More and more retail brands and small and medium-sized eCommerce businesses keep choosing to reach their audience on social media too. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest have become important channels for sales and customer acquisition in recent years.
A good Social Media Marketing strategy focused on original, fresh content that informs users will be essential in 2016. Even if you don’t have a Community Manager for your online store’s Social Media strategy, you need to know what’s new in the world of Social Media.
Online video: the alternative to consider
It’s nothing new: photos and videos are the most shared content on social media and generate the most engagement among users. Audiovisual content grabs the most attention, and brands know it.
For the rest of the year and heading into 2017, it will be essential to build a strong audiovisual communication strategy across the different Social Media tools. Instagram, Facebook and, to a lesser extent, YouTube will become key customer acquisition drivers through direct campaigns, thanks to new video features such as “video autoplay.”
In earlier posts we discussed the importance of new Social Media tools centered on video: Periscope or Snapchat, and from what we’ve seen, online video is clearly becoming more established among users.
Social Media advertising: increasingly important
It’s been shown that the return on investment (ROI) of a Social Media Marketing strategy has grown year after year when comparing costs with the profits obtained. That said, experts say advertising on social media such as Facebook or Instagram will become more expensive.
Expensive but unavoidable: more and more brands and companies will turn to sponsored photos on Instagram, objective-based Facebook ad campaigns or Pinterest Promoted Pins. All this is driven by the sharp drop in organic reach, as with Facebook, where advertising will become almost essential to give company pages and their posts greater visibility.
Social Mobile: the mobile era is here to stay
Not just because Google tells us to optimize our websites and online stores for mobile, but because we live in an age where the phone has become essential in our lives and we’ve all become avid consumers of information on our phones.
Most users update their Facebook status from their phone, and almost everyone uploads photos or videos to Instagram with their smartphone. Given this, it’s not far-fetched to think that mobile traffic to online stores has grown exponentially over the past several years.
Two very important scenarios have now merged: mobile devices and social media. Major brands are still trying to build a direct communication channel between the two and draw potential customers to their eCommerce sites through them. That’s why optimizing online stores for new devices has become essential. Responsive designs adapted to all kinds of devices greatly improve the user experience and help generate sales
Mobile commerce: closer than ever
Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest have already added a “Buy” option to ads and posts to promote so-called “instant shopping.” Showing products, comparing prices or commenting on items on social media may change how online stores present themselves, pushing them further into Social Media territory.
Not yet fully established, this emerging trend will be a hot topic over the coming months.
Capturing this traffic driven by immediacy —having all the information you need at your fingertips— means attracting countless customers to your online store. Quality content and relevant, engaging information shared on social media could become a key factor in the coming months.
At Trilogi we know how important a good Social Media Marketing strategy is for every kind of eCommerce, and we can help you drive more web traffic from your social media.
Are you embracing the new trends in Social Media Marketing?
