5 Fab Social Media Tips to Improve Your Ecommerce Sales

Let’s start this with a fact: social media should be a part of every ecommerce business’ marketing strategy (yes, this is a fact). If 84% of online shoppers review at least one social media site before making a purchase, and 2.34 billion people worldwide, nearly one-third of the world, regularly used social media in 2016, you have to start leveraging social media and transform followers into customers.

Here are 5 fabulous social media tips that will help you do just that:

1: Start Blogging

Blogging? How can blogging improve my ecommerce sales? Rewind, the real question should actually be, ‘how can blogging not improve my ecommerce sales?’ As Andy Crestodina, co-founder of Orbit Media, suggests:

“Create valuable non-promotional evergreen content that is relevant to the products you are selling and share these articles on an ongoing basis to your social following. For example, if you were selling Ladies fashion you could share articles on the top 10 fashion accessories of 2016. This is content you can continuously share. On this article, you can link off to your products and you can also build a retargeted list to follow up these visitors with ads.”

A steady stream of blog content shared via social media not only showcases a company’s knowledge, but also leads to higher engagement, and with quality backlinks, greatly improves your site’s SEO. Aumcore, an NYC based digital marketing agency, further suggests:

“Write compelling stories and articles that help, inform, and entertain your target audience.” Otherwise you risk sounding too promotional and ad-like (and let’s be honest, no one likes ads).

In other words, start a blog, write informative and entertaining content that your target audience will like, include quality (organic) backlinks to your site, watch your engagement rise, and finally, enjoy the benefit of improved sales.

2: Use Influencer Marketing

Let’s start this one off with what an influencer is. According to research, “They are people who are followed by many because people enjoy what they do whether it be singing, creating or simply being famous. They place a lot of trust in that person, and may even take their opinion over someone that they personally know.”

Influencers and social media go hand-in-hand like peanut butter and jelly. What does Kim Kardashian do when she has a product to promote? Tweet about it. It’s all about what the ‘it’ person likes. What he/she likes, others will like as well.

3: Leverage the Power of Hashtags

Hashtags help your products/content get discovered. With them, your products can be seen by an audience much larger than the one you have, and better yet, they’ll be your target audience since they’re already using hashtags to search for similar products.

Also make sure to check out your competition and what hashtags they’re using, but above all, DO NOT overload and spam users with too many. If this sounds like a strategy you like, read over this post to learn how to #hashtag effectively for ecommerce sales.

4: Integrate Your Store and Sell Through Social Media Platforms

You can’t write about improving ecommerce sales with social media and not include this tip. A lot of ecommerce platforms like Shopify, Volusion and Squarespace allow users to integrate their store with social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest, and sell directly from there.

Think of this like cutting out the middleman. Before, your customers would come across your brand on a social media site, fall in love with your product, and then head over to your site to make the purchase. Now, they see, they buy, they rejoice (you can rejoice too).

5: Try Your Hand in Paid Social Media Advertising

When in doubt with your current strategy, listen to what Kim Cooper, B2B SaaS Marketer at Fully Marketed, has to say:

“Paid is a four letter word to some marketers, but I like to put a little paid oomph behind my content promotion. I’m not asking anyone to buy anything. I’m simply trying to reach my target audience. The cool thing is you don’t have to spend much if you keep your targeting very focused.”

Bear with me if this is confusing, but advertising doesn’t have to include ads. Like Kim said, what you’re trying with paid ads is to reach your audience; in essence, to be a blip on their radar. You want them to know who you are and what you do. You are trying to make a sale, but being too promotional is a detriment to your efforts. Instead, use ads to start a conversation with them and go from there.

Wrapping Up

Can you feel your wallet get heavier? Actually, we’re in the digital age. Can you see those zeros and commas in your bank account? If so, good. If not, here are the 5 tips again and hopefully this time you’ll feel it:

1. Start blogging to increase your engagement and improve SEO
2. Leverage the power of hashtags to expand your reach and audience
3. Use influencer marketing and become an authority in your industry
4. Integrate your store and sell through social media platforms
5. Try your hand in paid social media advertising to start the conversation with your audience

Best of luck!