Social media tactics for e-commerce

According to a Tracx Report published in January 2017, more than 2.8 million users are actively using social media across the world. An average person spends an hour and 40 minutes browsing social media every day, and by the end of this year, US will have reach 217 million internet shoppers. A recent HubSpot report shows that over 53% of marketers consider blog content creation as their top inbound marketing priority and 61% of marketers feel improving SEO and growing their organic presence as top inbound marketing priority.

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These growing numbers show how inextricably social media marketing and e-commerce are related. Today’s buyers share an advertisement video on a social media site or channel, to check its acceptance among people. The click through rates, number of likes received, views and shares of the video content help advertiser’s anticipate product marketing. Accordingly, they can decide to continue with, or do away with the social media strategy made use of. Sometimes, a continuity campaign is also planned, depending upon the performance of the first video advertisement on YouTube or Facebook. According to a WordStream report published in 2016, around 64.6% of people click on Google ads when they intend to buy or shop online.

In order to use social media to your advantage, you need to follow a few simple, but wise tactics. It is because your product cannot just stand there in the crowd, it has to stand out. You need to plan and strategize your social media content and channel in such a way that your product can speak for itself and spreads by word of mouth. Here we discuss a few simple social media tactics for promoting your product or services through e-commerce portals.

• Reaching the Right Content to the Right People:

Once you have identified your target segment and decided upon which social media to bank upon, work upon the content. The content should be simple, straight-forward, and crisp. It should not scream like a sales pitch. Make use of customer success stories, news, helpful tips, and user experiences that can be shared. The content that is marketed across social media network should be social, interactive, and contextual that informs and educates your customers. For example, if you are selling bright color lipsticks, make sure you have a good video on tips for applying lipsticks, with a touch of innovation. The target customers will notice, play it twice or thrice, most likely share it with their peers, and also buy the product online.

• Strategic Social Media Linking:

You need to position the social media buttons and widgets intelligently, so as to influence customer mind at major points in the buying process. For example, sharing widgets like Facebook’s “Like” button to all of your product pages will attract customers who are further along in the buying cycle. Also, enabling sharing buttons in prominent areas, such as product review section or where customers share their views with their Twitter followers or Facebook friends is a good idea. More than 88% users trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. You may also let them to share a sales offer or even a sales confirmation email.

• More Interaction for More Conversion:

Enhanced user interaction accounts for the success of social media marketing for product promotion. You need to speak to your customers, through your product, interact with them, daily, like you go out for a coffee with your buddy. This may be done through regular posts and engaging with them questions, interesting quizzes, responding to their comments, and of course, thanking them for sharing your content. Regular interaction with customers and knowing their social and emotional needs, goes a long way in building trust and shortening the sales cycle.

Another way is to create niche groups or pages in Facebook or LinkedIn where like-minded users share, or repost articles, videos, photos, and other interesting content, allowing you to build strong rapport with your customers. Regular interaction also gives you additional opportunities like suggesting or recommending product or services that might be of use to them.

• Happy Hash Tagging:

Hash tag is the new kid on the block. Use of popular hash tags in your blog post or promotion help in organizing content, expanding the reach of posts, and promotes interaction among the users. With smart hash tagging you not reach your target segment, but also make way for cross-selling and higher visibility across all channels. This is important, because your product does not die, once it is sold; it continues to live, by word of mouth and by the recommendation of loyal customers. However, be careful. Do not use too many hash tags in a single social media update. Use only one or two well thought and well-researched hash tags for best results.

• Enhance In-app Purchase:

Interactive content that educates the user on a product should also be able to re-direct to an online store link where it can be bought. People who spend a good amount of time online, tend to compare products, before arrive at a conclusion. If your e-commerce site has an in-built app for purchases, they will come across “want to buy” or “want this?” every time a video ends, taking them to the product page directly. Decisions are made faster, and so leads converted in lesser time. Apple Pay and Samsung Pay are successful examples.

Social media strategies, in its diverse forms, should be carefully chosen and made use of for product promotion. Effective planning and strategy goes a long way in creating brand awareness, driving more traffic and conversions, increase customer engagement and loyalty. Know your customers, before you reach out to them.

In February-March 2016, Parachute Advansed, the hair oil brand released 3-minute ad film called #KhulKeKheloHoli, encouraging people to play with colors, without any inhibition. The film which was set in an old age home was received accolades. This was followed up by a Dubsmash contest inviting users to share their Holi song videos, and a blog contest to share stories of their childhood memories with the festival of Holi.

Amazon India’s The Great Indian Freedom Sale in 2016, is a classic example of successful digital campaign. It rolled out a series of fan engagement activities and contests that gave away shopping vouchers. The #10KeBaadKarenge contest set the ball rolling where people were asked what plans they were going to push till after 10th August for the Amazon sale. A continuity campaign was planned with #10KeBaadReactions where funny video reactions were sent out through influencers.