People don’t just interact with brands; they like them, follow them, and friend them. Consumers are forming relationships with brands without even leaving their facebook page. In terms of communication and accessibility, they expect brands to meet and exceed their own digital needs.
When it comes to e-commerce brands, the social media bar is raised even higher. These brands are sometimes exclusively online, and therefore there are higher expectations around their social media presence. They need to be leaders in the world of social shopping – paving the way for all brands who are tapping into the tremendous benefits of e-commerce and social commerce.
Share Engaging Content With Your Online Shoppers
The e-commerce sites that shoppers visit most frequently and spend the most extended amounts of time on are the ones most enjoyable and valuable. These are also the sites where consumers purchase the most. New, frequent and engaging content will keep uncertain consumers coming back until they are ready to buy. Create and leverage a unique brand personality with content that resonates and excites.
Instead of dry corporate cookie-cutter messaging, eBay takes the storytelling route. Their post of a photo of a diamond ring that says, “Diamond is April’s birthstone. But, admit it, you wouldn’t mind getting diamonds in any month. Agree?” was liked almost 14,000 times and shared nearly 1,000 times. With engaging content like the post above, eBay has grown its social following from 600,000 to 5.3 million in under two years.
Build a Community Around Your Online Brand
Develop two-way relationships with your community by creating a platform where their voice can be heard. Pull in consumers with fun, engaging content, questions, and campaigns. Their participation will not only build an engaging community, but it will also help you develop long-lasting relationships with your consumers and strong advocacy around your brand.
ModCloth shares beautiful photos, memorable quotes, personal videos from their YouTube channel, and engaging questions. They have built an impressive, pleasant community around their brand through frequently asking new questions that encourage participation. They also have a photo album dedicated to uploaded photos from their customers.
Gain Valuable Insights By Listening to Your Online Shoppers
Make your product much more appealing and entice shoppers to proceed through to checkout, by merely listening to your consumers and giving them what they want. Use a social listening platform to glean this insight from consumers – with the world tweeting, posting, and updating their thoughts or actions, a lot can be discovered just by listening.
Crane and Canopy releases new duvet covers and sheet sets every other week and designs textiles based on current trends on Pinterest and elsewhere, instead of planning collections seasons ahead of time.
Become an Industry Thought Leader
Be the number one go-to resource for everything-to-do-with your industry. By providing useful and helpful information, you will become a credible source in your industry, therefore keeping your e-commerce brand front of mind.
Etsy researches and listens to social media to provide its user community with useful content on relevant upcoming promotional activity within the broader Etsy platform, global creative marketplace trends and specific events that interest their communities.
Add Pinterest to Your Social Media Shopping Cart
Depending on your target audience – Pinterest could be highly beneficial for your brand. With the general Pinterest demographic being predominantly female and internet savvy, brands that fit the audience interest profiles ( particularly fashion and lifestyle stores) are eager to reap the benefits of what Pinterest has to offer. A recent Shopify study has found that Pinterest is now level with Twitter when it comes to clickthroughs from social networks to Shopify powered stores. However, Pinterest in the UK is still very much in the growth and development stage.
Jetsetter is a travel site that offers travel hotels, homes, and tours at discount prices. Its boards feature inspirational and promotional travel imagery, such as 5 Minute Getaways. Jetsetter has over 4 million Pinterest followers.
Make Your Online Shoppers Happy
Online shoppers turn to social media to contact merchants about orders and complain about bad experiences with e-commerce brands. Whether the conversation is a post on your brand’s own Facebook page or a tweet to their followers, it’s important to keep a close eye on all mentions around your brand, to effectively manage your reputation and provide amazing, real-time customer service that will wow your customers and creates loyal fans.
Zappos is well-known for its remarkable customer service online and offline. They respond to customer issues and general mentions of their brand in real time, in a warm and caring tone – humanizing their brand and creating an army of brand advocates.
