Social Media ECommerce
We all know the importance of social media so I’m not going to get into that, instead I’m going to be talking about using social media to benefit E-Commerce or in other words to generate sales. First of all you need a social presence which is mandatory and some marketing tactics to build up your social channels. The next part is where you gain customer trust which is vital if want to get as many sales from your social channels as possible. Here are some tactics:
Customer Reviews
Now I mentioned that a social presence is mandatory but it needs to be well developed in terms of user interaction and trust as these are the fundamentals in getting somebody to pay for your products. You see people these days don’t just randomly purchase stuff online. There have been a lot of fraud schemes and companies and now people are very cautious when it comes to spending money online, be it a cent or a penny.
So, what you would like to do is start little and expect less. Create a presence on all social review platforms such as Yelp and Google places, etc. Reviews are very important for your business, here is how: Let’s say me and you started their businesses online, both selling identical products. Now when someone searches for that specific item that we are selling and my product has let’s say 2 customer reviews or even a single customer review and yours lacks that, then I have leverage over your product because that review has already created trust in that persons mind before even considering to pay for it – as he or she were just searching online.
In other words, the more positive reviews and of course natural, the better off your product is. This is the purchasing pattern online, if your business does not comply with it then you are already in big loss.
Integrating E-Commerce
Okay, so we talked about creating trust online and product reviews seem to do that very well. Now, the next most important step is facilitating your potential customers and making the purchasing of goods as painless and effortless as possible, yes I am talking about shopping carts. But, integrated into social platforms! Facebook pages are the perfect example. You can build a large audience and trust on Facebook, moreover, a Facebook page is just like a website. It can have all those functionalities, so why not use them? If you are selling products then a shopping cart application is a must – it can be installed on your Facebook page. So, once you have a promotion or a sale (marketing tactic) – all you have to do is let your audience know by a single status update or a tweet with a link to that offer on the Facebook page, simple isn’t it? You can also share your customer reviews from other social streams on your Facebook page, so not only you are building trust but also selling your stuff in that process.
These tactics work both for new and old businesses, I would say especially for new businesses since the competition is ever so hard to beat now – social media ecommerce for the win!
