Chapter 6

Social Media: Get Noticed

The house looks great, but it needs some curb appeal for the passersby. Social media is fast turning into a necessary component of effective ecommerce SEO campaigns. It provides a voice to your brand, allows you to connect with your current and potential customers in real time and is a powerful link building tool.

Choose the right networks

While it may be tempting to develop a presence on all social media networks, it is not recommended as many social media networks serve different purposes. Pinterest, for example, is a great network for businesses that share ideas for crafting, hobbies, fashion or lifestyle products. It would not be a useful network for an ecommerce company that sells pressure washer parts. Choose the network(s) that match your industry and website and focus your efforts there. Volusion has a number of great resources to help you get started. You can also send us a Facebook message or tweet us @Volusion, and our social media experts will give you helpful recommendations.

Be an information source, not a product blaster

Would you view every chance for face-to-face interaction with friends and colleagues as an opportunity to tell them all about your business and your products? Or would you view it as a chance to share ideas, thoughts and information? The same applies to social media. Promoting on social media networks is an opportunity to share knowledge, encourage discussion and promote engagement. Occasional product spotlights, say if you’re running a promotion or have a new product in stock, are perfectly fine, but repeatedly blasting your products on social media is considered distasteful, not useful and annoying to customers.

Post regularly

Once you’ve figured out which networks to use and the kind of content to post, you need to schedule time each day to post on your social profiles. A profile that doesn’t get regularly updated can miss out on time-sensitive topics and give followers the impression that you don’t care about knowing your customers on a more personal level.

Use social media scheduling services like Hootsuite to schedule posts to all your channels and keep track of them in one organized space.

What works on one network may not work on another

The perfect post for your Facebook profile may not translate to your Twitter profile. A great post on Facebook should encourage discussion due to the commenting functionality. A great tweet, on the other hand, should get the important information across or ask a quick question of your followers. There isn’t room for in-depth conversation due to the restrictive character count in tweets. Ultimately, you need to be more cognizant of your content and end goal as you cross-promote from network to network.