Social Media Marketing in E-Commerce

Should you do social media marketing as an online shop? Absolutely. But why actually? If you want to increase your reach, address customers directly and generate new traffic sources, you should start with social media marketing or expand your existing efforts. Social media is not only gaining relevance today, it is already relevant and part of most people’s everyday lives. So if you want to reach your target group exactly where they are, social media marketing as a sub-discipline of online marketing belongs in your marketing strategy. But how does an online shop succeed in social media marketing, what should you pay attention to when planning and what about organic development and paid advertising? This is exactly what we have looked at in the following article.

Why do social media marketing as an online shop?

Social media marketing offers you a whole range of possibilities to generate more traffic, conversion and ultimately more sales in your online shop. Don’t wait until your customers, prospects or potential new customers come to you or find you by chance. Social media marketing gives you an immediate presence exactly where it matters most: in the everyday life of your target group.

What can social media marketing do?

• increase the visibility of your online shop
• Increase reach and brand awareness
• connect directly with customers and potential new customers
• Build trust and customer satisfaction
• Enter into direct digital customer communication
• Generate more traffic for your shop
• Build brand image
• position yourself as an expert
• Develop new target groups

Which social media channel is suitable for which target group?

Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and many more – the choice of social media platforms has never been greater and the hurdles to creating an account never smaller. Do you have to be present everywhere for your social media marketing? Of course not. What is important is that you serve those social media platforms on which your target group spends time and do so with the right approach. For this reason, it is of great importance to conduct a target group analysis and customer segmentation in advance. This is the only way to avoid spending a lot of time, effort and money on building a channel, only to find out in the end that content is not paid attention to, shared or commented on and that your followers (if you have any) do not interact with you and your brand.

What does target audience actually mean? Your target group in the context of social media marketing includes all those users for whom your products or services offer added value and for whom the potential is greatest that they will be interested in your offer or content and the chance is high that they will sooner or later interact with your online shop. Often people in a target group have common characteristics such as age average, gender, interests, hobbies, demographic characteristics, goals and desires.

So which channels should you serve? Most social networks have certain similarities. Nevertheless, differences can be seen in the age structure, the purpose and, above all, in the approach and customs. Let’s take a look at the most popular and important platforms.

Instagram

Instagram has been part of Facebook since 2012 and enjoys great popularity among many billions of users worldwide. More than half of the users are younger than 35 and belong to the Millennial generation. In addition to the classic Instagram posts (pictures), Instagram Stories (short video clips that automatically delete themselves after 24 hours) are very popular. With pictures or Stories in a company profile, you present yourself and your brand. There is also the option to place targeted advertisements.

Facebook

As the social network of all, it is almost obligatory for a company of any size to have a business profile on Facebook. In order not to get lost in the mass of company profiles, it is important to conduct professional social media marketing. In recent years, Facebook has developed from a pure presentation platform to a service tool. For social media marketing, this means that in addition to content and the presentation or promotion of your offer, you must also take care of direct communication and contact with your fans and potential followers.

LinkedIn

As a career network, LinkedIn is geared towards professional exchange. Here you will mainly meet entrepreneurs, managers and personnel profiles. Accordingly, the content is geared towards business-relevant as well as specialist information and is assigned to the B2B sector. With LinkedIn, you can position yourself as an expert in your industry, expand your network of business partners and build a reputation in your business. Important in social media marketing on LinkedIn are high-quality, professionally oriented and relevant postings with links to blog articles or professional reports.

Pinterest

Pinterest is the ideal platform in social media marketing for online shops that primarily promote their products and services to their customers via visual elements. The Pinterest postings (pins) on boards are mainly for inspiration as well as for discovering trends and possibilities that you have with products and co. For the right social media marketing, it is therefore important to understand that the users on Pinterest are not yet in the buying phase, but in the inspiration phase. They are looking for ideas and application examples that you offer. It is important to integrate a link to a landing page or a blog article in the pins in order to make the next step in the sales funnel easier for the user. On Pinterest, most users are still female.

TikTok

In recent years, the youngest social media network TikTok has gained relevance primarily among the younger generation. The content presented is short video clips, mostly edited with special effects and filters. More than half of the users are under 25. Social media marketing on TikTok focuses on creativity and spontaneity. In contrast to YouTube, the focus here is not on professional video formats, but on authentic postings with wit, humour and at the same time the seemingly casual integration of the brand, products and co. In addition, the platform lives from its immense reaction speed.

Twitter

Twitter is a short message service and is characterised by daily news, information and postings. Twitter is mainly used for announcements, messages and information. The social media network is characterised by text-heavy content. Visual media are used less. Almost half of the users are between 18 and 35 years of age and have a higher income.

YouTube

Similar to Facebook, YouTube’s users are mixed in terms of age structure, which is why one can address quite different target groups with social media marketing. The videos on one’s own YouTube channel are used by most companies as an extension of other marketing efforts, are meant to bring added value to customers and create an experience around the brand and products. Explainer videos or tutorials are just a few formats that come into question for social media marketing. It is important to pay attention to the quality of the productions and to promote and maintain the YouTube channel properly. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

What you should consider in social media marketing

The goal of social media marketing is primarily not to sell, but to gain fans, become visible to target groups, offer added value and create a positive experience around your brand. The focus is on contact and communication. At the same time, social media marketing gives you the opportunity to get to know your customers even better, so that you can tailor activities and processes even better to the wishes, demands and ideas of your target group.

To do social media marketing professionally, you need a social media marketing strategy to guide your efforts on the platforms. What should it include and how do you go about it?

• Define goals
• Determine and analyse target group
• Select channels
• Ensure recognition value through a consistent corporate design on all channels
• Create content with a content plan that offers real added value
• Link online shop
• Establish communication management for customer service (answer queries, respond to comments, etc.)
• Post regularly and maintain the channel

Organic social media marketing vs. paid advertising

You can use social media marketing to build your channel organically, i.e. with the help of free postings, or you can use paid advertisements. What is the difference and which form should you use for your social media marketing?

What are organic posts?

Organic posts are those that you regularly publish on your channels or feed for free, such as posts, images, videos and stories. Users share your posts, like them or communicate with you.

What are paid posts?

Paid posts are a means of pushing certain posts in return for payment, so that they are specifically placed in users’ feeds. In this way, you also reach those customers and new customers who do not (yet) follow you but still fit into your target group. In social media marketing, you can use your own advertisements for paid ads or push posts that have already been posted, which were very popular, for example, once again. Paid ads are only played to your previously defined target group.

When are organic posts suitable?

Organic posts are the heart of your social media marketing. They fill your company feed, entertain your fans and followers and provide them with information and interesting facts about your brand. Always remember that paid posts do not appear on your profile.

Organic posts serve in social media marketing:

• Represent your company
• Create brand image
• Build relationships
• Maintain regular customers
• Establish customer service

When are paid posts suitable?

Paid posts in social media marketing are suitable for reaching more people besides your own fan base and for gaining new fans or customers. Due to the numerous setting options, you can set exactly which people should see the post and thus avoid scattering losses considerably. As already mentioned, you can create your own ads for paid posts or push organic content afterwards.

Paid advertising serves in social media marketing:

• increase reach
• Increase brand awareness
• promote products, offers, events, etc.
• attract new fans and customers
• increase conversions

Organic or paid? What should you use for social media marketing? In this case, it’s the mix that counts. With the content on your channel, you entertain your users, communicate with them and offer customers, potential new customers and prospects a place to go. Paid advertising supports your effort and serves to increase your reach and visibility.

Use social media marketing for your online shop

With social media marketing, you reach your target group in a direct way and have the chance to gain new customers. The activities and content on the channels that are not designed for sales serve to give your online shop a face and prepare for interaction with your brand. With social media marketing, you create trust because you are present in the daily lives of your fans every day. Use the power of social media marketing.