5 Different Use Of Social Media For Business
Promoting yourself via social media, posting regularly, and investing in ads are key strategies for any eCommerce merchant. But what are the other advantages of maintaining a social media presence?
Here we look at a strategy involving one social media platform and how you can benefit from it in 5 different ways.
1. Social Media As A Marketing Tool
The content you post and the way you present your brand all work to convey what your business is about, your philosophy, and what your brand means both to you and to them. Your commercial presence on social media can help you manage your marketing, making it easy for you and natural for your visitors.
There are a few areas where marketing on social media works really effectively:
- Using advertising and targeting tools like the kind that Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter offer. According to your prospect’s characteristics you can boost your posts, promote your page and set many other conversion goals you want to achieve by reaching that specific demographic.
- Customer’s engagement growth. Create various contests and motivate users to spread the word about your products, or come up with profitable exchange ideas such as offering discount coupons and free delivery.
Remember to measure the performance of your activities afterward and see where your sales come from. Analytics tool such as MonkeyData can be helpful in this regard and let you know whether or not it’s worth it to be proactive with an audience that doesn’t respond to given campaigns or marketing strategies, and in the long run can save you money.
- Show up your company from behind the scenes. Connections are vital in the world of eCommerce, so don’t negate the ‘leg work’ of introducing yourself, your colleagues or your company to prospective clients and affiliates.
- Grow your customer and client base through networking. Social media such as Twitter or LinkedIn are best for gaining new contacts and raising your brand’s awareness within your industry. Get in touch with influencers and gurus and let them know about your business.
2. Social Media As Another Sales Channel
There were over 6 billion active users over the most popular social media in the beginning of 2017.
Free platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube help drive their traffic b allowing visitors to buy directly from their page via integrated “buy button, shop now button, buyable pins, etc”. For merchants, the same premise applies, and it’s easy to learn how to adapt a buy button in your page.
What’s more, selling directly through social media also helps your SEO! Sharing links on highly ranked sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest can boost the search rating of an individual eCommerce site.
3. Social Media As A Reference Channel
Are you aware of your store’s online reputation? Chances are you might have an inkling, but often our reputation is out of your hands — but that doesn’t mean you can’t do things to improve it. First of all, it’s a good idea to get control by using tools such as Mention or Brand Embassy that report your references from social media.
It’s also important to thank customers who were happy and work to transparently solve complaints if they come up. Don’t forget the motto “the customer is always right”: never delete or censor negative reviews, but do your best to address their concerns.
“More than 80% of buyers use social media reviews to make a purchase decision.”
Encourage loyal customers to take pictures of your product and to use tags connected with your industry. Collect the best references and share them on your site.
Additionally, think about investing in tools such as ReferralCandy that actively raises recommendations of your product based on a referral program. Ask about the feedback via chat and seriously take it into account when you’re improving your business.
4. Build Communities On Social Media
First of all, try to find the communities and forums connected to your product and join the conversation.
Next, engage your followers. Some people are likely already talking about your products. Scale them! Find unique representatives of different customer groups so that you can easily get to know your real customers.
Bring your offline customers to the online world. Track your sales and find the customers who buy regularly from you, who attend your events, or who represent offline markets. Talk to them personally and invite them to become a member of your community.
5. Use Social Media As A Customer Care Tool
When a customer needs help, the sooner it’s solved the faster you can expect a purchase. According to the Nielsen Social Media Report, almost half of U.S. consumers prefer social media to ask questions, give complaints, or report satisfaction, so it’s a great way to get free feedback in real time that can allow you to react flexibly and punctually to problems.
If you use live chat on your site (such as messaging apps) it’s easy to get overwhelmed by too many questions. Consider adapting a FAQ that answers the most common questions, or dictate specific times to handle customer traffic.
If your audience requires attention on several platforms, Sparkcentral lets you communicate with your customers across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in real time, and some companies have transfers to automation by using conversational bots.
Summary
Active and proper use of social media gives you a lot of advantages in terms of becoming successful with your online business and following thesefive steps can help you capitalize on the potential of whatever platformw you decide to integrate.
“Use social networks in the context of eCommerce transactions. If you want to be successful with your business, never forget to be social!”
Jan Lastuvka, MonkeyData
Remember to track the performance of each social media to ensure your investment reaps the benefits — and since each channel usually has its own analytics, wouldn’t it be more convenient if all those results could be compiled in one dashboard?
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