5 Tips To Help You Dominate Social Commerce
Social media is becoming more and more important to eCommerce, which brings us to, you guessed it, social commerce.
Just think about how many billions of people are on social media every day – these are your customers! If they’re on social media, you should be too. Take a second to think about this – 71% of visitors are more likely to make a purchase if they were referred from social media.
That’s a statistic you can’t afford to ignore. That being said, here are a few ways you can dominate social commerce:
1. Implement the Facebook call-to-action button.
At the end of 2014, Facebook launched calls to action. If you have a Facebook page (not a profile), you can implement a call-to-action button that appears to the left of the “Like” button in the header of your page, just like so:
Your button does not have to say “Shop Now,” you have several options to choose from, like Contact Us, Play Game, Sign Up, etc. You simply match it to your business objective and link the button to wherever destination you want it to go, on or off Facebook.
If you don’t already have one, it’s pretty easy to do it. If you’re an admin of your page, you should see a “Create Call-to-Action” button to the left of the “Like” button. Click that, choose from the dropdown what you want it to say, and then enter the URL – it’s that easy!
2. Focus on interacting with & building communities.
Each social network is its own community with its own rules for interaction. If you want to get involved, you need to spend some time observing and listening to see what the rules for interaction are for a particular community. Some of them, like Reddit, are very community-focused; if you come in blaring your promotional messages without contributing honestly to the community first, you’ll find yourself downvoted and/or shadow-banned very quickly. You need to go into social media focused on interacting with people as a real brand and building relationships with them for the sake of community, instead of focusing only on sales and promotional messages. Those will come in time and have their place, but you need to become a member of the community first.
3. Influencers make a difference.
Every social network and industry has its influencers. These are the people who are leaders and experts, and have a large fan/follower base. When it comes to connecting, people don’t trust advertisements, they trust people, especially people they already know. So, take your time, identify the influencers in your industry on the platforms you’re using, and start building real relationships with them. It will take time and effort, but will be well worth it for the long-term.
4. Engage honestly.
Social media is a medium that allows brands to participate in real conversations with their customers and potential customers. But, you need to remember, integrity matters. You need to engage honestly and respond to comments directed towards you, both positive and negative. If you mess up, you need to own up to it with honesty and transparency; show your customers that you recognize your mistakes, let them know what you’re doing to address the problem, and follow through. This turns hum-drum social posting into real interactions and customer service experiences with your customers.
5. Don’t forget to promote your offers.
It’s true – you can promote your offers on social media. In fact, you should be; just make sure you’re sharing other people’s content too. The 80/20 rule is a good one to follow here: 80% of your posts should be curating other people’s content that your community will find valuable and 20% can be about you and your promotional offers. Your fans will jump on a good offer, but they won’t stick around if all they see and hear is all about you all the time.
With these tips in mind, you’re ready to hit the ground running and climb to the top in social commerce!
Leave a Reply