The more traffic you get to your website, the more chance you have of increasing your conversions.
Driving relevant traffic to your website should be a priority for eCommerce businesses, and there’s a variety of ways you can do so. Having a social commerce strategy is extremely important for retailers and eCommerce businesses today.
Social media platforms are an effective channel for eCommerce business. With over 3.8 billion users across social media, it’s highly likely a percentage of your target audience will be among them. It’s well worth investing the time and resource into building and maintaining a social media presence and getting your brand in front of this large audience.
Let’s take a look at some of the things you can easily implement to drive more traffic from your social media to your website!
Choose the right social media platform for your business
First things first – you need to choose the social media platforms that are most relevant to your brand. There’s a variety of social media channels out there to pick from, but it’s not productive to be active on all of them. Consider where your audience might be and how they use social media.
Those working in B2B industries will typically fare much better on LinkedIn, for example, as compared to TikTok. Working in retail, you also need to weigh up the marketplaces available on different social media platforms. You’ll drive more traffic to your eCommerce website by being in front of relevant audiences. Try out different ones if you’re unsure, measuring results, and then hone in and focus on the platforms that are performing the best.
Instagram, for example, is a great platform for retailers. According to new Hubspot statistics, 80% of Instagram users follow at least one business on the platform. A further 72% of people have purchased a product they’ve seen on the platform. This shows there is a huge power behind social media for you to tap into to drive brand awareness and influencing buying decisions.
- 2.45 billion monthly active users
- 1.62 billion daily active users
- Men and women 18-64
There has been a drop in popularity with teens and younger adults, however, Facebook remains the world’s most used social media platform. The algorithm prioritises content from family and friends, so make sure what you put out on your business page is engaging.
- 330 million monthly active users
- Slightly more popular with men with 66% of users being male
- Most popular amongst 18-49
Great for customer support and engaging with audiences directly. With hashtag popularity, it’s great for hashtag campaigns and competitions.
- 1 billion + monthly active users
- 500 million + daily active users
- Men and women 18-34
Posting images has become more popular since Instagram came onto the scene in 2010. It’s a great platform for selling, working with influencers and engaging with audiences through live Instagram stories and IGTV.
- 660 million monthly active users
- Men and women 25-64
A professional site that is less visited on a daily basis than other social media sites. It’s great for professional relationships and b2b marketing and selling.
- 300 million monthly active users
- Most popular with women, but gaining more men signing up in recent years
- 18-24 and 30-49 most popular age ranges
All about creating highly desirable images/pins. Customers can shop directly via the app and curate looks from pins. Really great for retailers in decor, homeware and fashions.
Snapchat
- 210 million daily active users
- Most popular with 13-29 year olds, with 73% of 18-24 year olds using the platform
Snaps delete after 24 hours so they’re great for businesses wanting to run limited-time offers and sneak peeks on new lines – just bear in mind the demographics here.
TikTok
- 500 million monthly active users
- Men and women 16-24
The new kid on the block. Since 2016, TikTok has captured the imaginations of young audiences with a Vine-like quality and was the most downloaded social media platform of 2019, the 2nd most downloaded app coming after WhatsApp.
*Sources at end, March 2020
If you’re selling overseas, keep in mind that social media preferences will differ between markets. Always do research on individual international markets you sell into when considering your social media strategy.
Engage with your audience
A lot of brands forget about the social part of social media. It’s all about connecting to, and engaging with, your audience. The more you’re actively engaging with your audience on social media, the more likely they will be to click through to your website. People buy from people as goes the age-old adage, so showing your personable side through natural conversation and engagement will inspire your followers to buy from you.
Live stories
Be in the moment with live streaming. Stories have become extremely popular ways of sharing content on platforms like Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook. LinkedIn and Twitter are both trialling story features, too, which has come under a fair amount of scrutiny.
Messenger
Live chat on social media platforms are a great way to show you’re open to engaging with your audience. You can use instant messenger on all platforms to quickly answer customer queries without the need for a plugin for your website.
Conversations
Reactive marketing and active listening on social media is fantastic for brands to engage with, too. This shows off your human side and personality behind your brand while delighting customers. If you see good reviews or recommendations for your products on social media, take the time to thank the customer.
Or, if you see a complaint, you can proactively remedy the situation by reaching out on a public platform and offering a resolution. This will impress the customer, and potential customers who may have otherwise had a negative response to the comments.
Work with influencers
Working with influencers is a great way to increase brand awareness and drive traffic to your website. According to MediaKix, 48% of people surveyed said that ROI derived from influencer marketing is better than other marketing channels. Seeing items on influencer pages is more likely to get click-throughs and drive traffic to your eCommerce website than general posts on your page.
A word of warning, however. People are becoming more aware of brand partnerships when it comes to influencers. The greater scrutiny in this area means brands need to forge authentic and natural partnerships. Basically, ones that make sense and aren’t completely driven by money.
Run contests and giveaways
Social media competitions are a great way to build audiences, boost brand awareness and engagement across your social media channels. You can host things like giveaways, tag-a-friend contests, voting and polls, and sharing images to enter. Creating a competition hashtag is a good way to monitor entries and choose winners on platforms like Twitter especially.
When planning your competition be sure to set goals – what do you want to achieve by doing this competition? Decide on a theme – you can host seasonal offers, for example. What will the prize be? What rules do competition entrants need to know about? How will you decide the winner, and how will they be contacted?
Get creative with content
Putting out plain text posts and re-sharing the same content over and over isn’t really going to get you anywhere this day and age. Some of the most popular content on social platforms now are very aesthetically-led. Visuals like well-curated, original photographs and video do extremely well. It’s a chance to really get creative and have fun with the content you’re putting out into the world. This will attract more people to click through to your site content.
Another way to increase engagement through content is to get your audience involved with User Generated Content. This works really well for retailers as you can encourage customers to share pictures of your products on their social media. This can be anything like their outfits (#ootd, anyone?), unboxing experiences, furniture placed in their homes, or using your products to demonstrate how well they work, etc. The list goes on! Decide what works for you and create a hashtag that is unique to your brand that you can monitor to source the content. Just make sure you get permission from the user to share their image on your platform first!
Social media and mobile
If you’re looking to work on your social media, make sure your mobile commerce offering is the best it can be. According to Lyfemarketing, 91% of social media users access their platforms via mobile. 80% of the people’s time spent on social media is on a mobile phone. This means that for this large portion of users, they’ll be clicking through from your social media channels to your website via a mobile phone.
Your eCommerce website development needs to be optimised for mobile and ensure that these users want to stick around when they get there. A poor mobile site will lead to a higher number of bounces and drop-offs.
Sources: Sprout Social, Statista, Hubspot, GlobalWebIndex, Facebook, Instagram, Oberlo, Wallaroomedia.
Final thoughts
Whilst there is a lot to think about when it comes to driving traffic to your website using social media, it’s something you can be creative with and have fun with. Using social media channels to boost converting traffic should be a key part of your marketing strategy.
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