5 Tips For Growing Your eCommerce Business with Social Media

Social media and ecommerce are becoming increasingly intertwined in our personal and professional lives. Where they intersect is where your business flourishes. It’s important for your ecommerce strategy to be stressed on social media, since people spend over two hours daily browsing.

Instagram recently released an update allowing users to save products to a shoppable collection. With ecommerce-reliant events like Cyber Monday coming up, it’s essential to nail your strategy from the social perspective.

Here are some creative as well as strategic ways to do it:

1. Incorporate social listening to find conversations where your brand fits in

Use tools like Google alerts to monitor keywords related to your industry. The most important thing is paying attention to what your target audience is discussing with you online. Once you do that you’ll better understand your customer’s pain points. Already, 63 percent of consumers expect businesses to provide customer service via social media.

Once you start listening, here are some things you can do:

• Nurture sincere interactions with potential customers

• Find current happy or unhappy customers talking about your brand to jump in and help

• Get an idea of where your audience is online

• Identify influencers and brand ambassadors

Through engaging, you will cultivate a tight-knit community that is more likely to click on your site and convert. You will also be able to be more time and cost-effective through this practice rather than employing a call center.

2. Use automated chatbots to increase engagement

Automated chatbots will save both you and your customer time as well as effort. Your engagement rates will increase because chatbots can individually offer customers codes and also special deals. Chatbots don’t just have to be bland, monotone robots — you can customize them to your brand. Use different features, like quizzes, to also liven up the chatbot.

Here are some chatbot perks:

• Cost-friendly; no need for a customer service rep

• Saves time on frequently asked questions

• 24/7 access to customers and also works on their schedule

• Increase engagement as well as customer satisfaction

• Creates an efficient way of solving problems

3. Generate social proof through real customer reviews

Have you heard of FOMO? It stands for the Fear Of Missing Out. Human beings are wired to crave community. This is where social proof comes in. It can range from sharing either customer reviews, UGC or conversations about your product/service with your followers.

By showing potential customers how much your current customers are raving about your brand you’ll pique their curiosity. Your own customers are always your biggest cheerleaders that add credibility to your brand.

Receiving a review is an excellent way to create trust as well as increase sales. Incorporate apps into your ecommerce store to encourage customers to review you after they purchase.

Ensure that others can easily discover this social proof on your website or social media. Once people find that content, they’ll want to find out for themselves what you have to offer. Showing off your positive reviews and customer interactions will increase people’s FOMO and therefore, your traffic.

4. Incorporate the art of Instagram storytelling

Instead of just telling people about your discounts or new product, lead up to it with a series of stories. Always ask yourself, why should people care? Based on that, you can then craft a compelling series that speaks to your ideal customer’s pain points. By creating impactful stories that speak to your target audience, you’re integrating an emotional connection. That positions you as the bridge between point “A” and point “B.”

Storytelling will help your business’ ecommerce strategy for several reasons:

• Earn valuable, personal feedback from your customers

• Sharing stories will spur other people to share theirs

• Frame yourself as the answer to your audience’s problems

• Discover what they’re lacking and also what they need

• Conduct useful market research

Your business should already be implementing storytelling in your blog posts, podcasts and webinars — your social media content should be no different.

5. Don’t neglect the basics

Don’t forget to comb through the nitty-gritty details of your ecommerce strategy. The details and basics that are easy to overlook include:

• Links are where they need to be (in the bio, any CTA buttons, in posts, etc…)

• Have a clear CTA above your instagram bio link

• Connecting your shop to your social profiles if you have a physical product

• Sharing your offer on a consistent basis

Those are the fundamentals. If you don’t have a consistent strategy in place, all the extra stuff won’t serve to grow your business. Make sure your basics are taken care of, then get creative with it.

Into the Blue has all the resources you need to create a functional and effective ecommerce funnel. From growing your social media, developing a website and also creating engaging content, Into the Blue can make sure that your business is using all your resources to their fullest potential. Email [email protected] to start your project today.