We live in a time where social media can impact the world, sometimes in a matter of hours. People in almost every country share jokes, pictures, and news via social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. For businesses, however, social media can also be used for social commerce: building a community and engaging users in order to sell and buy products within the social network. If you’re a savvy businessperson, you should have no problem implementing these tips to expand your online presence and use social media in the advancement of your business this holiday season.
Customization
Social media sites are usually easy to customize, even if you don’t have a lot of experience with HTML, CSS, or Java. Brighten up your Facebook page, your Twitter profile, and your Pinterest with holiday cheer and state exactly how you and your business are preparing for the holidays. We’ve got some great tips on adding some Holiday cheer to your ecommerce website and social channels.
Keywords
The internet runs on keywords and SEO (search engine optimization). In order to bring customers to your pages and sites, you need to know what keywords describe what you’re offering, and how to use them to bring your ranking up so that your sites are some of the first results in a search. Know what keywords competitors use for your products and make sure you also take advantage of them. A great way to promote keywords socially is to use hashtags on Twitter; simply add a # symbol to a word that describes your product or service and you will come up when people browse that hashtag. Facebook posts that are public on business pages also appear in search results, so you making sure you use common terms when posting will help your potential customers find you.
Know What You’re Offering
Draw up a plan before you begin to tweet or post messages advertising your product or service. Random messages confuse people and drive them away from your sites, losing you money. Have what you want to say already written and edited in order to put your best foot forward. Each product should have multiple messages that you can choose from depending on the situation or conversation, and be sure also to create messages that can expand on your entire inventory.
Spacing Out Your Posts
Let’s face it, nobody can spend their entire life on the computer maintaining social commerce pages, and most businesses follow a 9-5 schedule for their employees. However, most people are online in the evenings, when businesses are usually closed, but they have time to shop, which means that they may miss tweets and posts made during the day. By using programs like HootSuite and Tweetdeck, you can schedule your posts and tweets to go out at any time of the day or night, whether you’re online or not.
Pay Attention
While you can’t stay online 24/7, you still need to check up on what’s happening with your sites, and more importantly, what’s working – and what isn’t. Pay attention to your stats, such as number of hits on your pages, time of day that you’re getting the most visits, and what messages get the best responses. If someone in your growing community has a concern or suggestion, it can’t hurt to listen to them, even if you decide not to use what they’re suggesting. When you have a solid idea of what is working best for your business, tweak your schedule and focus accordingly.
Images
The internet is a visual place, where one good picture or video can quickly go viral and be passed from one person to another all over the world. A lot of text usually doesn’t work to grab a person’s attention, but a good picture of your product will encourage users to take a second look. This is especially important on Facebook and Pinterest. Create interesting and dynamic pictures of your products and group them together in your feed or in a Pinterest board. Engage with other users and communities so that your links are spread to the furthest reach possible. And be sure, of course, to state clearly that the products are for sale.
Facebook
Start with making sure your store is clearly visible on Facebook. Selling on Facebook requires a little attention and knowledge of the customer psych while socializing. Download our Facebook commerce guide as a first step. Next concentrate specifically on Facebook campaigns and use part of your budget to promote your brand. Host trivia contests and sweepstakes, or offer a reward, such as a coupon code specific to your Facebook followers. Give out prizes to people who help promote your page. A $100 shopping spree can be a great incentive to promote sharing. Take a chance, be creative, and be sure to start your promotional program early in order to draw in the maximum amount of people. Using an app like WildFire can help get you going in the right direction.
Promote Through Wazala
Wazala offers a great tool that will allow you to post directly to Twitter and Facebook from within the Admin of your store. This social promoter engine reminds you to market out every time you add a new product, coupon code, put a product on sale and other actionable edits you do in your store that are worthy of shouting out.
The holidays are an excellent time for social commerce, especially for small to mid-size startup businesses looking for that extra edge. While it may seem like a lot of work and money to begin with, once you have built a community around your products, the time and money spent will certainly be worth it. Do you have any other ideas that may help you social sales? Let us know in the comments.
Checkout more Holiday Ecommerce Tips here on our blog.
We got the cool image from Bigstock! Get yours from here Social Tree
