Have you noticed how online shopping has rapidly changed?
People are more into online shopping nowadays. More and more internet users search for a brand and can easily purchase a product.
That is why social media for business is not an option anymore. But, it’s a necessity to generate online sales, grow your brand and increase sales.
And the reason you are here is that you aren’t taking advantage of social media within your marketing strategy yet. Am I right?
In that case, you’re missing out on a significant growth opportunity for your business!
This article will go over five reasons why social media is important for your e-commerce business this 2021, and I will discuss some ways you can use social media to effectively market your eCommerce store.
But first, let me explain to you what social media eCommerce marketing is.
What is social media marketing?
Social media marketing is the practice of using social media platforms to market your business to build brand awareness, generate online sales, and communicate with customers.
Social media can be a powerful tool for driving traffic to your online store. According to Business Insider, social commerce was one of the most significant new waves of 2019.
This is because platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and TikTok allow brands to tag products on pages, posts, and even stories. What is more interesting is that consumers can now buy products directly from their social media feeds.
And that convenience has led to enormous growth in the ecommerce industry – especially during this pandemic while half of the world is still on lock-down.
So, if you think that you are now ready to step up and start creating your first social media strategy, let’s jump into five reasons why social media is essential in your ecommerce business…
5 Reasons Why is Social Media Important for Your eCommerce Business
Both social media and online shopping have become an essential part of our lives.
There are several reasons why you should include social platforms in marketing your online store. The best thing about it is that you don’t have to take too much time or resources to get it done!
But, here are the five reasons social media is essential to your ecommerce business.
1. It creates brand awareness
You can’t shout and yell till everyone gets your message. That’s frustrating…
But you can start building brand awareness by using social media platforms and showing the world that your business exists.
First and foremost, your customer checks on your online presence and how active you are on social platforms.
They check the last time you posted or shared content. Your potential customers read your reviews or testimonials shared on social platforms.
2. Drive Visitors To Your Website
One of the most important reasons you should use social media for your ecommerce business is engagement and reach. These two are very connected to each other when it comes to their benefits.
So basically, your primary purpose on social media is to send more traffic to your site. You can drive visitors to your website whenever you share your content on your social media page.
Your participation is a powerful branding opportunity. But, first, you have to show your followers that you are still active and breathing by giving feed updates regularly.
To help you drive traffic to your website, you have to be consistent in posting your content and insert the link of your website with the main keywords.
3. Community Building
One of the most significant factors for any online business is reaching and selling to its target audience.
So, once you have a solid following, you can then make your brand community, and it’ll be continuously growing and accessible.
4. Trust building
This is the best thing about social media. You can build trust and loyalty with your customers.
Engagement is the key to building and maintaining an excellent relationship to deepen trust and loyalty with your customers.
Social media helps you build a good relationship with your customers; that factor alone can change your audience’s purchasing behaviour.
Happy and satisfied customers are more likely to become your regular clients or returning customers.
5. Boost SEO
SEO is not just about your website and blogs. Social media plays a vital role in SEO. Social media is a fantastic way to drive traffic through social media engagement.
Social media engagements such as comments, likes, or shares can help you reach a larger audience, eventually influencing your search engine rankings.
Google ranks all content you post on your social media channel. They determine whether you are a trustworthy source or not on the internet.
How to use Social Media for Ecommerce
A social media ecommerce strategy can help you build brand awareness, connect with your customers, and generate new leads for your online store.
So here are the ways to use Social Media for your eCommerce business to make the best of all the benefits you can get from social media marketing.
1. Establish Goals
The first thing you have to determine is your goal. What do you want to achieve? It is essential to know the point of engaging and creating content with followers.
There should be specific parameters for success to help you understand whether your marketing efforts are working or just wasting your time and resources.
Therefore, you should consider establishing benchmarks based on the number of traffic to be generated, follower counts, engagement rates, and conversions.
2. Optimize Posts
Optimizing posts can potentially earn more exposure, especially to new audiences. For example, by adding relevant keywords and hashtags in your social media content, brands can grow their visibility to users searching for information on a particular topic.
Therefore, as a part of your social media marketing strategy, keyword and hashtag research is essential. You should add some time to conduct keyword & hashtag research for your posts to help new users uncover the content.
Moreover, adding images and videos can be a powerful optimization tactic that you can also consider doing.
3. Showcase Social Proof
Like I mentioned a while ago, your new customers read and review your feedback post. Therefore, social proof is vital for earning sales online.
Create content showing how other customers love your products or services.
You are likely to increase sales with this approach, as 82% of consumers say that user-generated content is significant when considering buying an item.
4. Share Visuals
80% of marketers use visuals in their social media marketing. While 85% of millennials buy a product after watching videos about it.
Therefore, visuals in social media are a must. Visual content is the most effective for driving sales. On that note, images, videos, and blogs are still an essential part of the mix. You can create engaging visuals and share some great videos that can inspire and sell simultaneously.
But remember, each platform is different; it requires a suitable strategy per social media platform.
5. Be Consistent
In the digital age, people are very attentive to details, and they know if you are active or not. So if you don’t post on your social channels consistently, your followers will forget about you.
To generate traffic and sales, you need to achieve reach and engagement. Therefore, it is vital to post regularly.
The simplest way to do this is to create a social content calendar.
And remember, the best way to keep your readers or audience engaged with your content is to keep your message short and straight. This is why images and videos are such powerful tools on social media. Let your visuals do the talking.
Final Thoughts on The Importance of Social Media in E-Commerce 2021
Social media marketing has demonstrated its importance. So, to benefit from this phenomenon, ecommerce business owners should embrace digital agility to help them succeed in extensive growth in their business.
Most consumers are actively using social media platforms. As a result, these sites have genuinely grown as shopping and brand hubs.
Utilize the importance of social media as a powerful tool to reach more potential buyers for your business and earn more awareness, traffic, and sales.
Remember to be consistent and use social platforms to engage with your customers.
Social media marketing isn’t a choice whether you’re going to use it or not. Instead, it’s an impulse for each brand to embrace its power.
