As per Forbes, Facebook mobile ads account for 87% of advertising revenues and stood at $8 billion in Q2 of 2017.
Pinterest drives 25% of all retail website referral traffic.
This proves the strength social media holds in driving the traffic towards eCommerce websites.
Many people perceive social media for personal use. On the contrary, you can now integrate your store to social media accounts and sell there.
For example, if you own a Shopify store, you can get it integrated with your Instagram store and now your followers can view your products and purchase from there too.
So, can social media play a major role in the growth of eCommerce business? Yes, it can.
If you are into online selling, you really need to leverage these eCommerce social media marketing trends as that may help you in taking your eCommerce business to new heights –
Advertising through Influencers
Advertising on social media can be much more effective if they are paired with influencers. People are likely to trust a brand if it is recommended by a famous personality.
Usually, many people follow celebrities and if one of them recommends your brand on social media, you get chance to promote your products and services in front of a wider audience.
Getting an influencer to promote your brand would be much more important in 2018 as majority of digital marketers have already allocated budget for influencer marketing. So, just don’t lag behind. Start planning for your influencer marketing strategy now.
Create an Impact Through Videos
You must have noticed that maximum of your news feed is full of videos. Do you know why? An emotional video can easily connect with the audience. The viewers get attracted easily as they don’t have to read long content to understand the concept.
If you are not using video marketing for business, you may be missing out many of your customers who are demanding easy-to-grasp content and for that matter, videos can be the best medium.
A further step ahead, if you are thinking of adding videos to your marketing strategy, the latest trend of 2018 would be to streaming live videos on a real-time basis. Your audience would get the notification whenever you are live streaming on social media and thus you can engage your audience in much more effective manner.
Embracing Emerging Technologies
Staying updated with latest technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) would become important in 2018.
Chatbots would help your audience to get answers to their queries relating to your business 24/7 even if you are not around. Thus, this would improvise customer experience on social media platforms.
Moreover, AR & VR would help your customers to understand how your products or services work in a better manner and help them making purchase decisions with confidence.
Conclusion: A Perfect Blend of Social Media Marketing & eCommerce
Social media is growing bigger in 2018 and at the same time, competition is growing too. Grabbing the attention of the viewers for your business on social media has become challenging.
It is not at all enough to just have a presence on social media. Many consumers are even fed up of viewing ads on social media news feeds. You need to follow new trends and think differently to keep your audience engaged with the content you post on social media platforms so that your efforts don’t get wasted.
Directly selling on social media is not trending anymore. When it comes to social store branding, ensure that valuable and informative content is presented before your audience instead of an ordinary sales pitch and experience the difference.