The Advantages of Using Social MediaSocial media outreach is an essential component of a marketing strategy for many brands. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and many others offer an accessible way for brands to reach their audience. What are some of the advantages of using social media? Let’s explore!
 
It’s a Direct Connection to a Wider Audience
Popular social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram have many Monthly Active Users (MAUs). Facebook alone has 2.9 billion MAUs, so it is usually the first social platform brands turn to. This can work to a brand’s advantage, getting as many eyes on your products and services as possible. Furthermore, it offers a direct connection that serves an audience’s curiosity and makes them more familiar with products and services.
 
Influencer Marketing and Paid Ads Are More Affordable
Influencer marketing and paid advertising offer brands a more economical approach to reaching said audience. You don’t need a big celebrity; a micro-influencer with a large following of your target audience will do the trick. It’s a great way for newer brands to make their name known. Not sure where to find an influencer relevant to your brand? Check out some of the top influencer marketing platforms like Upfluence, Grin and CreatorIQ and filter for your niche. Paid ads can also be tailored to slide into the social feeds and generate loyal followers who may eventually hit that “buy” button.
 
Social Media Points Increases Shop Page and Website Visitors
With a community of followers, a brand can alert them of promotions, sales and other offerings that lead them to a website and more importantly, a shop page! Whether the brand sells home decor or fine jewelry, a captivating image of the latest products can entice followers to pay a visit to a site, driving traffic and generating sales.
 
Pitfalls to AvoidWith all the advantages that social media has to offer to grow a brand, it’s still a good idea to know what kind of pitfalls to avoid. Here are a few snags and snafus that can trip up a well-meaning social media marketing plan.
 
Not Researching Your Target Audience
Yes, one major advantage of social media is that a brand can reach a wider audience with multiple accounts. Still, you have to start somewhere. If you ignore data-driven details and metrics that help define your target audience, all your social media posts will fail to capture the attention of those that matter – your customers and clients! So, learn how to make your brand appeal to your audience from the get-go.
 
Being on Every Social Media Platform
New social media platforms are popping up practically every year: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest and the latest Snapchat and TikTok, among a few. If it seems overwhelming, you’re not wrong. But there’s an easy solution. Instead of trying to blanket them all and stretching the marketing department too thin, focus on the social media platforms that your target audience uses most. For example, Pinterest offers interior designers and homeowners a way to pin furniture and decor. Also, remember to align the style and tone of voice to the platform. For example, LinkedIn readers will appreciate a more professional angle.
 
Becoming Over-Reliant on Automation
Once your brand markets itself to its target audience, don’t forget to connect with followers on a more personal level. Automation offers a modern convenience of posting consistently, but real engagement begins when a brand replies to comments and answers questions, even under an influencer’s social media post. So hop into the brand accounts – on a weekly basis at least – to get involved with your followers and build that trust factor.

Discover the Best Social Platform for Your Brand TodayTake advantage of everything social media has to offer. Join a social media platform – or two or three – and begin promoting your brand today. Research your target audience or simply learn more details on who that audience truly is. Just remember to avoid some of the common pitfalls mentioned above and align your message and tone to fit your brand. 

Celebrity sells, and even with your best efforts at focusing on conventional strong points for growing an e-commerce business, it may be time to cash in on the notoriety of big names.
That’s the reality for a lot of merchants, but not all. Your store might realize a so-so benefit from investing in this trend. Let’s look at the pluses and the minuses.

Influencer marketing typically harnesses the high-profile status of well-known (and sometimes surprisingly not so well-known) “influencers,” meaning people with immense followings on social media. Endorsements, product mentions, personal stories – they all attract interest. Whether it’s a big name like Kardashian, or a Johnny-Come-Lately who has grown a big audience and mass presence through clever marketing, leveraging this type of sales strategy can be lucrative.

Influencer marketing is also a form of branded content; not a one-size-fits-all concept. It’s hard to deny the effect of social media on virtually all consumer demographics, making sites like Facebook (Meta), Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and various and sundry platforms a critical asset to market products you sell.

Experts estimate that U.S. marketers will engage in some form of influencer marketing to the tune of nearly 73 percent in 2022. Want more stats? An estimated 14 percent of 18-to-24 year olds and 11 percent of millennials made a purchase within the last six months, strictly driven by influencer marketing. The concept is anything but new, and dates back to celebrity TV ad endorsements from decades earlier.
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In 2022, influencers might be successful bloggers who have grown a following over the years. Parenting blogs, fitness blogs, foodie blogs, and fashion blogs are common examples. Non-famous individuals have built large audiences with sheer creativity and relevance. And even better, people trust them.

How do you absorb the cost of influencer marketing? Particularly in light of an imperfect method to measure metrics for return-on-investment, it’s an important question. What once was “paid partnerships” has morphed into “sponsored posts.” And for the privilege of hopping on board, the unspoken industry standard is $100 per 10,000 followers. Deciding between quality and quantity is another consideration: are you seeking a broad reach, or does your product line(s) call for a more tailored approach?

As Instagram is considered the gold standard for influencer marketing, start there. Influencers usually offer a press kit with the details you need to make a decision. A typical Instagram sponsored photo post caption might set you back under $2,000 for an influencer with fewer than 100,000 followers. To get started, you should start slow and build up.
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Here are a few tips to keep in mind if you’re pitching on Instagram:

• Live-action videos grab attention more often than still photography.
• Sponsored posts that emulate advertisements might be overlooked.
• Strive for casual, humanistic content/video material that relates to buyers.
• A CTA (Call to Action) narrative is compelling and interesting, and adding tags that encourage continued reading is even better.
  
  

However you choose to move forward with influencer marketing, take care in crafting an effective strategy from out of the gate. Choose the right influencer for your inventory. Make your content attractive, concise, and enticing. You may be pleasantly surprised as you watch your sales grow.

If you’re feeling as if virtually everyone wants your business, you’re not wrong. Scads of entities are putting their heads together, attempting to formulate ways to take advantage of the growing ecommerce sector. Shop-from-home habits are a mainstay. But here’s one you may not have expected: YouTube.

The decades-old platform known mostly for music and video content has figured out there are dollars to be made by leveraging their assets and inviting sellers to show off their wares. YouTube Vice President for Shopping (yes, there is such a title) put it succinctly: “YouTube has an enormous shopping opportunity.”
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He may be right, and you may be interested. The trendy site once catering to a younger set was acquired by Alphabet Inc., parent company of Google, in 2006, and since then has explored opportunities for maximizing its reach. At one time YouTube’s sole source of revenues came from advertisements, but that is no longer the case. Offering subscription services, live television content, and much more, YouTube is gaming the system. Now they’re targeting commerce. The Covid-19 pandemic left no corner untouched, and it certainly drove YouTube to consider entering the shopping scene.

 
YouTube is focused on dipping its toe into the water of being a full-fledged shopping platform, connecting with merchants and even delivery systems. YouTube channels already represent a nicely partitioned set of subsets, making the foray much easier. Relying on Google’s commerce system, they are ahead of the game.

Another no-brainer for this expansion? Google’s existing online retail presence. Newly partnered with big players such as Shopify and Square, YouTube’s parent company has created a path for success. And because YouTube regulars with massive channels are already entering into commercial agreements, the conversion could be seamless.

Shoppers who become interested in products pitched over YouTube have been moving to physical stores to purchase, which may quickly become a thing of the past once this newfangled approach gets up and running.
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Look for social media rivals such as Facebook, TikTok, and Snapchat to explore ways to join in this new video-driven commerce scene. Competition is almost always a positive, so soon you may find yourself with new marketing opportunities you’d never anticipated.

As COVID-19 turned the world upside down, consumers resorted to social media to make connections in a socially-distanced environment. However, social media also serves as a strong platform for retailers to build trust with customers---and it has a significantly strong influence on buying decisions.

71% Users More Likely to Purchase from Social ReferralsWe all know the power of social proof, but the stats show exactly where the strongest influence comes from with social users.
 
For example, 71% of people are more likely to buy a product that’s based on social media referrals. This includes seeing ads from retailers or even from influences.
 
Influencer marketing is recognized as one of the most powerful ways to market products. This is especially the case for Twitter, as studies show that 50% of users made purchases directly because an influencer referred the product.
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What Social Platforms Bring the Most Product Sales?Keep in mind that not all social platforms will yield the same results. You must consider the demographic and where your ideal customer most likely spends their time online. This is part of the bigger strategy of choosing the correct social platform for promotion.
 
Many product-based brands can find selling success on the following platforms:
 

• Facebook: As the largest social platform with 1.7 billion users and growing, Facebook offers extensive reach into a range of demographics. Ad spend is considerably affordable on this platform, which improves reach to your audience. You can target new potential customers by targeting engagement patterns and other behaviors.
• Instagram: Owned by Facebook, Instagram has 1 billion active monthly users. This platform is effective for reaching the teenage and college-aged demographic. Instagram also integrates easy shopping options with ads.
• TikTok: One of the newer social platforms that exploded in popularity over the last several years, TikTok is a go-to with Gen Z-aged users. This platform curates its feed based on users’ interests, which makes it outstanding for brand awareness.
• Twitter: The platform with the highest influencer pull, Twitter works as a fast-paced social platform with a focus on trends. It’s a network where people can chat about brand experience, while 53% of people recommend businesses and products in their tweets.
• YouTube: Owned by Google, YouTube has a powerful influence on buying decisions for several reasons. First, influencer recommendations can reach hundreds to thousands of subscribers. Furthermore, product reviews can help buyers understand how products look and function in their own homes. YouTube is also the second most popular search engine in the world next to Google. It processes more than 3 billion searches per month.

If you’ve leveraged the power of social media to drive sales to your ecommerce business, you will be excited to hear this news. Facebook’s unrolling of “Facebook Shops” opens up wide doors of opportunity to go beyond just advertising, and straight into conducting commerce on the premier social media site.

If you haven’t bothered to engage with social media to drum up business for your business, now is a good time to start. Trends indicate the shift in retailing toward online sales is a real deal, made more robust in this unplanned and uncertain time of restricted public movement due to a global pandemic. Analysts predict that once the situation evens out and stores reopen, a significant portion of commerce will continue to occur over the internet. Put simply, the barriers that made many hesitate in the days before Covid-19 are all but shattered.

Enter Facebook, always in search of ways to capitalize on any marketing trend. Their advertising revenues—gained from more than 8 million businesses—have been astronomical, and that in turn has led them to jump in with both feet, offering up a first-line sales platform for ecommerce vendors like you.
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This new, cost-free feature allows businesses to set up product listings on their Facebook page, Instagram profile, and in stories or in ads. Future plans include direct sales through chat features of WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram Direct. Facebook owns all of these entities.

Creating a strong social media presence has never been easier or more effective.
 
More and more people are flocking to various social media platforms to connect and share with loved ones. Whether it’s scrolling through a Facebook group or sharing the perfect vacation selfie on Instagram, it’s hard to imagine a world without social media at the forefront.
 
With billions of users who spend, on average, three hours a day on social media, businesses have a stronger opportunity than ever to target their message to those who are eager to hear it. But with social media trends constantly changing, and so many different marketing options out there, staying on top of the most effective strategies and putting them into practice can be a full time job in and of itself.
 
Who has time for that when you have a business to run?
 
Luckily, there are a wide variety of wonderful tools that take the guesswork out of social media marketing while saving precious time. And who doesn’t need more of that?
 
Let’s look at a few important strategies for any business to thrive, and the social media marketing tools that can help do just that.
 
Best for Lead Generation - Audiense 
 
Audiense offers a convenient array of tools to help you not only identify your audience, but to zero in on smaller segments within that audience to target your message accordingly. It gives you insights into their personalities and buying habits to help you communicate more effectively. And it provides reports and data to back it all up, making customer engagement a breeze.
 
Best for Analytics - Facebook Analytics
 
Facebook continues to dominate as the leading social media platform. Over two-thirds of American adults reported using it in 2019. When it comes to marketing, Facebook Analytics gives you all the tools and statistics you need to analyze what works and what doesn’t. It offers in-depth reporting on the customer process from beginning to end, showing you when, where, and how people are interacting with your content.
 
Best for Content Creation - Tagboard
 
Tagboard allows you to search for topics, keywords, and hashtags so you can see what’s trending and what your audience is paying attention to. You can use that information to share popular stories or create fresh, new content based on the things your customers care about. Focusing on what people are actually reading about, rather than just guessing, will help keep your business relevant and get your content more views, likes, and shares.
 
Best for Chatbots - MobileMonkey
 
Chatbots help deliver a smooth customer experience by interacting and answering their questions in real-time. MobileMonkey is a free service that makes it easy to set up a chatbot and talk to your customers on messaging apps they’re already using, like SMS and Facebook messenger. To make things even simpler, it allows you to type out your chat content once, then use it across different platforms.
 
Best for Graphics - Canva
 
You don’t need to be a professional web designer to create eye-catching graphics that will draw attention to your brand. With an attractive array of pre-made layouts to choose from, Canva makes it easy to do just that. From logos to flyers to educational infographics, there’s an option to help every part of your marketing campaign stand out. And with both free and paid services, they make it accessible for every budget.

Have you wondered where all your Facebook followers have gone?

If you’re a retailer – or just an average user – you may notice that you’re seeing more ads, political content, and puppy pictures than usual. And most important, fewer younger users.

That’s because the graphics-based social media platform Instagram has swooped in and begun dominating social users.

Instagram claims over one billion monthly active users. ONE BILLION. That’s a tough figure to ignore, and it illustrates why so many smart retailers are taking notice.

Instagram’s early days offered a somewhat rudimentary vertical display of pictures. Period. Ultimately its potential grew, and combined with forward-thinking strategizing of its leadership, it now has become a major player in advertising and marketing.
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What drives most of Instagram’s appeal are “influencers,” or celebrities and others who have massive followings. Not willing to mess with the litany of issues that keep making Facebook more of a chore than a pleasure, these high-profile dazzlers maintain captive audiences. Some may be compensated to plug a product, but others are self-financed, and they honestly promote their favorite clothing, cosmetics, household décor, and just about anything they think of.