7 steps to boost your social commerce strategy

The new year has already begin and as an ecommerce manager you want to reach new goals and increase revenue. Once you know where your customers are, communicating with them on a level that resonates with them is what can really create a hype around your brand.

Here are some specific things to consider if you want to accelerate your social commerce strategy this year.

1. Choose the right social media platforms

To be successful in social commerce, you need to do the basic work first before you begin. Analyze where your customers are and who they are. Do you have a customer persona? If not, start creating one. It’ll help your team pinpoint not only your tone of voice but also on which platforms you should focus. Not every brand will benefit from Instagram and not every brand should post daily on Linkedin.

If your business is visual, for example if you’re a fashion or interior design brand, focusing on Pinterest or Instagram can be a good idea. However, B2B software companies might struggle getting engagement on these social platforms. But don’t limit yourself, be creative. There are examples of B2B businesses that have succeeded on Instagram and found a brand voice that works, even on social networks for business-to-consumer communication.

2. Set clear objectives

To measure the right thing your goals must be clear. A discussion in your team around your social media as well as your ecommerce objectives is probably necessary, to ensure you choose the right metrics. Your metrics can also differ depending on where in the sales funnel your customers are.

Awareness, at the top of the funnel is often measured in reach or impressions. On Instagram, engagement related metrics will probably give you the best kind of results for your organic content, whereas paid ads serve a different purpose.

If conversions are your main goal, define what your conversion rate ideally should be or by how many percent your conversions should increase during a specific period of time.

3. Quality, not quantity

It’s about the quality of your content, not the quantity. Previously, the common idea of how often a brand should post new content was somewhere between 5 to 10 times per week on Facebook and Instagram.

Today, posting too often can actually be counterproductive. Don’t tire your audience. If you don’t have the time or resources to produce new, inspiring content to publish every day, it’s often better to cut down on the frequency.

If you’ve got nothing to say, don’t say it at all. That way, once you do post, your followers are more likely to engage as your photos or videos will be better and more relevant.

4. Improve onsite conversions

Integrate customer photos and videos on your site to inspire and show your products “in real life”. User-generated content (UGC) onsite tends to increase the conversation significantly. Premium clothing brand Stutterheim Raincoats confirms an 18% increase in the conversion rate with Flowbox integrated on the website when an A/B-test was performed.

Your customers’ own images on your site becomes a “social proof” and will drive sales. Include user-generated content not only on your start page but also on for examples product pages or category pages to maximize the potential of UGC.

5. Make Instagram shoppable

There are several ways to integrate your products with your Instagram. When you customers browse through their feed and finds an image of your products, why not make it easy for them to purchase it? That way, you remove the small friction of having to go to your website and find the product on your site. You can also make your Instagram Stories shoppable. This is a highly valuable feature.

6. Focus on micro-influencers

Back in the day, it was all about mega-influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers. They are still important, but they don’t have to be the center of your marketing. In fact, using micro-influencers can make a bigger impact as they oftentimes have a smaller, but more loyal following.

This is especially true if you’re in niche industry or if you don’t have the budget for mega-influencers. Using micro-influencers to share your stories is simply a cost-effective and smart option for both sponsored campaigns and for earned media, where you can share content and stories already created by your influencers.

7. Think conversation, not selling

Ironically, being to focused on selling can work against you. Instead of thinking in terms of advertising, think conversation. When you not only talk to your customers, but also listen to them and respond, your brand engagement will steadily increase.

Styled product images, professionally shot in a studio will give your customers a good image of the details and features of a certain product or garment, but they can be more difficult to relate to.

Photos taken in normal daylight by your actual customers will resonate on a different level with your audience and research shows that the conversation rate often improves with user-generated content onsite.

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