image on social platforms improves customer trust in a brand. How?
Consider a user hovering on the internet and somehow landing on your Prestashop website in the search of his favorite products. Now, he is a first-time visitor and does not know much about your brand. In the following case, the first thing he is going to do is check the Instagram and Facebook accounts of the website.
Furthermore, if your marketing team has done enough work for enhancing your social media presence then it is well and good. However, if you are not able to maintain a sounding social profile for your business then there are huge chances of bounce rate.
Looking for Selling on Facebook from Your PrestaShop Store?
Are you a Prestashop eCommerce shop vendor and looking to sell your products on Facebook? You can check out Knowband’s Prestashop Facebook Store Addon.
Moreover, with the help of the FB Store module, you can integrate your Facebook fan page with your Prestashop eCommerce store. On top of that, you can keep the track of other relevant information such as traffic tracking via Google Analytics, managing the UI of your Facebook store, and much more within clicks.
You can also drop us a mail at support@knowband.com for more information and other eCommerce-related queries.
In the early days, social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, etc. were known for entertainment purposes. As time changed, these platforms changed the algorithms of usage. Later some businesses started promoting their brands on social platforms. And even a bit later Facebook itself came up with a creative idea of Paid Facebook Ads. Following the same, nowadays platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook are considered some of the best ways to promote offline or online businesses. Some even consider social platforms as the future of marketing.
Moreover, if you are an online business, you will find no other place to promote your business than Instagram. Thus, social media marketing is not only one of the most sounding marketing methods but provides incredible results for businesses.
In the following article, we are going to discuss the importance of social media marketing for the eCommerce business industry.
Influencer Marketing:
If you try to put all the trendiest social media marketing ways, Influencer marketing is the winner with a huge margin. In the following methods, brands and online businesses take aid from socially active influencers. Whether marketing via old methods remains limited in a region. On the other hand, influencer marketing goes abroad as socially active personalities have an impact on a large audience.
Thus, if you are looking to give your business a buzz with influencer marketing you can find your fit business affiliates.
Social Media Groups:
Groups are where people share their lifestyles and thoughts. Even in your daily life, you will find yourself engaged with social media groups on various platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, etc. Various people join social media groups and share their interests and other content. Taking advantage of the same, online businesses have found a way to promote their PrestaShop online business. Joining as an individual business account they offer various offers like giveaways, discounts, and affiliate and referral programs to engage their customers.
Thus, if you are looking for a sound and less expensive marketing method, social media groups are the perfect place to advertise your business.
AI-based Chatbots:
Chatbots are the modern way to save the day and additional time for queries. While in the past, there was a huge number of employees required for answering queries. In the modern era, chatbots are changing the games for eCommerce websites.
For example, Facebook messenger allows business accounts to add automated chatbots to their message box. Not only AI-based chatbots are a great way to provide customer support. But also, offers an easier way to the customers for communicating with businesses and getting their queries resolved. For the same reason, you can also take assistance from AI-Based chatbots for promoting -based chatbots for promoting your business with the help of social media marketing.
Instagram’s View Product Feature:
If you have gone through the major Brands’ Instagram pages. You might find an option to view products on the posts themselves.
This is one of the beloved marketing features introduced by Instagram for online businesses. In the following option, you can add all the product-related information such as pricing, description, Website link, etc. Although this social media marketing method is going to cost you a bit more. Yet, it ensures trusted customer traffic on the websites.
Tips to Grow Your Online Business!
Sell Everywhere:
The technical term for “sell everywhere” is multi-channel selling. In the following technique, online businesses present their same inventory in various places at the same time. For example, consider an OpenCart business selling their products on eBay using OpenCart eBay Marketplace Connector.
With the help of multi-channel selling, online stores can not only grab brand awareness but also can provide a boost to their sales by getting orders from various platforms.
Go Mobile
Android and iOS Mobile Apps are the signature of success for a business. Having Mobile App not only puts you one step ahead of the market competition but also adds a selling channel to your online business.
But before building an eCommerce Mobile App, you should consider your business need along with your market need to plan accordingly with the project. For example, these are some basic factors that decide how many days your Android and iOS App Development is going to take. On the other hand, if you looking for white-labeled Android and iOS Apps. you can check out the Knowband Mobile App Builder available for PrestaShop, OpenCart, Magento 2, and WooCommerce eCommerce platforms.
In the End,
Being an eCommerce business owner is not easy. Various factors in the market challenge businesses on a daily basis. Thus, keeping up with the challenges requires additional efforts from the business ends. Moreover, it is also important to make the right spending on business promotions such as social media marketing and multi-channel selling. In case, you are having queries feel free to drop us a mail at support@knowband.com.
If you run an eCommerce business, you would probably know how much importance social media holds these days for brand promotion. From boosting brand awareness to grabbing more conversions, social media has shown huge potential and played a crucial part in the eCommerce growth in recent years.
The reality is, businesses do understand its value but not everyone is able to capitalize on social media platforms. Social media is not just about random posting and advertising on Ad-hoc basis.
Some brands mark their presence on social media just because they feel it is a necessity or a trend that should be followed. Or maybe because their competitors have also set foot on some platforms.
Let me be very clear. If you are following the same approach, you are not going to get any benefit through it. Moreover, there is no point continuing with your social media pages if you do not have a plan and time to implement your social media marketing strategies.
Except that you use social media just to post random stuff about your brand or company’s inside stories, it would be better if you utilize that time at somewhere important. Do not start just for the sake of your brand presence.
In this article, I will be discussing some social media marketing strategies along with some useful social media practices to enhance your eCommerce business and take it to the next level.
Social Media Marketing Strategies
1. Set Your Goals
The primary social media marketing strategy would be deciding beforehand what you would like to achieve through social media. Whether your motive is to drive more inbound traffic to your website, increase followers count, generate leads or get sales, the plan to achieve the ultimate result should be clear from the very beginning.
Prepare a roadmap. Get a blueprint and start working accordingly. Moreover, focus only on those platforms which you feel are relevant to your business. There is no point in wasting time on Twitter if your target audience is on Facebook.
So put your time and effort on channels from where you can get desirable results. Do not focus on succeeding on every social platform.
2. Analyze Your Audience
Adding to the social media marketing strategies is analyzing your audience. Social media is spread across countries, and people of every age group spend time on social media. But is every age group relevant to your business?
As of now, Facebook has nearly 2.4 billion monthly users followed by Instagram with more than 1 billion monthly users. With such a vast user base, it becomes important to narrow down the demographics to reach the relevant target audience. If the majority of your business comes from people aged 20-35, targeting people over 50 would not make any sense.
For the informative purpose, Linkedin and Twitter can be beneficial, and if you are expecting higher engagement from the young community, there is no better option than Facebook and Instagram. It all depends on your niche and your audience base.
3. Create Quality Content
One of the common mistakes that businesses generally make is they focus only on promotion. Excessive promotion is a downside. It may take away the interest of your followers and you may lose out on potential customers.
Remember, social networks were not meant for selling but to connect with people. So, ensure you are providing quality content with a mixture of information and entertainment. Yes, promotion is necessary but do not sound like a salesman every time.
Brands who know how to keep the interest of their followers succeed in the social media platforms. Be witty, make attractive but useful posts, post videos. People react to what they like and what they find attractive which tends to bring more user engagement.
4. Have a Facebook Store and Instagram Shop
The Facebook business page consists of a “Shop Now” tab where brands can add their store products and promote them. Users can check out the products right from your brand page and are redirected to the website for buying purpose. The Facebook shop helps you drive more traffic to your website and generate more sales.
Similarly, you can consider the idea of Instagram shoppable posts that allow you to tag your products on the images, boosting product visibility. Consumers can now checkout directly from Instagram without getting redirected to the original website. But to have an Instagram Shop, you need to match the eligibility criteria defined by the Instagram community.
Facebook and Instagram Shop play crucial roles in your social media marketing strategy.
One of the basic social media best practices is to remain active. Post content at regular intervals, at least 1 piece of content daily or on alternate days.
Do not keep too much gap between your posts. It results in losing out followers and affects your brand image. When there is a long gap between posts, followers feel that you are not active and that there’s no point following you.
And it can cost you new followers too. If someone visits your brand page and finds out that you have been highly inactive, they would hardly be interested in following you.
You may or may not find it true but people stop engaging in posts when the posting frequency is too less.
2. Use Appealing Visuals for your Posts
I would not even bother to pay a look at a post that contains untidy visuals, let alone engaging with it. But if I find a post having great visuals, I would surely stop for a moment while scrolling through my feed. This is why visuals make one of the most important social media best practices. They tend to grab user attention.
Use high-quality pictures and colours that are pleasing to the eyes. Avoid writing too much text on pictures and make sure you are using the appropriate image size. Different social media platforms have different image sizes set for proper display.
3. Use Hashtags
The game of hashtags is very interesting and popular on social media. Hashtags are generally user-generated tagging which makes it possible for users to find posts or messages regarding a specific theme, content or news. It gives you a wide organic reach and increases viewership.
Hashtags play a crucial role in social media sites like Twitter and Instagram. When people use a particular hashtag for search, all the relevant content associated with that hashtag appears in front of the user. This makes it easy for people to filter out what exactly they want to look for.
Hashtags are an ACE for user-generated content campaigns.
4. Engage with your Audience
Social media is all about interacting with each other. People don’t use social media to just read or watch. Interaction is important. Successful businesses care a lot about their audience and they like interacting with their followers.
Ask questions, organize quizzes, participate in discussions, reply to users’ queries in comments. Join people in their conversations and show them your human side instead of sending automated answers.
Try to come up live on Facebook and Instagram, look for their questions and answer them at that very moment.
5. Find the Right Time to Post
Post at the right time is crucial to get a higher reach. The right time, here, means the time when a majority of your followers are active on social media. The reach of your posts would be very less if they aren’t posted at an appropriate time.
So, what’s the ideal time to post? You can find the best time to post on different social media platforms on CoSchedule Blog. You should also use social media tools like Buffer and Hootsuite for post scheduling.
6. Boost Posts That Are Performing Well
You want more and more people to see your content, right? Social media ads would help you do so. You may argue that spending money on boosting posts would be a waste of money until you are expecting an ROI from it but sometimes, reach is more important than the results.
I am not suggesting spending huge bucks, a little amount that too on well-performing posts would do great.
Final word
Utilizing social media platforms can be a big boost for your online business. All you need to do is follow the right approach and implement the right tactics. This will help you drive more traffic and conversions and increased brand awareness.
Hope you enjoyed reading the social media marketing strategies and best practices. If you found this information useful and have any point to add, let me know in the comments below.
Be it an eCommerce website or a brand, catching up with the competition is becoming exceedingly difficult. As per studies, the attention span of the online shoppers has decreased to 8 seconds. Thus, grabbing the attention of the target audience base in this short span is definitely not a cake-walk. While the attention span of the internet users is decreasing on the shopping site, their surfing duration is increasing on the social networking site. This is the reason why social media marketing is becoming an important aspect of digital marketing. Companies and brands are trying to find out more ways to connect with their prospective customers across the various social media platforms.
Over 91% marketers claimed that by spending only a few hours per week, social marketing greatly impacted their brand visibility. So, how do you decide the platform when it comes to social media marketing? Well, you see the number of users of the social media platform and then you choose the one that has the maximum users.
Is that enough?
Not really!
The process isn’t as simple as it seems!
Making wild guesses about the preference of the customers might end you up in a pitfall, resulting in missed opportunities. Thus, instead of going by the conventions, go for smart research. Now, the question arises, how to do that.
How can you find out the social media platforms that are popular among your prospective customers?
Here are some of the ways to get an insight of the customer’s behavior.
Ask them
The best way to find out where your target audience hangs out is to ask them. Create a questionnaire and ask your customers base to fill out the form. Asking them to fill up the form via email is the simplest way to connect with them. Try and reach out to the active members of your community. Ask them about their preference when it comes to connecting with the family and friends online. Additionally, you can even setup a survey and gather the relevant data. The survey should be based on the answer you are looking for. Do not annoy the users with unnecessary questions. Keep it to-the-point and as precise as possible.
Email tracking
If you are doing email marketing for your site, then, adding links of the social outposts in your emails is recommended. Offering an option to the email recipients for sharing the content on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and elsewhere will even boost your engagement on these platforms. Moreover, you can easily track the user behavior and see if your target audience shared the content on Facebook, Twitter or any other given option.
Social media stalking
Twitter, Facebook and other such social media sites offer you an option to see whether the Gmail ID has been used to create the social media accounts or not. You can use this integration for your business.
Follow the steps mentioned below:
Export the list of your customers’ email addresses
Create a new account on gmail.com.
Upload the .csv file containing your customers’ details to your Gmail account.
Now, create a Twitter and Facebook account with this Gmail ID. Go to “Find Your Friends” of the Twitter sign-up process, select Gmail.
Twitter automatically reads all of the email addresses of your customers stored in Gmail. This allows you to track them on Twitter.
Similarly, for Facebook go to “Find Friends” of the Facebook sign-up process and specify that you have a Gmail account.
That’s it! Your customers will be presented to you and you can start following your target audience.
Analyze your competitors
Another method to find your audience base is to do a little competitor analysis. You are more likely to find your customer base on the platforms where your sites similar to yours are. List out 5 to 10 sites that are serving the same demographics that you are trying to reach. Do a quick online search and check their referral sites.Doing the market survey and analysing the result efficiently, takes already miles ahead of other companies in your field. However, there are dozens of social media platforms where you can promote your brand/company. In order to help you prioritize the various platforms, we’ve broken down the statistical figures of some of the most popular social media platforms where you are more likely to find your target audiences. Read on to know.
Facebook
The social networking sites have been coming in and going out, ever since the prominence of internet connectivity has increased. However, Facebook is one platform that has shown exponential growth over the years despite the ups and downs. As of the second quarter of 2018, Facebook had 2.23 billion monthly active users. 50% of 18-24 year-olds go on Facebook when they wake up. Hence, Facebook should and more likely will make up a marginal part of your marketing strategies, regardless of your business model, goals, website traffic and the demographics that you are targeting. In addition to this, the connectivity statistics of Facebook is absolutely enticing for the budding social media marketers.
1. Facebook users consider, on average, 28% of their Facebook friends to be genuine or close friends, which is definitely not a bad number when it comes to spreading the word-of-mouth.
2. 83% of parents with a teen between the ages of 13 and 17 are friends with their child on Facebook.
3. 39% of users say they are connected to people on FB they have never met in person.
For targeting men and women within an age bracket of 25-54, Facebook is inevitable. Facebook is perfect for the companies that target a slightly older market since 44% of users check Facebook several times per day.
YouTube
Till date, YouTube is the only social media platform that gives FB a run for it’s market reach. The broad demographics that it caters is definitely a topping over the cake. 62% of YouTube users are Males. 35+ and 55+ age groups are the fastest growing YouTube demographics. Despite, these exceptionally attractive statistical figures, only 9% of small businesses are on YouTube. Thus, there is for sure room and opportunities for more. Millennials prefer YouTube two to one over traditional television and 37% of the coveted 18 – 34 demographic are binge-watching. So, right from the teenagers and millennials to the adults, if you are searching for your customer base, then, this is one-stop-destination for you.
Twitter
Twitter, to this date, remains the best platform for most B2B businesses model. Despite the character limit, the social networking site can help you reach out to comparatively larger demographics if you are industries like News and Information, eCommerce, Health and Wellness, Travel and Hospitality, Telecom, Finance, Sports and others. Here are some of the stats that will lay some light on the potential that this platform has.
36% of Twitter users are aged under 18 – 29.
23% of them are aged 30 – 49 years.
In addition to this, 21% of people aged 50 – 64 year-olds use Twitter.
It is quite evident that if you are trying to reach out to the customer base that comes under a bigger age bracket, then, this is your destination. Moreover, the ratio of men and women using Twitter is approximately the same.
With over 500 million users and 59% of the users checking the app every single day, Instagram has great reach. It is particularly an ideal for the companies dealing in Fashion and Lifestyle. Instagram’s most popular demographics include the following:
Women users make up to 38% of total Insta users.
59% of the users are under the age bracket of 18-29 years.
The urban-located users are 39%.
Pinterest
Social sharing sites like Pinetest are popular among women. In a survey, a substantial 42% of women said that they use Pinterest. On the contrary, the social networking site is popular among only 16% of men. The companies that find their customer base amongst the moms will be interested to know that Pinterest attracts more mature audience than the other social media platforms. Moreover, 60% of the users have children aged 5 years and under.
The increasing popularity of the social media platforms among the online shoppers have make it one of the most inevitable part of marketing. If we take a look at the statistics, you’ll find that there have an abrupt rise in the total number of users on the social media. Therefore, it is one of the best platforms for the eCommerce stores to promote their product. These platform provides better opportunities to the seller in term of the reaching out to greater number of customers and enhancing the store’s visibility. The foremost concept of marketing includes targeting the right audience and catering them with sufficient information about your products and product count. The Facebook wall posts that showcases your offerings and store information can helps in engaging more customers on the social media platform and at the same time making effective conversions.
1. Easier way to update FB wall
Knowband has come up with Shopify FB Wall Post module. The module enables all the Shopify site owners to connect to their customers on Facebook with attractive and informative wall posts. It is one of the better way to reach to the potential buyers and improve the chances of conversions. The wall post has a higher chances of reaching the required customers as it is easy to access and less time consuming. Keeping the customers informed about your store activity through Facebook is a better than motivating them to visit the store all the time.
2. Contest based marketing
According to a survey by bufferapp, “About 35% online users engage themselves in the product purchase when they get proper information about it”. Therefore web store owners may use this as an opportunity to boost their sales and increase the rate of conversions. If acted properly, it can help in the tremendous increase in the product sales. You can post your content on Facebook. The images and contents can intrigue the visitors to post their comments. Thus, you can increase the engagement even more. Hence, it won’t be wrong to state that this is a less time-consuming to indulge into content marketing.
3. Organize giveaways
Giveaways are one of the best approach to engage the customers. More customers are likely to register themselves to your web store for free giveaways. The seller can use this to promote his products in the future or inform the customer about the ongoing offers or current discounts.
4. Set up a FB Store
If you run an eCommerce store than setting a FB store might boost the sales up for you. Facebook is most popular social media platform. Thus, providing your customers to use your services without actually visiting the store will surely help you grow. Shopping through FB store is the new concept and your customers will surely love to use your FB store to avail your services. It saves them time and will make their experience better with you.
5. Keep the customers informed through FB page
The eCommerce store owners may use a FB page to promote their products. Just create a page and keep your customers updated about your products, deals and discounts offered by you. With the help of this page, you can allow your customers to learn more about your products. This feature helps in increasing the customer data and using it for future references. The customers will be happy to hear about your products, without having to spend their time.
6. Invite the feedback and reviews
One of the most important factor, which is often neglected by the eCommerce store owners. Try to be invite more reviews and feedback about your products and services. It helps you in getting a better understanding of the customer’s priorities and queries. At the same time, customers can easily connect with you. This process also promotes the idea of social sharing and enhances the rate of sales up to a great extent by spreading word-of-mouth.
