These are good times for e-commerce businesses. People’s schedules are getting busier, we all want to avoid crowded places and to save every bit of time that we can. The consumers’ decision making process is continuously changing and adapting to the online and social media technology. The challenge for all the e-commerce businesses out there becomes to become visible and skilled at nurturing the online conversations, engagement and presence.
The number of online businesses is continuously growing and in order to get results you need to really stand out from the crowd. If some years ago, the goal was getting your name to be remembered, today you have to look past that. People have plenty of options and can become very distracted - they can think of you today and forget you the next. The only way to avoid this is to start building a long-time relationship with your clients.
Social media offers the perfect way of doing that. You can gain your consumers’ trust by engaging with them on a more personal level, reaching them in a friendlier, non-invasive way, as opposed to traditional advertising. Mastering online engagement tactics can require a lot of trial and error, but you can follow the advice we have prepared for you in the following lines and shorten the process.
Social Media Sells
Social media sells as long as you don’t use the networking platforms strictly as sales channels. This may sound tricky, but in social media first you have to build your influence to be able to see the number of sales increasing. Implement a strategy that best serves your business and put the accent on interacting and networking. Here’s a useful example of the benefits of using social media in this field - the campaign implemented by the e-commerce site Fab resulted in a nearly 300% growth of sales in January 2013 over January 2012 by using social sharing.
Facebook Apps – Perfect Match for E-commerce
Make it easier for your customers to make purchasing decisions online, to share content about your brand and to make recommendations of products available on your website. Take a sneak peek on how Facebook apps can provide solutions for the e-commerce sector and incredibly boost sales by allowing your followers to become buyers using just Facebook: Facebook Apps Can Provide Ecommerce Solutions.
Use personal profiles, rather than company ones
Using a personal profile that tracks back to your business page is a more natural and easy-going way to engage with influencers and your audience. Instead of managing all your social media activity from your brand’s page, try creating more personal profiles of your community managers, for example. People tend to interact more with individual profiles, rather than with a commercial entity.
Social media forever changed the consumer’s behavior – he is no longer silent, he has plenty of tools to express his needs, opinions and feedback. The clients’ decision process was always a subject of debate and every marketer out there tried to influence it. The difference is that before social media, we only could be influenced by acquaintances, work colleges, friends and family, but nowadays we don’t make any significant purchase decision without checking it online first. Make sure you align to the trend and empower your online visibility through social media.
What did you accomplish so far with the use of social media? What were the tactics that worked best for your business? Share your experiences in the comments below.