The eCommerce holiday season is right around the corner! While you’re busy keeping up with the increased demand of holiday order fulfillment, it’s easy to put social media marketing on the back burner. However, a few simple social media posts can provide a major opportunity to connect with your customers and increase holiday sales.
Because people tend to have more downtime during the holiday season, it is likely your customers are more active on social media during this time. The relationships that you build with your customers and prospects during the holidays not only have the potential to boost your holiday sales, but can also ignite customer relationships for months to follow.
We took a peek at our social media feeds and found a few great examples of holiday social media marketing done right. Try implementing these quick and easy tips for social media marketing success, to optimize your holiday sales and get ready for a successful eCommerce fulfillment season.
Tip #1: Take Advantage of Timesaving Tools
Generating content and posting to social media takes planning and time. While some companies may be equipped with a designated social media coordinator, not all businesses will have the resources during such busy times to stay on top of posting and engagement. Business owners and small teams often find themselves spending all their time on more pressing matters, such as overseeing order fulfillment and resolving customer service inquiries. Increased demands during the holidays on top of an already heavy workload may make the idea of social media marketing a daunting thought. However, taking advantage of time-saving social media scheduling tools can take the hassles out of daily upkeep during busy eCommerce seasons.
Social media tools such as SproutSocial allow you to schedule, publish, and analyze your posts all in one place. That means you can plan your content for the holidays and the months following now, before the critical holiday rush hits. Consider creating a road map of posts that are relevant to your brand and audience at the beginning of each week, and keep your followers engaged with timely, impromptu content you can quickly post on all channels with just one click. A social media tool like SproutSocial makes it easy to take advantage of these tips for social media marketing success.
Tip #2: Leverage User Generated Content to Build Trust
A report by Nielson shows that 66% of online consumers trust consumer opinions posted online. Allow your customers to do the selling for you by running a user generated content campaign (UGC). Create buzz on your social media with a UGC that engages your customers, builds relationships, and increases organic word of mouth. The decision to post user generated content is a no-brainer. Who better to showcase your product and target your customer demographic than your loyal customers?
User generated content humanizes your brand and gives your audience an authentic viewpoint. Haconut does an excellent job of spotlighting their happy customers. Millennials in particular are greatly motivated into making purchases based on social media posts from peers, with 68% of 18- to 34-year-olds being ‘somewhat likely’ (or better) to influence them into making a new purchase, as highlighted by eMarketer. Posts such as this can be greatly successful because they not only promote your product and create a sense of relatability for new customers, but also allow current customers to show their love for your brand and your brand to show appreciation for your customers.
Tip #3: Add Holiday Flare to Create a Timely Visual
Inspire your customers and give them a hand in picturing your products as the perfect addition to their holiday season. A little visualization goes a long way for customers who may not know what to get that last person on their list. Placing your product in the right setting can affirm a purchase for a customer who may be indecisive in their shopping quest.
Use this approach to your advantage by placing a few holiday accents surrounding your product. Boost sales even more by pairing multiple items that go well together. Customers may not think to purchase multiple items from your shop until they see how well they complement each other. Mantraband does a beautiful job of executing both tips in one post.
Try incorporating these tips into your social media outlets by including a caption listing product details and/or a link to purchase on your site. Once your shoppers are inspired, you will see the payoff in shopping cart levels.
Tip #4: Promote Flash Sales & Holiday Discounts
As any business owner today knows, the eCommerce competition is fierce-- especially during the holiday shopping season. Be sure that you are using your social media outlets to their potential when promoting your deals and discounts. You can use your social media platforms to promote already existing deals that are running on your website, like free shipping or site-wide discounts OR you can create special deals, discounts, and promo codes solely for those who spot them on your social media outlets. Creating promo codes unique to your social media sites can be useful in tracking the effectiveness of your social media efforts.
Tech Armor encouraged customers to take advantage of their Cyber Monday deals on a Facebook post last year's holiday season, while our friends at Lebert Fitness promoted their recent Black Friday deals as a Facebook cover photo.
Tip #5: Utilize Ads to Extend Your Reach
The options for advertising on social media platforms are vast and can be overwhelming. What platform makes the most sense for your business: Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook? It could be one platform that works best, all, or a combination. It is important to choose the right platform for your brand for many reasons, but most obviously because you don’t want to be spending all of your budget on something that simply isn’t working for you. Be sure that you do plenty of research on the available social media advertising options.
There are many different platforms to advertise on and many different ways to advertise on those platforms. For example, Instagram alone has 3 different ways to advertise: photo, carousel, and video. Business 2 Community provides an excellent overview to social media advertising outlets.
Tip #6: Go Viral with Humorous Holiday Content (if it Suits You)
What better way to spread brand awareness than by having others do it for you? While there is no secret formula to ensuring a post goes “viral” online, humor can go a long way. While this technique may be in line with some companies’ brand identity, for others it may not necessarily convey the image they’d like to be perceived as by their customers. Oliver + S wished their customers a Happy Thanksgiving with a message that conveyed a simple and homey design, that matched the brand of their sewing pattern business.
Are You Still too Busy for Social Media Marketing?
If you're too busy to take advantage of these tips for social media marketing success during the holidays because you are too busy with other aspects of your business, it may be time to outsource order fulfillment and shipping to free up some resources.According to Statistia, 97% of the global share of businesses use social media marketing to increase customer retention rates, engagement, brand awareness, generate leads, and/or send traffic to the company's website. Taking advantage of the resources available to you and your business can help improve efficiency and accelerate growth. Are you doing all you can to optimize best practices in your business?At Rakuten Super Logistics, we pride ourselves in creating partnerships with growing businesses. If you’re looking to optimize your eCommerce fulfillment capabilities, learn more about how partnering with RSL for fast and accurate order fulfillment protects your online reputation and saves you time and money.Contact us today for a free fulfillment analysis to be performed by one of our eCommerce fulfillment experts.
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The eCommerce holiday season is right around the corner! While you’re busy keeping up with the increased demand of holiday order fulfillment, it’s easy to put social media marketing on the back burner. However, a few simple social media posts can provide a major opportunity to connect with your customers and increase holiday sales.
Because people tend to have more downtime during the holiday season, it is likely your customers are more active on social media during this time. The relationships that you build with your customers and prospects during the holidays not only have the potential to boost your holiday sales, but can also ignite customer relationships for months to follow.
We took a peek at our social media feeds and found a few great examples of holiday social media marketing done right. Try implementing these quick and easy tips for social media marketing success, to optimize your holiday sales and get ready for a successful eCommerce fulfillment season.
Tip #1: Take Advantage of Timesaving Tools
Generating content and posting to social media takes planning and time. While some companies may be equipped with a designated social media coordinator, not all businesses will have the resources during such busy times to stay on top of posting and engagement. Business owners and small teams often find themselves spending all their time on more pressing matters, such as overseeing order fulfillment and resolving customer service inquiries. Increased demands during the holidays on top of an already heavy workload may make the idea of social media marketing a daunting thought. However, taking advantage of time-saving social media scheduling tools can take the hassles out of daily upkeep during busy eCommerce seasons.
Social media tools such as SproutSocial allow you to schedule, publish, and analyze your posts all in one place. That means you can plan your content for the holidays and the months following now, before the critical holiday rush hits. Consider creating a road map of posts that are relevant to your brand and audience at the beginning of each week, and keep your followers engaged with timely, impromptu content you can quickly post on all channels with just one click. A social media tool like SproutSocial makes it easy to take advantage of these tips for social media marketing success.
Tip #2: Leverage User Generated Content to Build Trust
A report by Nielson shows that 66% of online consumers trust consumer opinions posted online. Allow your customers to do the selling for you by running a user generated content campaign (UGC). Create buzz on your social media with a UGC that engages your customers, builds relationships, and increases organic word of mouth. The decision to post user generated content is a no-brainer. Who better to showcase your product and target your customer demographic than your loyal customers?
User generated content humanizes your brand and gives your audience an authentic viewpoint. Haconut does an excellent job of spotlighting their happy customers. Millennials in particular are greatly motivated into making purchases based on social media posts from peers, with 68% of 18- to 34-year-olds being ‘somewhat likely’ (or better) to influence them into making a new purchase, as highlighted by eMarketer. Posts such as this can be greatly successful because they not only promote your product and create a sense of relatability for new customers, but also allow current customers to show their love for your brand and your brand to show appreciation for your customers.
Tip #3: Add Holiday Flare to Create a Timely Visual
Inspire your customers and give them a hand in picturing your products as the perfect addition to their holiday season. A little visualization goes a long way for customers who may not know what to get that last person on their list. Placing your product in the right setting can affirm a purchase for a customer who may be indecisive in their shopping quest.
Use this approach to your advantage by placing a few holiday accents surrounding your product. Boost sales even more by pairing multiple items that go well together. Customers may not think to purchase multiple items from your shop until they see how well they complement each other. Mantraband does a beautiful job of executing both tips in one post.
Try incorporating these tips into your social media outlets by including a caption listing product details and/or a link to purchase on your site. Once your shoppers are inspired, you will see the payoff in shopping cart levels.
Tip #4: Promote Flash Sales & Holiday Discounts
As any business owner today knows, the eCommerce competition is fierce-- especially during the holiday shopping season. Be sure that you are using your social media outlets to their potential when promoting your deals and discounts. You can use your social media platforms to promote already existing deals that are running on your website, like free shipping or site-wide discounts OR you can create special deals, discounts, and promo codes solely for those who spot them on your social media outlets. Creating promo codes unique to your social media sites can be useful in tracking the effectiveness of your social media efforts.
Tech Armor encouraged customers to take advantage of their Cyber Monday deals on a Facebook post last year's holiday season, while our friends at Lebert Fitness promoted their recent Black Friday deals as a Facebook cover photo.
Tip #5: Utilize Ads to Extend Your Reach
The options for advertising on social media platforms are vast and can be overwhelming. What platform makes the most sense for your business: Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook? It could be one platform that works best, all, or a combination. It is important to choose the right platform for your brand for many reasons, but most obviously because you don’t want to be spending all of your budget on something that simply isn’t working for you. Be sure that you do plenty of research on the available social media advertising options.
There are many different platforms to advertise on and many different ways to advertise on those platforms. For example, Instagram alone has 3 different ways to advertise: photo, carousel, and video. Business 2 Community provides an excellent overview to social media advertising outlets.
Tip #6: Go Viral with Humorous Holiday Content (if it Suits You)
What better way to spread brand awareness than by having others do it for you? While there is no secret formula to ensuring a post goes “viral” online, humor can go a long way. While this technique may be in line with some companies’ brand identity, for others it may not necessarily convey the image they’d like to be perceived as by their customers. Oliver + S wished their customers a Happy Thanksgiving with a message that conveyed a simple and homey design, that matched the brand of their sewing pattern business.
Are You Still too Busy for Social Media Marketing?
If you're too busy to take advantage of these tips for social media marketing success during the holidays because you are too busy with other aspects of your business, it may be time to outsource order fulfillment and shipping to free up some resources.According to Statistia, 97% of the global share of businesses use social media marketing to increase customer retention rates, engagement, brand awareness, generate leads, and/or send traffic to the company's website. Taking advantage of the resources available to you and your business can help improve efficiency and accelerate growth. Are you doing all you can to optimize best practices in your business?At Rakuten Super Logistics, we pride ourselves in creating partnerships with growing businesses. If you’re looking to optimize your eCommerce fulfillment capabilities, learn more about how partnering with RSL for fast and accurate order fulfillment protects your online reputation and saves you time and money.Contact us today for a free fulfillment analysis to be performed by one of our eCommerce fulfillment experts.