Most of us have bought jewellery off Etsy, textbooks from Amazon, and limited edition kitsch through eBay. But what exactly is eCommerce – this wonderful thing that can fill your life with kitsch lunch boxes you never even wanted – and more importantly, how can you make it work for you?
eCommerce is one of the few, beautiful tech terms that is just what it sounds like: eCommerce is any selling/buying that happens online. This includes online: shopping, banking, payments, auctioning, and ticketing.
Most of us have used most or all of these online services at one point or another; as the minutiae and minutiae of our lives become increasingly integrated with / dominated by cyberspace and digital technology.
If your site uses eCommerce, a social media following and the smooth operating process can mean the difference between success and the kind of abject failure that makes you reach for tonight’s third whiskey while berating yourself for ever having left your day job and tried, for the first time in your life, to do something big, something that might mean you’re remembered posthumously.
1 Make your customers feel at home
Customers want to feel connected to the site they’re buying from, this is part of why Etsy has done so well; if you make the buying experience feel intimate, the customer is more likely to enjoy the process and remember your site. This can be as simple as including candid office updates via social media or adding a how-it’s-made video to your monthly newsletter. These personalised touches will help your customers to feel like they’re part of a community. You can find examples of two companies which have effectively utilised personalisation very well here and here.
2 Get creative about social media outlets
We all know the ins and outs of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, but how many of us actively utilise the full marketing potential of networks like Pinterest, tumblr, and snapchat? With social media, being open-minded and trying new things pays off. Try to greatly diversify your online presence via social media–and then stick with what works and ditch what doesn’t after a trial period.
3 Reward loyalty
Making sure your customers know there are benefits and perks to shopping with you will keep them coming back for more – and boost perceptions of your store. Promo codes in monthly newsletters and exclusive deals for followers are two of the ways you can encourage your customers’ loyalty.
4 Pencil it in, pencil it all in
Scheduling social media posts using tools like Hootsuite help to ensure that your content is posted regularly and that the voice and tone are cohesive. Using a calendar to schedule your content will make sure nothing falls through the cracks and will keep your content at the top of everyone’s social media feed.
5 Be Transparent about who’s doing what
If your blog posts are written by a number of people, specify who is writing what, and allow them to have individual voices. Blogs with extremely unified voices and tones tend to be a bit dull, and everyone knows multiple people are writing the posts anyways – the result is that very particular feeling of unease which is associated with corporate 9/11 memorial posts, stock photos of office scenes, and the term ‘maximal synergistic.’ Let your content creators have their own voice – and let them put their name on their work; they’ll be able to generate more engaging content, and visitors will be more interested.
With these five eCommerce social media tips, you’ll be able to start building a following and crafting your site’s digital persona. Matrix Internet’s digital marketing specialists are also here to help you sculpt your site’s persona into something truly formidable; contact us here for more information!
By Jeff Sheridan
By Matrix Internet
By Irene Hislop
By Conor McCaffrey