6 Simple (But Important) Things To Remember About How To Utilize Social Media To Boost Ecommerce Sales?

Social media is a boon for eCommerce businesses. Social media boost eCommerce sales which allows them to reach a wide range of audiences across countries and age groups. As of July 2021, there are 4.48 billion social media users worldwide (almost 57% of the global population).

With the right strategies in place, you can increase eCommerce sales via social media. 44.8% of global internet users used social media to search for brand information in 2020. 

That said, let’s look at the importance of social media for businesses in 2021. We will also discuss six great ways to use social media to boost ecommerce sales.

Importance of Social Media for Businesses in 2022

Insider Intelligence forecasts that US retail, social commerce sales will increase by 34.8% to 36.09 billion in 2021. But that’s not it. Social media can play a crucial role in enhancing your brand awareness and generating sales. Here are some statistics to back my claim. 

• Online stores with a social media presence receive an average of 32% more sales than those that don’t. [Big Commerce]
• 60% of people say they discover new products on Instagram. [Influencer Marketing Hub]
• Social media referral traffic to online stores has increased by more than 100% in the last two years. [SaveMyCent]
• 71% of customers are more likely to purchase products based on social media referrals. [HubSpot]

These numbers indicate that eCommerce and social media marketing can go hand in hand. With the right eCommerce business tips, you can outdo your competitors and generate more sales. 

How to Effectively Use Social Media to Boost Ecommerce Sales?

Let’s look at six ways you can use social media to boost eCommerce sales. 

1. Building Brand Awareness 

You won’t generate sales if people don’t know about your products. Social media can help you reach your target audience and increase brand awareness. For instance, you can create a business account on Facebook and Instagram and start sharing updates about your company, including the products you have and when customers can buy them. 

However, you will need to create unique posts to stand out from the crowd and grab potential customers’ attention. 

Here are six tips for ecommerce businesses to build brand awareness on social media: 

• Encourage your customers to share your products and then repost them. You might even need to incentivize them to do so. 
• Interact with customers on your post. Reply to their comments to make them feel valued. 
• Use the right hashtags on your posts but don’t overdo it. 
• Repurpose your content for each platform. For example, a long caption is better on Facebook. However, with the 140-character space on Twitter, you will need to get creative to share the same content. 
• Host giveaways and contests to reach a wider audience. 
• Don’t just post product-related content. Give your target audience a change once in a while. 

Remember, building brand awareness is a long-term process, and nothing happens instantly, but you can speed that up with paid advertising. 

2. Advertising to boost eCommerce sales

More and more ecommerce businesses are investing in social media advertising in 2021. Here’s what recent statistics indicate: 

• Marketers spent $43 billion on social media ads in 2020. The number is forecast to increase to $50.86 billion.  
• According to Statista, social media impressions are up 20% year over year. 
• IT also means more people are viewing ads. 27% of internet users say they find new products and brands through paid social ads. 

One of the primary reasons social media advertising is successful is that they offer advanced targeting tools to help you narrow your target audience as much as possible. This helps reach people who are more likely to buy from you, reducing your cost per acquisition. 

You can even select goals for your social media ads. For example, Facebook and Instagram allow you to choose from these objectives (those that are relevant for eCommerce businesses): 

• Conversions: It encourages your potential customers to take specific action on your website, e.g., add a product to the cart, subscribe for upcoming sales, etc. 
• Catalog sales: It displays the product catalog in ads. 
• Reach: Show your ad to as many people as possible in the geographic location you set. 

However, choosing the right objective is just one part. It would be best if you also created a persuasive ad that compels users to take action. 

Here’s an example of an eCommerce ad on Facebook by Ralph Lauren. They have showcased multiple products with a “shop now” button. 

3. Instagram and Facebook Are the Key Players

Not all social media platforms are perfect for ecommerce. For example, you will find primarily B2B buyers on LinkedIn. On Twitter, people are more likely to engage in a fun conversation than purchase. 

However, Facebook and Instagram are ideal for ecommerce. People are highly likely to engage and even purchase products via Facebook and Instagram. 

With around 2.89 billion and 1.074.3 billion monthly active users on Facebook and Instagram, respectively, these two are the most prominent social networks in 2021. 

By leveraging Facebook and Instagram, you can reach more people in your area of operation. In addition, the advanced targeting options enable you to reach a specific segment of people, further increasing the chances of conversion. 

However, to use these social media to boost eCommerce sales, you should create a business account. It will give you access to features that you won’t get in a regular account, such as a button (you can add your website, phone number, etc.) and a shop. 

4. Selling Products Directly on Social Media 

Yet another excellent e-commerce business tip is using Instagram and Facebook to sell your products. They have introduced features that help eCommerce businesses get more sales quickly. For example, customers can now buy your products without leaving the platform, increasing the chances of conversion. 

Here’s an example of Instagram Shopping by ColourPop Cosmetics:  

As you can see in the image, customers can click on the product, checkout on Instagram, and make payments to place the order. 

The benefits of social commerce solutions include:

• Reduces the steps involved in completing the purchase. It is free to set up.
• It provides a memorable and convenient shopping experience to customers.

However, make sure to add your best-selling products on social media shopping. 

5. Reach Out Social Media Influencers to Promote Your Products

Influencer marketing is about partnering with content creators who have a dedicated social media following or experts in their niche. 

Influencer marketing has been there for years, and there’s no sign of slowing down. Influencer marketing was worth $9.7 billion in 2020, and the number is forecast to grow to $13.8 billion in 2021. That’s $4.1 billion in just one year. 

However, it’s worth mentioning that influencer marketing can be a little expensive (depending on the number of followers of the creator). 

Follow these social media influencer marketing best practices to maximize your ROI: 

• Ensure that the influencer has a target audience similar to yours. For instance, if you sell apparel, collaborating with a fashion influencer would make more sense.
• Partner with other brands with a similar target audience and create a high-value giveaway for your combined audiences.
• Don’t be afraid to work with influencers with a small following. They might have a significant engagement rate. For instance, Nano influencers (those with less than 10,000 followers) have a 4% engagement rate compared to macro-influencers (between 500,000 and 1 million followers), with a 1.2% engagement rate.

Here are four tips for ecommerce businesses to leverage influencer marketing:

• Ask the influencer to link to your store to drive more engagement. You can even offer influencer-specific coupons so their followers can get a discount when buying from you. It will also enable you to track the ROI better. 
• Encourage influencers to share their experience with your products. You can then share the video from your social handles to build trust with potential customers. 
• Let influencers incorporate products around their content so it doesn’t look overly promotional. 
• Test, learn, and optimize your influencer marketing strategy. 

6. Publish User-generated Content

The last social media marketing tip for ecommerce businesses is posting user-generated content. It can help build trust with potential customers. Plus, it gives you additional content to publish without much effort. It enables you to stay hyper-active on social media without spending hours on content creation. 

Therefore, encourage your customers to share pictures and videos featuring your product on their social media. Then re-share them from your social handles (don’t forget to give credit to the author). 

It will make your customer feel valued and help build a long-lasting relationship. In addition, customers proudly showing off your product on their social media also makes you more visible, thereby attracting more customers. 

Here’s an example of posting user-generated content by Madewell. They not only repost the content by their customer but also encourage their followers to check out their look. 

Wrapping Up

The increase in competition in the eCommerce market has encouraged online retailers to use additional ways and platforms to increase sales. Use the six tactics mentioned above to use social media to boost eCommerce sales and revenue. 

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