Even though social media is hosting billions of people on different mediums, still there’s no shortage of companies who spend a very tiny amount of their marketing budgets on social media channels, especially e-commerce portals. The power of social media has been accepted by world leaders such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Narendra Modi, etc., who have successfully used Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to connect with their followers and add numbers to their list. However, a lot of companies aren’t shelling out much on social media marketing (SMM).
In 2015, Duke University surveyed the total spending of companies on SMM, and reports were quite overwhelming and intriguing at the same time. Companies were only spending 10% approximately of their total budget on social media. However, it was projected to increase significantly to 22% in the next five years.
Social Media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat have become mainstream media channels and even outranked TV and print media in terms of popularity. It wouldn’t be wrong if we say that they have become an indispensable part of our lives, and we feel connected to the world by just being on those mediums.
Gone are the days when social media was a medium to connect with family or friends. As time elapsed, social media evolved, too. For instance, a lot of changes and experiments happened, like creating Businesses Page in different categories to adjust to search engine algorithms. Also, for SEO, several features have been added for business-friendly purposes.
Moreover, seeing the popularity and emerging needs of businesses, new algorithms were and are developed to help companies in interacting with their customers. In layman terms, social media channels are justifying businesses and are turning out to be the commerce portals for the benefit of e-commerce companies.
Following are some listed ways by various trends and surveys, which can help your e-commerce venture high rewards via social media channels:
1. Finding And Engaging With Customers
The marketing rule books say, ‘go where your customers are.’ And seeing people’s love for social media, marketing has never been easier than this. Social Media can grow your business if you follow the guidelines and then use them as per your strategy to remain in the business race.
- Customer Research
You can prepare guidelines or take notes on how your customers react to a particular product that you are offering or your competitors are offering. By having access to a lot of stats and data, it has never been easier to find the faults and weaknesses in business strategies and influencing the customers for driving sales at the end of the day.
- Customer Service
People want feedback as soon as possible, or they want answers to their questions as soon as they raise a question. Social media does that for businesses and boosts chances of conversion before it gets too late. If you don’t strengthen your social media, then the potential lead can find another great service that clears his/her clouded thoughts about the product. Moreover, you can politely respond to negative views by describing the reason for the hatred spilled on you. Sometimes, a lot of rivals do that, and if you respond to those comments, your potential leads will come to know where the problem is. You can spin it to be a ‘win-win’ situation for yourself.
- Customer Acquisition
With so many features available to customize the business pages, social media accounts have become a storefront for businesses. There’s no shortage of people who search for companies and their products through their page. A lot of seminars have been conducted already over this topic. Your social business pages like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat etc. help you to make the perfect impression on niche customers’ minds. However, a lot of things are dependent on your page customization and how you make information accessible. Nowadays, companies are treating their social pages as their unique individual portals and working hard to make it great as they do on their websites.
- Customer Engagement
A lot of marketers mistake social media as another medium to generate ecommerce sales and drive traffic. However, they eventually forget that it is the way by which they can demonstrate their skills and add value to their brand. Besides, they don’t have to force-feed customers with unnecessary information just to drive traffic to the portal for sales purposes. GoPro on Facebook is a prime example of it. The company has made smart use of Facebook and very rarely advertises its products. Instead, it creates engaging content in its field and cleverly conveys its message through write-ups, images, and videos.
In an instance, GoPro used their cameras and took various HD images, videos and showcased their brand quality. They also gave ideas about photography and videography angles etc. to aspiring camera operators. A lot of success depends on the content strategy and how to use the listed products and services in an addictive context for the followers.
2. Paid Advertising Optimization
Gone are the days when free marketing was on a significant rise. There’s an unending list of companies benefitting from free marketing on Facebook and LinkedIn. A lot of Facebook pages that began as fun, curating different content from various sources, are now running successful start-ups.
Nowadays, marketers have to spend an extra amount of money on extending their posts’ reach. However, it has some pros, too. Following is the list of those benefits that come along with paid advertising on social media.
- More Effective Segmenting
Facebook, LinkedIn has made its platform genuinely business-friendly. Altering customer segments by age, location, interests, job title and much more, businesses can extend their reach manifold. Thanks to the Facebook Custom Audience segmenting tool, Shopify, one of the most recognized online retail start-ups, witnessed a 50-percent reduction in cost-per-lead.
- Video Advertising
Since the video has turned out to be an effective way to promote products, a lot of companies are using a good part of their budget on video production. Moreover, a video brings the real-time feeling of the product, and customers can see it in action. And the final question is, who doesn’t love seeing a video? Isn’t a video much more engaging than text? Then why not spend money on creating a video and share it on social media for the maximum output?
- Perfect Social Data Analytics
Social media tells clearly which content is performing well, and what type of content is bringing more engagement. It helps companies to analyze which channels are top-performing, and the kind of action that customers are taking.
- Distribute Content
Today every brand is a publisher because they have social media accounts to share content. Hence, they wear the hat of distributing the content. Take a look at Starbucks or Nike. They don’t only promote their products on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, but are social media sensations in the branding world.
Social Media has unlocked many doors to paramount success. However, it entirely depends on the businesses to use the platform for distributing the content. Companies like Oreo, Netflix, Pampers, Charmin, GrubHub, Dove, Royal Dutch Airlines, Always, Gillette, GoPro, Nike etc. have done a fantastic job on social media. Moreover, companies can take notes on how to implement ideas in the content without selling it to the users. Influence is the key when you want to look professional. For instance, blogs, videos, images and videos are being used by brands. Nowadays, GIFs are primarily used, which has challenged companies to use them that can depict their product in an engaging way.
3. Content Curation
It’s one of the biggest trends emerging in the blogging world. A lot of top-rated websites curate content, which can find its niche audience and drive traffic to the website. Content curation becomes valuable if you curate similar content within your niche. For instance; if you are selling running shoes, then you can easily curate doctor’s advice of using such kind of shoes during the jog. It will not only influence people but will show your brand as a serious one regarding the health.
- Being The Shepherd
Every day, social media brings new opportunities to brands because of its dynamic environment and based on current trends. The things, which worked for your brand yesterday, probably will not bring same influence on future posts. Being the shepherd means, how you interact with customers, advertise and publish content. Unlike SEO or any other form of marketing, Social Media can analyze the demographics about the post and craft future experiments to find the best solutions for the business needs.