In this day and age, everybody has a social media account. From your next-door neighbor to your distant cousin’s pet corgi puppy, people are using platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and others to promote themselves and create an image for themselves. Although social media is heavily used and made most popular by individuals for personal branding, it is also quintessential for businesses to have active accounts on these platforms as well.

Unfortunately, in today’s society, only presenting a business on LinkedIn or having a halfhearted and empty social media presence is not enough anymore. This is especially true for Ecommerce websites that can capitalize on the traffic through social media and harness those consumers, redirecting them to their site to make purchases. Not having any social media or even just being inactive on an existing account can mean missing out on building a company’s image and getting people familiar with what a specific business is all about. Whether it is attracting a new array of consumers or continuing to sustain a loyal following from previous customers, social media is an excellent and important way to keep consumers up to date and drive sales. Thankfully, if this is an issue that an Ecommerce company is facing right now, it is not too late to fix it and get back on track to drive up revenue and get more business as soon as possible.

Why is Social Media Important for Ecommerce Companies?

Although creating revenue is the main goal of any action taken by a business, the most important value that social media can offer is the two-way communication and interaction that it provides with consumers. Having this interaction not only allows for business owners and customers to interact directly, but it allows for the creation of feedback and insight from the company’s target audience. Using this communication, businesses can implement what users are saying to help build their brand and strengthen their products or even change factors of their business based on suggestions. A study in support of social media for Ecommerce platforms done by Smart Insights Survey shows that more than half of companies that use social media see a visible and substantial increase in sales and revenue. Using social platforms is something that works for Ecommerce businesses to grow clientele and sustain loyal customers, but it is important to be using these accounts properly to achieve the optimal advantages offered.

How to Use Social Media Properly for Your Ecommerce Business

1. Post Often and Well

In order to make sure that a user base knows that a company’s profile is legitimate and trustworthy a business must stay active on social media. Posting regularly is the key to driving in clientele because posting frequently creates more opportunities for the company to gain more exposure with both users who already follow the account and users who are finding the content in exploring pages throughout the platform. With this, it is crucial to note that the content posted must be of a quality standard. Although posting frequently is important for driving traffic to your page and sustaining customers, posting too often can lead to unfollows and bad impressions. Posting quality images is also the second part of “posting often and well” because it has been proven time and time again that consumers shop with their eyes. Producing low-quality content and posting images just to have posted them will drive off consumers and lead to a poor fashion of company branding.

2. Make it Shareable

In making high-quality content, companies should be aware of how shareable their content is. Ways that this can be made possible are by simply asking customers to share with friends or tag other users in the comments. Another way to make sure that the posts that a business is posting is shared and reaches new audiences is to follow along with internet trends. Capitalizing on active trends can, in turn, create more shares and boost the “virality” of an Ecommerce website through social media.

3. Using Hashtags

Using hashtags is the ultimate way to optimize a post and gain more viewership. Hashtags ensure that diverse audiences who are searching for elements that are on-brand with what a company is selling or promoting find what they are looking for. By interacting with hashtags and in turn interacting with an Ecommerce business’ post on social media, users can be redirected to a company’s social media and potentially become a customer. Using the correct hashtags is vital to making sure that posts are reaching a wide array of people. Therefore businesses should always check the popularity of the hashtags being used before they are used in order to avoid using ones that are not often searched for. Lastly, it is of the utmost importance that companies do not use hashtags in the same fashion on every social media website that they have a presence on. The best way to use hashtags for different platforms are:

• Twitter: keep it simple with one hashtag that is strategically placed in the post to generate more targeted traffic.
• Instagram: the more hashtags the better, oftentimes businesses will use ten or more in order to gain the most exposure under different popular user searched hashtags.
• Facebook: Save your energy! To be successful here, it has actually been shown that posts may do better without the hashtags.

Stay Social!

Social media usage has shot up in the last ten to fifteen years and with the steady incline that is seen today, there is no sign of slowing down. With this in mind, Ecommerce businesses are not doing themselves any favors by staying away or keeping a low profile on websites such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Social platforms offer an unrivaled way to have a direct line of communication and interaction with consumers unlike ever before. This, in turn, creates many opportunities for growth and development of Ecommerce businesses in the modern marketplace.

Don’t sleep on social media, take action and see results.