6 Ways to Use Social Media for eCommerce in 2023
Social media and online shopping go hand in hand. eCommerce marketers use social platforms to build brand awareness, connect with customers, and promote products through organic posts and targeted ads. These methods are very useful. Let’s understand it through some interesting facts from the Global State of Digital 2022 report by Hootsuite:
“57.5% of internet users between the ages of 16 and 64 buy something online every week.
26.5% of people who use social media always find things to buy.”
This article will show you how to use eCommerce and social media to grow your business.
What is social media marketing for online stores?
Social media marketing uses social media to promote an online store by increasing brand awareness, interest in products or services, and sales.
Popular social media eCommerce tactics include:
- Promoting people to visit and shop on an e-commerce site or branded app.
- Directly selling products on social media.
- Interacting directly with customers and prospects on social media
- Providing pre-and post-sale support to customers
- Getting information about your market and industry
- Using social media to build an online community around your brand
Many brands use the above tactics to create a successful social media eCommerce marketing strategy.
Social selling vs. Social commerce vs. Social media e-commerce marketing
You have probably heard of social selling, social commerce, and social media eCommerce marketing. People often use them the same way, but they aren’t the same. Let’s see what makes them different.
Social media marketing for e-commerce
This is when eCommerce businesses use social media as a marketing channel to promote their brand, service, or product to make more sales and connect with customers.
Social selling
This is when brands use social media to find sales prospects and get in touch with them or build long-term relationships. It’s a strategy that helps businesses reach their sales goals on social media and interact with them.
Think of social selling as the modern way of building relationships. The goal is to get in touch with potential customers and help them. Therefore, when that person is ready to buy your product or service, your site should be the first thing that comes to their mind.
Social eCommerce
This is when brands sell products or services directly on social media using native tools like Pinterest Product Pins, Facebook Shops, Instagram Shops, or TikTok Shop. Customers can shop, choose, and buy things without leaving their social media apps.
Six ways brands can use social media for E-commerce
1. Raise awareness of your brand
Social media is the best way to boost people’s interest in something. It’s a great place to tell people about your new store, products, services, events, or deals. And it’s a great way to talk to the people you want to reach.
You need a consistent posting strategy with a single voice and message to get people aware of your brand. That’s why you should publish on more than one channel and in more than one format. Additionally, engage with hot topics, hashtags, and users in direct conversations.
Getting people aware of a brand is a process. It takes time. Follow these helpful tips:
- Show who you are and what you stand for.
- Be consistent in your messaging
- Talk to the correct people.
- Demonstrate your value
- Respond to comments
Let’s take the example of the brand Tantree. Tentree is a clothing company that doesn’t hide the fact that they want to help the environment. They post about this on social media. You can take their tweet about self-sufficient cabins in Finland as an example. The post doesn’t directly promote Tentree’s products, but it’s inspiring and beautiful and shows what the brand is all about.
2. Advertise
There is no better way to advertise than social media. Social media ads have a huge global reach that is growing quickly. According to Hootsuite, here’s the number of people who saw the ad on each social media platform:
- $2.17 billion on Facebook
- $1.44 billion on Instagram
- $1.02 billion on TikTok
- 849.6 million on LinkedIn
These numbers are huge. So these social media channels also have targeting and segmenting tools that are very effective.
- To advertise on social media effectively, make sure you:
- Identify your target market and audience
- Add layers of targeting criteria to zero in on that audience
- Make a content strategy that will get their attention.
- Specify your goals and KPIs for each channel.
- Choose the types of ads that fit your goals.
- Choose the right metrics for conversion.
The types of KPIs, ads and conversion metrics you choose for social media advertising will depend on your goal and where you put your money. For example, a goal to raise brand awareness is best suited to Image, video, and carousel ads to get people to visit stores, see ads, and interact with them.
If you want to increase sales, you should do the following:
- Ads for a product, collection, or shopping that lead to direct purchases or visits to a product page
Choose your goal to get started. Secondly, decide the kind of ads you need and your target audience. Then, define how you’ll define if you’re successful.
Example of advertising:
The Bay is a large Canadian department store that advertises on Instagram to build its brand and sell products. In their ads, they frequently combine their unique style with catalog ads that people can shop for.
3. Directly sell products on social media
The social media trade has always been challenging. There are currently four social media apps that have built-in social selling:
- TikTok
Twitter and Snapchat have worked with Shopify to make their social eCommerce tools. This is where social commerce and social media eCommerce marketing meet. Hence, social media’s reach and ability to build brands can lead to direct business.
Using social commerce solutions has the following benefits:
- First, they are free to make.
- They make online shopping experiences that are memorable and fun.
- They make the sales process easier and increase the number of places where sales can happen.
- They make headless business possible.
- They allow you to make live shopping experiences.
If you want to try social commerce, you should search:
- An Instagram Shop
- A product from Facebook Shop that is pinned on Pinterest.
- TikTok ads for shopping in videos.
Example: CCM
The CCM’s Instagram is a direct mix of lifestyle marketing and product placements that can be bought. For instance, one of their posts shows what it’s like to be a pro hockey player and buy the gear they use easily.
4. Using an eCommerce chatbot to boost sales
Brands that grow their presence and sales on social media must also ensure they grow their customer service. The best way to do this is with eCommerce chatbots. Brands can do the following by using an AI-powered chatbot like Heyday by Hootsuite:
- Connect and talk to customers one-on-one across multiple channels.
- Give support before and after a sale at any time.
- Discounts, product suggestions, and promotions will be made automatically.
- Answer FAQs
- Walk buyers through the process of buying.
All of this can be done on a large scale for a fraction of what it would cost to hire a support team.
Ecommerce chatbot example:
During the pandemic, sales at the arts and crafts store DeSerres increased significantly. So they put an AI chatbot on their website to keep up with the demand. One of its main jobs is to suggest products to help users find answers to their questions and boost sales.
5. Helping Customers
Customer service is an important part of any social media e-commerce plan. Social platforms are great for keeping in touch with and helping current customers. Because of this, they have become the default way for most big brands to help their customers.
Customers might go to your profile to:
- Find out more
- Ask questions
- Give comments
- Engage with your content and give algorithms hints about what they want.
Brands like Aim solutions and social media managers need to be ready to respond to comments and direct messages. A chatbot for online shopping can help if you can’t. Social proof is another reason to ensure your social profiles are interactive besides giving your customers a good experience. Prospects will see how customers interact in public. This will affect their decision about whether or not to buy. How you handle complaints in public says a lot about how you deal with them behind closed doors.
Example of customer service: Ray-Ban
When brands are on social media, they can get good and bad feedback. Ray-Ban always responds directly to a particularly mean comment and tries to find a solution right away.
6. Listening to people
- Social media can be a goldmine of data for your brand if you have the right tools. Social listening is searching social media for conversations or mentions of your brand. 67% of marketers say that social listening helps them track and understand what their customers want. Not only that, but it also gives you important information like:
- What people love the most
- Where problems or issues might keep coming up
- How people feel about your brand
This lets you take advantage of chances, deal with problems, and improve your message to meet market needs.