When it comes to marketing channels, social media is an ecommerce brand’s dream. #notbiasedatall

Direct [and sometimes even free] access to audiences, amazing targeting capabilities and a consumer that’s willing and ready to purchase… social channels have it all. 

There’s been some pretty exciting news dropping over the last couple of weeks as Facebook announces the roll out of increased on-platform ecommerce capabilities, and we couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate than a little exploration into what makes for a successful ecommerce strategy. 

After working with some pretty darn awesome ecommerce brands [lucky us, we know!], we wanted to share our top tips to unlocking your brand’s potential. 

First up: Build a brand, not just a product

Not to underestimate the importance of a great product or anything [you’re definitely going to need one!] but selling it on social is going to take a bit more than just the features or benefits.

We like to think of a brand as a story. Every single piece of content you serve your audience on social should be telling a small but important part of that narrative. When you create a story that’s so enthralling your audience couldn’t possibly look away, that’s when you’re going to be able to sell anything and have success. 

So how do you make your story nice a bit of a page-turner you ask? I’d say the most important element is making it uniquely yours. Tap into your ‘why’ and the ‘ethos’ behind the brand to show off exactly what makes your brand so darn special. From there, you’ll be creating a brand to be reckoned with. 

Next on the list: Use video [seriously it works]

Now this one’s no secret… and if you’ve been hanging around TDP lately you’ll be no stranger to hearing us talk about just how important video is for any brand on social, so it only makes sense this also extends to ecommerce brands too. 

Going back to the point above, there’s not many ways to tell a story better tan a short, sharp and engaging video. You can do everything from introducing your brand and trying to promote memorability to demonstrating your unique selling proposition and also building up some serious cred with customer testimonials. 

Our best advice? Add in video as frequently as possible. We know this sounds a bit scary to non video producer folk but believe us when we say that social doesn’t require big budgets and production value. If you’ve got a great concept that your audience can relate to we’d hazard a guess it will work quite nicely! 

Thirdly: Make sure your barriers are down 

Now that you’re killin’ it with all that quality content and storytelling on your organic socials, getting audiences to your website is easy. 

The next challenge is making life as easy as possible for them when they get there! 

Audiences these days are more time-poor than ever before. You can probably reflect on your own buying behaviour and think about the sites you’ve left because they were just too darn slow. 

The smallest inconvenience can lose you a purchase so it’s worth investing in making sure you’ve got your ducks in a row. The things we often see getting in the way are: expensive shipping, hard to navigate menus, out of stock items, poor mobile optimisation and even these days, a lack of AfterPay. 

Get these things right and the sky’s the limit on your social conversion rate!

Importantly: Approach each channel strategically 

Finding the time to effectively manage one social channel is hard enough [we get it, boy do we get it!] so when you add multiples into the mix it tends to mean that one strategy has to work for all of them. 

While we know this is a reality for many different brands these days we’re here to tell you that there is value in thinking differently about what you’re placing on Facebook and what you’re placing on Instagram. Not only do these two platforms have very different functionalities and features, they also have different user behaviours. 

Don’t be fooled by all those likes and comments on Instagram, the majority of ecommerce brands we work with see higher traffic and conversions coming from Facebook. That means if you’re putting all of your effort into Instagram you might be missing out on opportunities for social selling. At the very least, make sure you’re including links in your Facebook posts to purchase when you’re featuring products, but if you’ve got room for another priority on your list, we’d say take some time to think about how you vary your content marketing approach to each platform to drive the best results. 

Finally: Look for new ways to set your brand apart 

The social selling space is getting a little crowded these days. That’s not to say that you can’t succeed [we wholeheartedly believe you can!], but it does mean you might want to find a way to stand out. 

There are so many new opportunities popping up, especially with TikTok gaining so much speed over the past few months. It’s not all dancing [though it can be if you want] with consumers demonstrating they’re very happy to interact with and purchase from brands on the platform should they get their content right for the medium. 

The original Chinese version is well ahead in terms of a ecommerce features and if that’s anything to go by, you’re going to want to at least be thinking about how you might carve out a little place for your brand on this new frontier. 

The other one we’ve been really experimenting with is Pinterest. It’s long been a place for all things DIY, weddings and baking, but over the years they’ve really continued to up their game in the advertising and ecommerce space. One of the best things is you can even get support directly from their team should you start advertising on the platform. 

If you’ve just started your ecommerce brand and you’re not hearing that ch-ching of orders streaming through just yet please don’t worry. All good things take time and social selling isn’t going anywhere so you’re in it for the long run!