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Got a new eCommerce store launching this year? Well, whatever you do don’t leave social media to chance. If you are itching to get started sharing some fresh new content that you think people will love then you have come to the right place. We have put together some great ideas on how to successfully launch your brand into the wild on all social media platforms and to ensure your profile are creating a buzz for all the right reasons.
Have A Launch Plan
And then…have a backup launch plan!
We get it, it’s a BIG day when you decide to finally open up your store to the public, so it’s important to make sure you are more than ready but also raring to go with loads of fresh ideas and engaging social content.
The first thing to consider is trying to start growing your social following before you even thinking about launching. You don’t really want to open the door to your eCommerce store to the sound of crickets and the odd tumbleweed so It’s a good idea to start generating a buzz in the weeks and months leading up to launch day. You can gamify the wait with countdown timers, competitions and giveaways to get people excited about the brand.
If you can, try and get bloggers and social media influencers to endorse your brand, this will help drive traffic. This one might be fairly difficult to endorse a brand that no one has ever heard of yet but if you pitch it to the right people, someone might just take you up on it.
When the day of the launch actually arrives, it’s a good idea to have a launch campaign which can take people through a fun journey. Share your most interesting product or people stories, but don’t forget to include those hashtags so everyone can get involved. The idea behind this is you want as many people to jump onboard your hashtag as possible, as because of the way social media algorithms are the more people are interacting with something the more new people will see your post.
TOP TIP: Make sure you are investing in the right social media platforms. Think carefully about your content, audience and reach!
Make sure you are investing in the right social media platforms. Think carefully about your content, audience and reach!
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Time To Invest In Those Visuals
Good visual content is important. Fact. It’s really important to start off your social platforms for your brand with good quality and decent images that portray your brand. Ensure you have enough time and money to invest in creating exciting pictures, videos, GIFs and even animations.
When sharing your products, make sure they look the part. Try and use professional product photos as when it comes to product photography lighting is key! It’s also a good shout to try to frame your products in an attractive setting that will help tell your brand’s story.
It’s also a good idea to think about creating some visuals that are fun that people are actually going to want to share. For example, comic strip styles, gags and clickbait stories are all a really powerful way to grow your social reach.
Video content is also very much on the rise so this is something you should strongly think about using in some form. Product videos are great but you should also factor in video testimonials and video ads as part of your whole marketing strategy too.
Factor In Social Media Into The Journey Of A Purchase.
It’s important to try and understand how people behave and buy on social platforms, then integrate these insights into how you manage your store.
The best way to achieve this is to conduct some keyword research and use that data to try and help supercharge all your social media channels and posts. Try to make sure you are using the right phrases in order to trigger sales and engagement.
Online reviews can be supercharged while on social media. If you get customers to share their reviews about your products on their social channels it’s a great way to get more exposure and also boost sales.
If you are going to do this though, make sure all your social sharing buttons work accordingly. Test them frequently as people just won’t share stuff if you don’t make it super easy for them. The amount of sites with broken social sharing links out there is actually staggering, so if you do this properly and you will start to see more value from your social channels.
Customer Service
Both the happy and angry customers will reach out to you on social media, so make sure you are fully prepared for this and have staff to help you reply if needed.
Have frank conversations and try to put policies into place before you launch on just how you should be dealing with those more difficult customers. When replying to unhappy customers make sure that your responses hit the right note, if they seem to be starting to ruffling some feathers then try out a different tactic. When it comes to things like this you are constantly learning on the job so you can keep refining your social customer service skills.
Automation
It’s impossible to run any sort of business social media profiles without some sort of automation, so this is just something you should embrace as there is no shame in it.
Social media software and virtual assistants can help take the headache out of posting on social channels. It means you can get the same message out across all your platforms and all at the same time.
Using automation doesn’t mean you are dialling down your online personality and relationships, it’s all about being smart with your time management and learning to scale.
Content Alignment
It’s crucial to make sure your content is aligned with your audience you are trying to attract.
Social media is the perfect place to basically ‘spy’ on your audience as you can get real-time and unfiltered data on what people are really talking about. Follow popular and recurrent hashtags to see what kind of subjects keep cropping up.
Use the data that you have collected to help you create content that people will most likely engage with. Social media successes are all about connecting with what people actually care about. Content alignment does go both ways to try and make sure you define what your brands’ mission is and that you keep your social media profiles focused on your goals.
TOP TIP: Digital content that comes from the heart is much more genuine and will attract more engagement.
Digital content that comes from the heart is much more genuine and will attract more engagement.
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Follow An Editorial Calendar
It’s really easy to just get caught up in the sea content that’s out there, so try and stay focused on what’s working for you and your audience right now.
Planning out a strategic editorial calendar is time well-spent and trust us it will save you both time and money in the long run. Ramp up the social heat when you need to but also tone down things during the quieter periods but don’t just completely go off the grid as you don’t want your followers to forget about you.
Build Up Relationships
Using social media is the perfect way to build up relationships with your customers.
It’s also the perfect technique to get in touch with influencers, in niches such as beauty and fashion, social media influencers mean big business and can be a very powerful tool in order to drive sales. (Just make sure you pick the right ones). It can be very easy to start throwing away loads of money at people so you need to be 100% clear on what you’re wanting to achieve when it comes to influencer marketing.
Another key part of building up relationships is to respond to as many people as you can. Always be polite and share other people’s content and also try and interact with fans and customers frequently. If you are trying to reach out to new people, try and not to always reach straight for the emails. Social media is a great opportunity to gain people’s attention especially when new media publishers like bloggers and vloggers can be easily found on social.
So in a nutshell, social media is a really important part of your eCommerce business. It’s central to your branding, marketing, sales and customer service. Don’t go and launch your brand on social media channels without proper research and careful planning. Ensure you keep your eyes open to what’s going on around you and what social media platforms are going to help you drive those all important sales in the future.