Social media is so much more than just a place for people to meet and share memes. These days social media holds many realms of possibilities for growing your business, growing authentic connections and sharing your brand identity. With the growth of social commerce, along with other social media and eCommerce crossovers, there are many benefits to sink your teeth into. Let’s take a look at some now.
Boosted Brand Awareness
Social media platforms have billions of users who engage every day. This creates endless possibilities for brand discovery, for example:
- Hashtags
- Contests
- Tagging
- Recommendations
- Sharing
- Ads
- Influencers
- User Generated Content
There are so many ways that social media followers can be gained. The more people know about your brand, the faster word of mouth spreads. Social media gives you the opportunity to appear to the right people, at the right time.
Increased Traffic
Every eCommerce business owner hopes for increased traffic to their site. An effective eCommerce strategy can help you achieve this. If your social media looks effective, people will be intrigued and want to find out more.
It’s a gateway to your store, providing an impression of your work that can make all the difference. Including website links within your eCommerce strategy means that people can easily access your store from your social media page. As long as you ensure you have high quality images and posts, this can definitely result in a traffic increase.
Better SEO
Having good SEO is incredibly important to any eCommerce business. Social media marketing is included in enhancing SEO ratings. For example, if your social media is optimized, when people search for your business in Google then they may find your social media page high in the search results. This would be a big win for your business, as increased SEO leads to increased traffic and higher sales.
Google’s algorithm considers a page with regular activities on social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook to be more trustworthy. This helps to increase their SEO, even for their website. For this reason alone, your social media strategy should be worth investing in.
Improved Brand Loyalty
Customers want to know what brand values are, and brand tone is, more and more these days. Many shoppers, particularly Gen Z and Millennials are reluctant to make a purchase of a brand unless they know what the brand stands for.
Social media is a great way of setting your standards, what your brand stands for, your brand tone, and your overall image. Once this is easier for people to understand, they will feel more alignment to your brand.
Including competitions, quizzes and engaging with your audience over social media can also improve brand loyalty. This is through fostering a sense of community. When you reach out, engage with customers and have them engage with you, you build a strong base. Shoppers are much more likely to purchase from brands they feel connected with in this way.
Save Money
Social media is a cost effective marketing strategy. Although depending on the size of your business, and in order to do it right, it is a good idea to invest in your social media strategy- this is not necessary. This means that even for small businesses, social media is a great advantage and leg-up in order to boost your brand.
Even with this investment, other marketing strategies such as adverts on TV, in public or in newspapers are far more expensive and can be less effective. The fact that social media content can be shared is free promotion.
Influencers can be a financial investment but can have a huge impact. User Generated Content (UGC) can be free, just as long as you send users products they might be interested in. Having your customers share your products if they like it is also free advertising, and some of the strongest forms of social proof that exist these days.
When harnessed well, social media marketing can be incredibly cost effective whilst at the same time some of the best marketing available.
Utilizing Social Media Data
It’s important to not overlook the power of social media data. This is invaluable information that can help you to understand how your customers think, what your customers are interested in, and what will work for your business moving forward.
Just like any form of data is incredibly valuable in terms of understanding your eCommerce business, data collected from social media is no exception. Ideas such as quizzes, feedback forms and competitions can all help you understand your base.
Seeing which kinds of posts for which products also generate the most likes and engagement is a great way of understanding your customer needs more. Similarly, posts that do not do so well can give you invaluable insights to help your business move in the right direction moving forward.
Conclusion
Including social media in your eCommerce strategy holds many advantages. From saving money, to understanding your audience base, to growing social proof- none of these should be overlooked. If you aren’t already using a strategy, now is the time to implement one in order to help your business thrive.