Using Social Media to Boost Sales

social mediaHere's a quick overview of the most popular social media sites and how you can use them to promote your ecommerce website.

Facebook

There is over 1 billion people on facebook as of August 2013. These people comment and like an average of 3.2 billion times every day. By being part of these facebook conversations you can take advantage of one of the most powerful forms of adverting available - word of mouth.

Facebook offers a step-by-step approach to marketing your business.

1. Create a facebook page. Your facebook page is designed to increase brand awareness and develop relationships with your customers. You are asked to choose a category, pick a logo and write a little bit about your business. You can also add a link to your ecommerce website here.

2.Advertise your page on facebook. Facebook allows you to choose a specific audience for your ad. This way you can target people who are most likely to buy from your website. When you advertise your facebook page, people can like it and comment on your posts, These likes and comments are shared with their friends providing maximum exposure for your business.

3. Engage your audience. Posting on your facebook page offers an opportunity to build loyal fans of your business and develop brand awareness. Post content on your facebook page that is relevant to your business, Be friendly and try to post at least once or twice a week. Ask questions to seek input from your customers. Engage with your customers and post about current events and news.

4. Encourage friends of fans to interact with your business. When people interact with your business on facebook, you can advertise those interactions on their friend's facebook pages. This can be used to influence people's buying decisions.If a customer gives a good review on your facebook page, share it with their friends to attract more sales.Keep track of your ads and the conversations taking place so you can refine your advertising a get a feel for what works best for you.

Those are the basics to marketing your business on facebook. By building a loyal following of people who like your business, you can increase brand awareness and drive more sales to your ecommerce website.

Google+

Google+ is a little different to other social media websites. It is a place to connect with people you would like to get to know. Create a profile and start connecting with people in your industry by following them and adding them to your circles. When you add people to your circles, they may choose to add you to their circle. When you post information to your profile, people in your circles can see your posts, +1 your posts and comment on your posts.

Google+ isn't just a place to connect with people. It can also influence how your website is displayed in the search engines. When you link your Google+ page to your website, Google will display how many followers you have and display a picture of the web page's author.This increases trust with your potential customers and makes your website stand out in the search results.

Google is giving greater weight to social media involvement when it comes to ranking your website. Google+ is a great place to post links to your blog posts. It helps build authority in your industry in turn increases brand awareness, search engine rankings and sales to your website.

Youtube

You may think youtube is a good place to show an advertisement for your business, but you'd be wrong. Youtube is a place for people to find quality videos related to the search queries they input. As a business it is your opportunity to provide this audience with the content they are looking for to increase brand awareness.

When you create quality content, people will share it. Once you have a youtube channel featuring regular videos and hoard of loyal followers, you need to get those people to visit your ecommerce website. You can put your web address in description of your channel and the about us page. More effectively you can promote your Website at the end of your videos by offering more information.

While not for everyone, youtube can help drive traffic to your site and increase trust in your brand.

Pinterest

Pinterest allows you to organise all the things you love in your life by placing pins on your Pinterest profile. Pins can consist of images, videos, recipes, destinations and quotes. You can group pins together to form themes by creating various boards and placing pins on them.

When people follow you on Pinterest, your pins show up in their newsfeeds.The newsfeed is where you see pins of people you're following. It also shows the most engaging pins from various categories Pinterest wide.

Pinterest has been underestimated as a social marketing tool, with recent evidence suggesting that it produces more referral traffic than Google+ and Youtube combined.