How to integrate social media with an eCommerce store

According to Smart Insights, there are 3.484 billion people who make use of social networking. When you contemplate that the world’s population numbers 7.7 billion people,  approximately 45% of the global population uses one form or another of social media. Tying in a social media experience with the products or services which your e-commerce store offers can assist with driving added value to your audience as well as paying customers in the same way.

The failure of F-Commerce

The term ‘F-Commerce’, which often stood for ‘Facebook commerce’ concerning Facebook storefronts, was an attempt which failed at syncing e-commerce with Facebook because the context in which it was used was not correct. People didn’t want to make purchases on a Facebook page of their favourite brand. This is because they were somewhat interested in doing things such as:

• Browsing through photos,
• Interacting with friends,
• Commenting on the page’s content, and
• Leaving customer feedback on the page’s wall or reviewing the business using the review

Comprehending the psychology behind how users of each social network use this particular network will assist with better informing the integration of your e-commerce strategy to avoid the mistakes of the past attempts at social integration.

The power of successfully social media and eCommerce integration

Every owner of an eCommerce website realises, at this point, the massive potential of successful social media integrations with e-commerce. At the start of 2019, it was noted that 55% of regular Internet users make use of eCommerce.

However, apart from essential content marketing – as well as social media advertising – there isn’t a lot being said about the best practices for combining your social media marketing efforts with your eCommerce storefront.

While there are some moves towards putting together social shopping carts as well as adding buy buttons to sponsored posts, these features remain in the beta testing phase. In the interim, there are quite a number of powerful social networking sites which are available that you can utilise in order to improve traffic to your eCommerce store.

In addition to this, there are a number of exceptionally innovative techniques which will enable users to fully utilise the integration of social media with eCommerce. These aren’t often as organic as a blog-and-social-media combo. However, there are plenty of options – this is if you know what to look out for.

Insert Share Plugins on Product Pages

A commonly utilised feature on e-commerce stores today is inserting various social-sharing buttons on the product pages of a store. This practice has become more widespread over the past few years owing to the increased visibility as well as engagement a Facebook like button or a Twitter tweet button can help to generate around a particular product page.

There are many possibilities to choose from regarding adding social plugins to your website. Most e-commerce stores accepting by adding Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter as sharing a product or service on those channels ties in with the behaviour and interests of its users.

Post Videos of Your Products and Services To Social Media

Consumers watch many videos online. While they make use of social media to be social, they’re also willing to interact with brands if the content is convincing enough:

• The key is to ensure that the video is kept short, concise, engaging and – where you can – even a little bit entertaining.
• Optimise the video with the right hashtags to encourage sharing.
• It’s even possible to incentivise more shares by offering rewards such as prizes.

Use Instagram Stories in other to build a buzz around any new products or services that you’re about to launch. Over 250 million individuals make use of Instagram Stories each day. This means that your audience is already there.

Social media is where people interact. They often use this as a meeting place before they meet face to face. Thus, this makes it an excellent place for you to promote your eCommerce store and get a lot more traffic to your site.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

If you own an eCommerce store – and want to learn more about social media marketing in order to take your business to the next level – consider doing a social media marketing course such as the one we offer. Read more here.