The internet has long since ushered in the new era of business and commerce with which we are all now well familiar. It has never been easier to at least get started in ecommerce, as the costs and types of initial investments involved in starting a site are now more manageable than ever before.
However, business is still businessand some of the eternal rules of business never change. For success in ecommerce – or any online endeavor – you need to stand out and attract people towards your site. Part of this comes down to SEO while another part comes down to marketing.
Marketing online – just like ecommerce more generally – is also something which has been made infinitely more affordable in recent times. Just think of all the social media marketing today which takes the form of nothing more than a portrait-orientated smartphone video. That shows just how easy it is to produce the marketing – but it is still fiendishly difficult to stand out.
In fact, you could say that standing out, in particular, has actually been made harder. With so many entities conducting business online today, it is far too easy to become nothing more than a drop in the digital ocean.
The Power and The Challenges of Social-Media
When it comes to marketing, this phenomenon of increased advantages is marked by new challenges as well, and nowhere more so than on social media. Social media offers millions of users who can be instantly connected with for free. The usership of the likes of Facebook and Instagram are so huge that, especially for smaller sites with limited traffic, this is the way to reach a broad customer or visitor base.
But the challenges again arise. With so many social media users to target, how do you stand out? Well, the most obvious tip is to target the right ones. In social media, this can usually be done in one of the two ways – either by building up followers to a specific social media page or by marketing on other pages where potential traffic could be sourced.
Sacramento SEO company Peak Design note that it is this combination of the targeted marketing for social media and SEO proficiency for search engines that really draws traffic to a site.
Social Media Marketing Tips
So, that’s all the fundamentals behind using social media for business. But what about the practicalities? Here follows some specific social media marketing tips:
Create a Strategy
This is essential because you cannot just post social media marketing posts anywhere and anytime. A good social media marketing strategy will set out what sites you are going to use, who your target audience will be and what, specifically, your unifying brand message is.
Be Consistent
This is vital. Interest will not come straight away and will not be maintained unless you post constantly. This does not mean saturating every single Facebook page with your posts, but it does mean posting to a regular schedule.
Create Entertaining Content
Or in other words, make it look like something other than a simple ad. This could be using entertaining videos which feature your brand, or useful blog posts that mention your products.
Engage With Responses
Thething about social media is that it is social. Do not just post and have done with it. If users comment on the posts, engage that interest by replying. You can also link interested users to other posts you have made and even to your website itself.
Social media offers any online site massive opportunities for spreading the word. But there is a right and wrong way of going about it.
