Everybody knows that social media is for two things — photos of your food, and gratuitous selfies. After we did some digging however, we found out that social media is also an impressively powerful marketing tool for ecommerce stores.
As you’re no doubt aware, social media provides almost unparalleled bang for your buck when it comes to reaching your perfect audience, on their terms.
The marketing nerds agree, finding a whopping 87% of ecommerce shoppers believe social media helps them make buying decisions.
It’s both cheaper and easier to engage with your customers, keep your brand top of mind, and ultimately, generate more revenue for your ecommerce business when it comes time for them to buy.
Make your brand stand out on social media
The problem is, how do you get attention amongst the noise of not just those unwarranted selfies, but those pesky ecommerce competitors vying for internet eyeballs?
Well, there is actually good news here — most ecommerce stores are terrible at social media marketing.
Yup, you’d be surprised at how many ecommerce stores we see that just set up an Instagram page and wait for the customers to raaaiin on down from social media heaven.
Now as you probably already know, it doesn’t work like that — you need to have good ideas, as well as a strategy to genuinely engage your audience and increase your sales.
Well lucky you, we’ve got you covered.
Now we’re not suggesting any of our tips are revolutionary. If you’ve been around the social media marketing block you may have even seen one of them before. If you’re new to social media marketing, it’s okay, we’ll rock your growing marketing mind.
But we reckon that even if you’ve heard it before, it might be worth hearing it again to re-light that fire. These are fundamental concepts that should be bright and shiny in your social media marketing toolbox.
Sit tight, and in just 9 minutes, we’ll give you 10 proven social media post ideas to bring more visitors to your ecommerce store, and genuinely increase your revenue.
1. Cross-Promote with Other Ecommerce Stores
What? If our very first idea is to promote your ecommerce competition, we can hardly be the brightest crayons in the marketing box, right?
Okay, hear us out.
We’re not suggesting that you work with direct competitors, but let’s say you sell hair products aimed at women in their twenties. Well why not reach out to an ecommerce store that sells makeup products targeted at women in their twenties?
Hunt around social media and see if you can find an ecommerce brand that aligns with your brand’s audience and values.
By mentioning each other in your social media posts, not only are you providing relevant content, but you are opening up your brand to an entirely new (but very compatible) audience.
Everybody wins!
2. Connect with a Micro-Influencer
Okay, so imagine at one end of social media, you have one of the Kardashian sisters promoting their latest line of stick-on pouty lips.
They are reaching a gazillion people, and you’ll need a top-tier budget to afford their influence. This is the macro-influencer end of the scale.
At the other end of the social media scale however, are micro-influencers. These are just regular, everyday people with a passionate interest in a particular area.
In this case, let’s say that area is action figures (they’re not dolls, okay?).
They probably only have 10,000 or so followers, but these followers are tight-knit and equally passionate about action figures — they just eat up everything this micro-influencer says.
Micro-influencers are actually so influential amongst their audiences, that they drive 22.2 times more weekly conversations than regular consumers.
Best of all, you don’t have to talk to some fancy PR agent to find them.
To find a micro-influencer:
- Go through your own social media followers and see if anyone has around 10,000 followers, with an absolute maximum of 50,000 followers (which is often where engagement falls off)
- There is also a ‘nano-influencer’ category for accounts for 1,000 to 10,000 followers which may also suit your needs/budget.
- Search social media for hashtags in your field, e.g. #actionfigures, and find someone active with that hashtag, that has 1,000 or so followers
- Use a platform like Scrunch, that can connect you with a micro-influencer
Reach out to them, and offer them a free action figure or two if they mention their experience with you in one of their posts.
For the cost of a tiny bit of your ecommerce inventory, you’ve just reached out to thousands of people who truly value what that micro-influencer thinks.
3. Let Your Audience Do It for You with User-Generated Content
Okay, picture this horrifying, all-too-familiar scenario.
Tuesday, 9 am. Ugh… it’s time for another social media post for your ecommerce store, but gee whiz, you just can’t be bothered thinking of something to post.
It’s a sad, and all too common occurrence in the land of ecommerce marketing, and we feel for you.
So we have a solution for when this situation arises — just let your users do the content for you!
User generated content is 85% more influential than content made by a brand.
An example might be if you sell sewing tools, you would show off a customer’s latest sewing creation. It promotes your product, shows you care about your customers, and creates real inspiration for other followers.
Not to mention, you know darn well (sewing humor, embrace it) that particular customer will be pleased as punch, and will share that post everywhere they can.
4. Post Photos from Behind the Scenes
Your ecommerce site can be as slick as can be, with the most polished user experience ever — but at the end of the day, people like to know there are other real human beings behind a business.
In a world where everything is corporate, shiny, and faceless, it’s warmly refreshing for customers to see the human element that makes your brand work.
To you, your business might seem pretty hum-drum, but we promise, to your followers, there is just a little bit of mystery about how it all works.
Something as simple as a photo of you working on a new project goes a long way to breaking down barriers between your brand and your audience. It’s proven to work too, because pictures with faces get 38% more likes.
5. A Flash Sale Exclusive to Followers
There are two aspects to this idea that make it wonderfully effective.
One, is that it’s urgent and time specific, so it creates a sense of fear of missing out (FOMO for the kids out there).
Two, the sale is only available exclusively to your followers — this helps your audience feel like they are part of a private club of just a chosen few. There is nothing quite like the red carpet treatment to appeal to one’s ego.
This works particularly well if you use an underselling product, because you create hype and impulse for something that would have otherwise sold quite slowly.
Make sure the offer is bound to a specific time (e.g. Tomorrow night, 7 pm to 10 pm only!), and make the offer compelling — none of that 10% off stuff, make it worth their attention.
This isn’t something you want to do too often though, otherwise your audience will become fatigued to the idea, and it won’t have as much impact. Try not to do it more than a few times a month, and you’ll do well. Keep an eye on your engagement to see what is the right offer frequency for your audience.
6. Poll Your Audience
Everybody, and we mean everybody likes it when other people know their opinion.
Because their opinion is special, important, and unique, like a snowflake, obviously. So if you can ask a question that only requires them to click a box, you betcha they’ll engage with that post.
You guessed it, creating a poll on social media is all about that magical word, engagement. And it is incredibly easy to get people involved with just a simple poll.
It helps if it can be just a little bit controversial too (we said controversial, not career-ending) because that will create discussion in the comments.
So let’s say you sell Photoshop courses on your ecommerce store. You could ask your audience whether the format ‘Gif’ is pronounced ‘Ghif’ or ‘Jif’. Now you, dear reader, are probably not a Photoshop geek, so you don’t care one little bit. But we assure you, this audience would be all over it — it’s the height of controversy in the world of Photoshop.
If you are confident you have a dedicated following/community that would be willing to talk about things not related to your ecommerce store, you can also ask general questions, like this example:
7. Do a Live Video
More than half of marketers around the world will tell you to make videos, because well, it is a good idea. That’s because 64% of people make a purchase after watching an online video about a product.
The problem is, even with the amazing cameras on our mobile phones, it can be hard to match the production quality that most people expect these days.
We think a good way around this is to do a live video, because it’s quick, easy, and you get given a lot of leeway if the production isn’t Spielberg quality stuff.
The other big benefit of doing live videos is that it’s a vacuum cleaner for attention — people will be sucked right in.
In a world of Netflix and YouTube, we don’t really watch anything ‘live’ anymore.
So if you post a live video, there is a real intimacy and immediacy there that pulls people in. You can talk directly to them, rather than at them, and that’s like a piping hot cup of chocolate to the human brain.
To keep things engaging, you can do things like live product demonstrations, Q&As, or take people behind the scenes of what you are getting up to.
Have fun, and don’t worry about it being perfect. It’s all about just talking to your audience as your like-minded friends.
8. Meme It Up
Once relegated to the less sophisticated parts of the internet, memes are now very much mainstream — and done right, they can appeal to both broad audiences, as well as very specific ones.
Admit it — you’ve seen a meme once or twice that at least made you exhale sharply through your nose. The point is, it got your attention, and you enjoyed it.
90% of the information people process is done visually, so meme images are an easy way to grab people’s attention, and give a bit of personality to your brand that you might not get through text.
The same goes with emojis too — they’ve become a pretty integral part of the way people communicate these days (92% of people online use them), so it makes sense to talk the same language as your customers.
There is an emoji for almost everything, so see what suits your brand, as well as the type of emojis your customers use. It works too, as one study found that Facebook headlines with emojis created 241% more clicks than headlines without emojis.
For both memes and emojis, make sure it is brand appropriate. Don’t post anything too risqué or divisive, as you will risk losing followers. Keep it wholesome!
9. Celebrate a Customer
It’s time to ramp up the warm and fuzzy levels here, because we want to share the love.
By celebrating a valued customer, you will obviously make that particular customer feel fantastic, and they will share your post.
But what you are also doing is adding to the fabric of your online community by embracing the people in it. If you have a super-customer, tell your audience how much customers like that mean to you and your family.
They are the reason you do what you do. Awww.
Online hugs and smooches aside, brands that connect on an emotional level get 300% more word of mouth marketing from their customers. Science!
10. Pay Someone Else to Do Your Ecommerce Social Media
All of the ideas we’re suggesting in this article are relatively easy and inexpensive to do. However there is one thing that is always limited, and that’s time.
These days there are plenty of social media experts that can do everything for you, from creating a social media calendar, to posting the content for you, and providing all of the relevant metrics.
That leaves you to focus on what you’re best at — creating and growing a successful ecommerce brand.
Best Practices for Ecommerce Social Media Marketing
So we’ve given you 10 proven ideas to successfully market your ecommerce site on social media, but there are a few whens, hows, and whys that are important to consider.
Follow these basic guidelines to make sure your social media activity makes the biggest splash possible.
- Make sure your branding and language is consistent across your social media — it’s important to create a sense of familiarity.
- Don’t overwhelm them with posts. 46% of users un-follow a brand because it posts too much. There are exceptions by industry, so you’ll want to monitor your engagement accordingly.
- The people you are talking with are human beings. They might say something nasty, but remain calm, polite, and professional. Help nurture an environment your followers would like to stay in.
- Don’t steal content, because stealing is bad. If you use a meme for example, add a link to the source where you found it.
- Use up to the maximum of 30 hashtags if required. Using 11 or more hashtags garners 442% more engagement that using no hashtags. To avoid looking spammy, put your hashtags below the bottom two lines of your caption, or in the comments (there is no difference in functionality here).
- Keep it all business — while we encourage you to bring a human element to your posts, make sure everything you do is through your business identity, not your personal one.
- Create a calendar of what to post and when to post it. For example, a top of mind post might be every second day, but a flash sale might be once a month. Make sure you have a plan.
- Measure, rinse, and repeat. If you do a flash sale for example, see what sort of results you get in terms of comments, likes, and sales. Next time you do a flash sale, change the offer, timing, or the wording a little bit to see how it affects things. This will allow you to continuously improve on your messaging.
Conclusion – What’s Next with Your Ecommerce Social Media Marketing?
The 10 ecommerce social media post ideas we’ve just given you are all rock solid and easy to implement.
Each one has a specific purpose, so pick out one that you think will help your ecommerce business the most.
Then, try it out.
Why not right now?
Just spend 15 minutes putting one together and post it. It doesn’t have to be perfect; you’ll get better over time.
The most important thing is to start.
Get started with just one of these ecommerce social media ideas, and make it your priority to earn more customers, and more revenue.
It’s within your reach, so what are you waiting for?
If you’ve got any questions at all about what you’ve just read, comment below and we’ll be more than happy to help.
Need more help? SOLID Marketing are first-class operators when it comes to finding more customers for marketers and owners of ecommerce businesses. We’re not just good at it— we really do enjoy the challenge of making your site bristle with new visitors. If you think your ecommerce business has room to grow, please do reach out to us — our team would be glad to help you.
