7 Keys to Using Social Media for Ecommerce Sales

You have a fantastic ecommerce site all ready to go.

Great products with great prices to match. The site is uploaded, published and out there on the web. So far, so good, but how are your intended customers going to find your site?

Sure, your customers might find you by doing a web search, but unless they enter the right key words and are prepared to trawl through all those 2nd and 3rd page results, the chances of them finding you are going to be pretty slim. This is the challenge for all but the most well known online household names and its where using social media for ecommerce can really give you a competitive advantage. If you follow these eight simple steps, you’ll not only drive extra traffic to your site, but push it up the Google rankings all the way onto page one of a search.

  1. Set up a Twitter account for your site. Pick an easy to remember name (or handle), but not one that’s too long. Shorter handles make it easier for others to mention you in their tweets. You don’t want to take up any more of the alotted 140 characters in each tweet. Search for folks using keywords related to your site and follow them. If you engage them in conversation, they’ll follow you back. make your tweets interesting and try not to ‘broadcast’ or be too salesy.  Tweet regularly.
  2. Use a Facebook page to write short posts featuring a different product from your site every day. Use the facebook search engine to find others with an interest in your products. Look at who has ‘liked’ your competitors and visit their pages, leaving comments. They may well visit your page in return and comment. Again, its all about creating conversations.
  3. Use a photo sharing site to feature really nice images of your products. Nice images is KEY.  The better quality and more interesting your images, the more they’ll be shared. Pinterest, Tumblr, and Flickr are great for this and all give you the option to cross post to Twitter and Facebook too. This activity is great for helping your business feature high up in the search engine rankings. Consider some meme style photos of your products, employees, etc to personalize your brand.  This works great on photos posted to Facebook posts as well.
  4. Google+ is now the second most used social media platform so don’t give it a swerve. The great thing about this site is that one single sign-on gives you access to all the Google sites, like blogger, YouTube, and Picassa and all of these are great for featuring your products and your website. Join and create circles actively.  Post and comment on others’ posts regularly.
  5. Visit user-group and special interest forums. While it’s not good form to just plaster the link to your website on every space you visit (and this will probably get you banned), forums are a great place to engage in conversations with potential customers. You can always include your site URL in the signature you’ll set up when you join up. People are curious and will click on your link.
  6. Consider joining question and answer sites like Quora and Yahoo Answers. You can answer questions left by users which may be about your area of business. This positions you as an expert in your field and again, starts conversations with potential customers. And provides some link juice back to your site.
  7. Make sure all of your social media activity is integrated into your Ecommerce site. Customers should be able to click through to any of your social media sites, and join in the chatter. Your products should be easily sharable. Your content as well.

Bonus Tip!  Protect your brand. Watch out for any feedback left on social media about your business and answer it really quickly. Use a tool like HootSuite to monitor mentions and keyword streams that you defint. A cheery thank you for a compliment encourages loyalty, and any complaints can be headed off at the pass and even converted into compliments by good customer service.

Above all, remember that social media is all about creating conversations with potential customers, not just pumping out a one-way stream of product offers and services. Its these interactions which increase your following and drive more traffic to your Ecommerce site. And with Google’s new algorithms favoring interactions rather than static content, engaging with your customers is much more likely to get you to the top much more quickly.

3 thoughts on “7 Keys to Using Social Media for Ecommerce Sales”

  1. Pingback: 7 Keys to Using Social Media for Ecommerce Sale...

  2. I was just wondering what is your take on the increasing popularity of Bitcoin even though it’s not yet been fully recognized by the banking industry. Do you think this is going to be the norm over time? – Devlin of Singapore e-commerce development team.

    1. Hi Delvin,

      My take on Bitcoin is that intriguing but risky. Bitcoin.com itself states that you should treat Bitcoin like a high risk asset and that you shouldn’t store money that you can’t afford to lose. That says it all. However, over time things could improve and Bitcoin funds could become more stable and secure. It definitely has a lot of potential. Time will tell its true fate.

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