It can be difficult to grow your online store, especially if you’re not seeing the visitor numbers you want. However, there is a relatively easy way to get more potential customers onto your website by making use of free social media marketing tools.
There is no fail-safe way of increasing your online traffic but if you work hard to increase your brand awareness and online presence as a whole, you’re bound to see more people visiting your store. But how do you do that?
Plan your content
Like always, the first step you need to take is to plan your content. It’s important that you think about how you are going to use social media to support your business. You want to create content that will increase brand awareness and boost your sales.
In order to do this successfully, you need to start by thinking about your target audience. There are a number of useful social media websites out there, but there is no point being on the one least used by your ideal customer. Do some research and pick a few sites that interest your audience.
The final step of your plan will be to actually think about what content you want to create. Again, you will need to think about your target audience here. What do they want to see and engage with? Plus consider your branding and message, it needs to all tie up nicely in your content.
Create engaging content
Once you have put together a rough plan, it will be time to start creating your content. At this point, you might know what kind of message you want to convey, but may be unsure how to do it. Try to vary the content you produce so you don’t bore your audience with the same thing over and over again.
Your content should help you connect with your audience and develop lasting relationships, increasing brand loyalty. In order to get as big of a range of fans as possible, you need to create content in different formats including visual content, podcasts, blogs, ebooks and more.
In addition, you should definitely make use of creating and sharing infographics on social media to boost your online store. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 65% of B2B marketers use infographics to increase sales.
Ensure that your content is bite-sized and optimised for the social media site you are posting it on. Taking the extra time to do this means it will look more professional and be more enticing to your target audience.
Post frequently and be active
It takes time to build a presence online. One way to reach your goals faster is to be active online and consistent with how often you post. It is also worth considering that the frequency and time of when you post can have an impact on your engagement.
The best thing to do is to carry out some research into the social media site you are using to find out when and how often you should be posting. Monitor your posts and see what performs best and when. There is also a lot of information regarding when is the best time to post online so don’t be afraid to try out other people’s suggestions.
No matter how often you decide to post, you should try and monitor your social media pages as often as possible. This will give you a chance to interact with your audience and reply to any questions or comments they may leave. By engaging with the online community you will be more easily discoverable by your target audience.
Make it easy for users to find and share your content
If you are producing engaging content and being consistent in your approach to social media marketing then it shouldn’t be long until your audience starts to find you. However, you can make it easier for them by using things called hashtags.
Hashtags are a powerful way to boost your engagement and let new potential customers find your content. You should try and use hashtags which are both relevant to the content you have created, but also already popular on the site.
Each site uses hashtags in a slightly different way. For example, a single hashtag on Twitter can generate more engagement than tweets featuring lots of hashtags, but on Instagram, you can use ten hashtags and still get better results.
Now your content is easy to find you need to make it easy to share. If a customer likes your post, they may want to share it with their friends. This not only boosts your engagement but can increase your chances of achieving a sale. Be sure that your post settings are open so your audience can like, comment and share your posts.
Assess your success
At this point, you may think you are doing everything right and using social media as an effective tool to grow your online store, but you’re not seeing the resulting sales. That might mean that something is going wrong along the way.
One way to assess what is working and what isn’t is to make use of your social media analytics. Not only will this data help you establish what content is performing, but it can also help you understand what your audience wants, how they engage with your content and when they are active on the site.
Once you spot an area that is doing well, it is up to you to find out why and replicate it for future posts. That way you can provide your audience with what you want and make changes when you’re not getting the sales you desire.
