9 MIN READ

Gone are the days when you and everyone else used social media merely to stay connected with friends and family. Today, businesses thrive and flourish on social media platforms to reach new customers and grow their followers. According to the latest reports, at least 72% of adults in the U.S. use social media. With that many people using social media, it is no wonder that businesses are utilizing different strategies to leverage this opportunity. 

Did you know global sales via social media reached 560 billion U.S., which is likely to boost to 2.9 Trillion by 2026? A growth that big is hard to ignore. So, would you still be sitting on the fence when you know 90% of brand followers on social media check out their site or app, almost 89% purchase while 85% recommend the brand to others? But when thousands of brands compete for attention with similar offers, what is the right recipe that will make people follow your brand?

While there is no single perfect formula that works for everyone, there are a few essentials that businesses need to focus on to get the most out of social media.

Utilize Organic Social Media Marketing

There is a lot of noise on social media. You might be wondering how to stand out and show your eCommerce business in the middle of all this noise. One of the best ways to do this is by providing your audience with original and authentic content. A great example of this is how Dwayne Johnson engages with social media accounts.

He shares his daily routine, thoughts on current events, and even videos of him working out. This level of engagement makes people feel like they know Johnson personally, and they are more likely to follow him. You would often see him promoting his own brand Teremana, but what really makes his social media presence special is how he engages with people:

This helps Dwayne Johnson improve likes, shares, and comments, but it also helps him build a strong relationship with his audience. You need to focus on providing valuable content to your audience if you want to connect with them. This will help you stand out from the competition and build a loyal following.

User-Generated Content

User-generated content is one of the most powerful marketing tools businesses can use on social media. When customers are happy with a product or service, they take to social media to post about it. And this is where businesses can leverage the power of these posts with UGC campaigns. UGC is a win-win situation for companies and customers. Businesses can get authentic and honest reviews about their products and services while customers earn discounts, freebies, or other rewards for sharing their experience. 

For instance, check this popular campaign generated by Apple.

Apple: “#ShotOniPhone”

Do you still remember that Apple encouraged its customers to share their pictures taken using iPhones on social media by creating a hashtag #ShotOniPhone? What happened afterward? People started taking photos of beautiful landscapes, animals, and portraits using iPhones.

This campaign has crossed over 23 million posts on Instagram and is still counting:

Apple’s millions of followers on Instagram share their UGC daily, which helped them build a solid and loyal audience. And most importantly, people now consider iPhones as the official camera of Instagram. That’s how you utilize user-generated content on social media to grow your eCommerce business.

Stellar Customer Service

One-third of consumers say they will switch after one bad customer experience, whereas 56% of consumers stopped doing business because of poor customer service experience. Customer service staff cannot handle all types of queries users send you on social media, especially during peak hours. It will be challenging to keep up with the fast-paced environment on Christmas or Black Friday holidays. 

It can be tough to provide stellar customer service on social media, but it’s worth the effort. By providing quick and helpful responses to customers, you can turn them into loyal advocates of your business. That’s where AI-powered chatbots come in to help you.

To err is human, but not for artificial intelligence (A.I.). AI-powered Messenger bots can help businesses provide customer service round the clock without any hiccups. With AI-powered chatbots, businesses can track conversations in real-time, answer queries faster, and provide direct links to other services such as appointments or customer interactions to drive awareness and engagement. 

What’s more, Clepher has made it possible for brands to interact with customers 24/7. Make sure you have a process in place for monitoring and responding to comments and complaints promptly. Not only will it make your customers happy, but it also makes sure you build a good rapport with them.

Think Outside the Box

You not only provide stellar customer service that brings in tons of sales but do it in a way that will make customers come back for more. Thinking outside the box can go a long way in providing a unique experience. When customers experience something different, they are more likely to remember the brand for a long time.

For instance, check this personalized strategy from Clepher’s chatbots:

If you message your favorite brand and receive a personalized response like this, wouldn’t you be just WOW? That’s how Clepher builds relationships and responds to its customers on Facebook Messenger. If a customer experiences this personalized response, he will share this with their social circle, ultimately boosting word of mouth for the brand. That’s what Clepher plans for e-commerce brands to automate their business and provide a unique customer service experience that will keep the customers hooked.

Utilize Influencer Marketing

If you want to take your social media marketing for an eCommerce business to the next level, you need to utilize influencer marketing. 78% of women use social media to get advice on their purchasing decisions. What’s more factual is, half of the women purchased products due to influencers posts.  

This is where businesses need to identify the right influencers for their eCommerce business and engage with them. To take your eCommerce business on social media to the next level, you need to start engaging with influencers who have a large following on social media.

Businesses can avail services from influencers via sponsorship or as a brand ambassador. For instance, check this campaign: Christiano Ronaldo promotes CLEAR shampoo through social media. When his followers see him using CLEAR shampoo, they are more likely to buy it or check its availability in the market. This is how you can utilize influencer marketing to connect with your audience.

Use High-Quality Visuals

Good visuals can make your posts more engaging and help you stand out from the competition. They can also help you reach a wider audience and boost engagement rates. The audience prefers to look at images or videos rather than reading text. Even though people should read your posts, visual aids can make information more accessible and entertaining.

When it comes to growing your business on social media, visuals become even more critical. On Facebook, for example, posts with photos get 2 times more engagement than those without any images. Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest have focused on visual content in the last few years. For instance, if you follow Nike, you can see their images are of the highest quality. If they pass through your newsfeed, you will surely stop to look at what it’s about.

It will help grab attention, but it will also help engage followers. There are roughly thousands of social media posts your customers see daily. If you want them to notice you and engage with you, invest in high-quality visuals that will hook them to check out your business.

Use the 80/20 Rule to Your Benefit

The 80/20 rule is a popular business strategy used on social media. The 80/20 rule states that 80% of the content should be creating value and only 20% on selling. In other words, businesses need to focus on the activities that provide value to customers because if customers engage with your business, the money will follow.

If you follow Body F.X., you can see how consistent they are with value-based posts and never overwhelm their followers with selling. You need to focus more on connecting with your audience than just selling them. For instance, in every 20 posts, only 4 posts should be about promotions, discounts, marketing, and the rest should be about connecting with your followers.

This is how you can use the 80/20 rule to boost user experience. Businesses can also utilize this strategy to drive engagement and loyalty among their existing customers by targeting the most engaged audience in their posts.

Bring in Unique and Entertaining Challenges

You need to do something unique that not others in your niche are doing. Many businesses bring in entertainment by asking followers to post pictures of themselves wearing the clothes they just bought from them. Every business is doing the same thing, which might not help stand out. You need to come up with creative ideas that can boost your campaign.

For instance, back in 2020, when museums were closed, Getty Image came up with a unique idea and asked followers to take a picture of any art they have at home and post it with #gettingmuseumchallenge.

Thousands of people participated in this challenge. It gave a sure-shot boost to the brand.

Use Humor in Your Posts (Memes Marketing)

If you want to connect with your audience and give them a good laugh, memes might be the best option. Memes Marketing has become a powerful tool that even high-end brands use to engage users and get brand exposure. People love to share light and amusing posts.

Using humor in your eCommerce business, social media can help to boost your business. For example, KAI, a well-reputed clothing brand, utilizes humor in its social posts to improve engagement.

The idea behind adding humor in your social posts is people love to share memes with their friends and family. If you want to boost your e-commerce business on social media, sprinkle some humor and see the magic happen.

Promote Your Business Everywhere

Social media isn’t limited to Facebook and Instagram. You can take advantage of other social networks to promote your business. Twitter, for example, is an excellent platform for connecting with customers and sharing content that’s relevant to your industry. If you want to promote image-based content, Pinterest is a great choice. In fact, Pinterest is the third most significant social media website in the U.S., and it shows no signs of slowing down.

LinkedIn has excellent potential if your business provides B2B services as most B2B and B2C companies engage on Linkedin. In fact, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network. Make sure you’re active on these social media networks and use them to drive traffic to your website and grow your business. The more you promote your business, the more success you’ll see.

Provider Responses to Queries in D.M.

According to the latest insights from Hubspot, consumers rate quick responses as essential for building trust with a brand.

If you want to build credibility with your customers, you need to respond to their queries quickly. That’s why businesses prefer to use Chatbots for Facebook Business. This is a great way to respond to questions in real-time and build trust with your audience.

There are many benefits of using a messenger bot for your Instagram business. One of the great things about Clepher is that it allows businesses to connect with customers personally. This helps build trust and loyalty, which can lead to increased sales. It shows customers you’re listening and gives them a reason to remain loyal to your brand.

And it can guide people to the product they want. Plus, it even provides a link where people can easily buy the product. If your customers have questions about some product, the chatbot can provide information on its price and availability. Since chatbots are available 24/7, they allow businesses to provide customers with immediate service without the limitations of operating hours.

Try Clepher and Boost your Sales Instantly!

It was predicted in 2017 that up to 90% of bank and medical-related queries would be handled by chatbots in 2022. Now the future is here!  Business owners and marketing teams use our Chatbot Builder to build, publish and analyze Messenger and Instagram bots. We have more than 200 templates to help you easily create your chatbot. Clepher enables you to create a chatbot and provides detailed analytics about your chatbot’s performance.

So, are you ready to automate your customer service and sales process with chatbots?

If you are unsure how to get started or need help designing and building a chatbot, let Clepher help you boost your productivity by going through our FREE chatbot training.

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