Today Facebook alone has over 2 billion active users. Add other social media sites and you get an incredible number of people who actively use social networking sites on a regular basis. For this reason, many ecommerce companies now use these social platforms to grow their customer list and increase sales. According to available statistics, social media is the number one driver of website traffic to ecommerce websites today. If you are not leveraging the power of social media to get you more sales, then you are missing out big time.
But what do you do when you want to make it big with your ecommerce website on social media, but are unsure of the path to take that can guarantee results? Truth be told, social media can be a challenging landscape to navigate; you may find that you have neglected certain aspects of the platforms while overusing others, etc. You may also find that while your engagement rate is impressive, the traffic and leads you are getting to your ecommerce site are nothing to talk about.
The question then becomes: how can you effectively increase the number of people actually buying your products? Is there a way to get the attention of your social media followers enough to improve sales? The following are 8 social media tactics you can employ to drive traffic to your ecommerce site.
Optimize social media posts
Every content you publish on social networking sites must be optimized. You do this by using high-conversion keywords that not only increase your visibility to your existing page audience but has the potential to attract some new eyeballs to your pages and site. Therefore, it is important to perform a thorough keyword-research.
This allows you to learn the words and phrases your customers often use when searching for the products your website is selling. Use these keywords in your posts, add some visual elements to it and then publish. The visual elements are important for grabbing the attention of social media users who often scan through their social media news feeds.
Add social sharing buttons in strategic places
Not all your website visitors will come from social media. Others will be direct referrals from other sites while others will come from search engines. These potential customers may want to connect with your brand on social media. To make it easy for them to do so, you should add social media buttons to your website. Additionally, everyone visiting your website should find it easy to share the content they find interesting on their social profiles.
The more straightforward it can be the more likely they will share your content with the people in their social networking circles. Adding social sharing buttons streamlines this process. Therefore, add social media buttons in strategic areas on your website. When a customer finds a product that their friends ought to see and consider buying, it should be easy for them to share it on social media. By strategically placing the sharing buttons in prominent areas on your web pages, you ensure that every website visitor can see and easily access these buttons to share content on social networking platforms.
Use visual content
A social media channel that neglects the use of images to drive engagement on social media would never be successful on social platforms. Images tend to attract the attention of even the more laid back, passive social media users. Therefore, using eye-catching visuals on your posts can significantly increase the number of people who visit your website.
This is especially helpful to ecommerce websites that sell products that many buyers decide to buy based on their appearance. Add beautiful images to your product listings so that users can be enticed to share them on social media. In addition, you can consider adding a “Pin It” button on every image on your website so that Pinterest users who visit your site can easily share it on that platform.
Share the right content
Social media users are keep away from brands who are always pitching products and services to them. If all you can master are more ways to pitch the same products over and over again, it doesn’t take long before your followers unfollow your brand. Therefore, you must keep everything at a balance. You should ensure that you only post your sales pitches 20% of the time. The other 80% of the time, publish informational content that engages your customers into wanting to be part of your brand’s story.
Use these social platforms to share news related to the products you sell on your site without pushing your audience to purchase anything, give them helpful tips, and entertain. By combining posts that entertain and inform with your sales pitches, you increase the chances of turning a profit through website traffic from social media.
Be consistent
Consistency helps your followers know what to expect from your pages and when to expect it. It creates some level of predictability ultimately improving engagement. Create a social media schedule and follow it to the letter, only changing it based on the data insights you gather about your customer behaviors over time. Consistency shows your followers that you are committed to providing them with value. And with many automation tools now available for scheduling and posting, no social media marketer has any excuse.
Use hashtags
On social media, hashtags are a great deal. They are the pathways to new clients and customers. Take time to learn what hashtags are commonly used by people and brands in your industry and add them to your posts. They will expand your reach, make your content look better and promote user interactions. All the same, you should keep the use of hashtags at a minimum: typically one or two hashtags on each post.
Be short & sweet
Social media users prefer precise, straight to the point, compelling updates. By sharing long posts, you discourage users from sharing them with their friends. The idea is to share content that users can easily digest and pass along.
Interact with followers
Your ecommerce website site will suffer a great deal if all you do is share posts without ever interacting with your growing customer base on social networking platforms. There are few other platforms outside of social media that you can interact with your customers as easily and as effectively.
Every time you post something new, monitor reactions, respond to queries and answer the questions people will post in the comments section of the posts. Seeing that you address customer concerns encourages other potential customers to try out your products, knowing that if they need help at any point, they can easily reach out to you and you will respond with helpful information.
Use paid advertising
To grow your audience on social media, sometimes it is important to do paid advertising. You can do this by using tools like Growr that help you acquire new followers organically, or paying social networking sites to make your content visible to more people on their platforms at a fee. You can also consider paying influencers to share your products on their social channels.
