I’ve got to tell you something about my eyebrows. I know, you weren’t expecting this, but… bear with me. You see, my eyebrows have this weird behaviour sometimes – they raise when I hear something really silly. And, man, the other day they really got to exercise because I heard many silly things about eCommerce and social media and I need to share a few of them with you.
The first silly thing I heard was that social media can’t be used for promoting your eCommerce business anymore. LOL. Social media has transformed the way people search for and buy products. Not only that social media channels are still driving sales, they’re still super effective, but they’re actually adapting to make it easier for their users to buy the products shop owners are selling.
The second thing that made me raise an eyebrow was about video marketing and how it made marketing costs go through the roof. In this day and age, when almost everyone has a camera on their phone capable of shooting 4K video, we’re complaining that it’s expensive to use video marketing? That’s just crazy!
I won’t even go into the rest of the ridiculous stuff I heard, but I will share with you 8 social media tactics you should be using if you have your own online shop. They’ll show you that it’s still easy to use social media to drive traffic to your shop and get those products in your visitors’ carts.
So, let’s start!
#1 Use videos to present products or even your website
Facebook thinks that its users can get more value out of them and that’s why they prioritize videos over any other type of content in the NewsFeed. You can use this to your advantage by creating short product demo videos, uploading them to Facebook and adding the product page URL in the post copy.
This is something you can do even if you don’t have the products available. Just screencast the product page, save the video and upload it to Facebook with a link to the specific page on your eShop. (And don’t even think about saying you don’t know how to do a screencast, you can even do it using YouTube.)
If you want to speed things up a bit, the software we use is Video Spinn. You can read our full Video Spinn review here – or save time and jump straight over to check out a demo which show how it’s able to create 100 fully SEO optimised videos with just one click.
#2 Partner-up with micro-influencers
You can find micro-influencers on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and even niche websites. You just have to put in the effort of identifying and reaching out to them. You can pay them a fee or a sales commission and have them promote your products on social media.
#3 Map out the Facebook groups relevant to your business
Do you know which are the top 100 Facebook groups relevant to your business? You should. If it makes sense, you should even start your own group that would be appealing to your target audience. Even the most ridiculous ’causes’ managed to gather millions in their groups, so I’m sure you could raise at least a couple hundred people.
If you join all those 100 groups, you won’t be allowed to post links to your products every day, but many of them will have self-promo days and you could even announce good deals for key products or answer calls for product recommendations from other members with links to your own shop.
#4 Use Facebook groups as media space
Many people who want to build communities around a specific interest don’t even bother creating a website anymore.
They just create a Facebook group. And after a while, they start wondering how they could monetise it because they’re not selling any products.
But other people (yes, people like you) do, so they start selling advertising, which is more clearly targeted than by simply using Facebook ads and is quite cheap.
You can find out if the admin of the Facebook group you’re interested in allows advertising inside the group by messaging them but, usually, the info will be available on the group info page.
#5 Use social media contests
Simple Facebook sweepstakes can help you increase your reach without spending too much on advertising. If you design the contest in a smart way, you can send people to your eShop to check out products in order to find an answer that will get their name entered in the lucky draw.
Make sure you’re not doing something that is frowned upon like asking people to share your post on their timeline or on the timelines of their friends but use every trick up your sleeve to drive as much traffic as possible to your website.
#6 Listen to what people say on social media and reach out
Use search.twitter.com to find people talking about needing the products you sell or about the products of your competitors. When you find someone that looks like a good fit, send them a reply that adds value and include a link back to your shop.
To make sure you get the right tweets use your search term in quotes like this: “where can I buy”
#7 Use playlists on Youtube AND Facebook
If you have video content available, and you upload it to YouTube and Facebook, make sure you’re adding it to a playlist. What playlists do is to keep the viewer engaged. As soon as the video they just saw ends, a new video starts, which gives you yet another possibility to get them to your website to buy something. On Facebook you can now set up you playlists by clicking the Videos tab on your page and then selecting Create Playlist.
#8 Use the Action Button on your Facebook Page
When you create your Facebook page for your shop, take the 2 minutes necessary to set up the biggest button people will see on it. You can select the call to action and add a link. It would be crazy to not take advantage of one of the tools Facebook gives you to help you convert potential customers..
These are small steps you can take to improve the traffic you’re generating through social media and many of them won’t cost you a cent.
There are so many tools that are available for shop owners that can save so much of their time and effort, but that doesn’t mean creativity isn’t a competitive advantage anymore. It always was and it will probably always be. Knowing about these simple tactics and giving them your own spin can help you stay ahead of your competitors and engage potential customers where they already are – on the social media channels they check every single day.
So, tell me, which of these tactics will you implement first? What are you currently struggling with in your social media efforts? Don’t be shy and use the comments box below. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Maybe I’ll be able to give you a hand in figuring out what to do next or maybe you’ll give the rest of us here some ideas we could put to good use.
– Cindy Donovan
