Top 5 Shop Partner Solutions for Social Media Marketing

Far from being the latest invention, Social Media Marketing has long established itself in the world of eCommerce. Reputable companies often hire a social media manager to help steer their marketing activities into new sales territories on social networks. There are, however, different overall aims and approaches depending on the objective.

We’ve put together a few basic tips to help you establish the foundation for building a successful social media marketing strategy.

• Choose Your Platform

  There is a plethora of social networks out there in the world wide wilderness. Facebook is by far the biggest player, and then there’s the rest of the kids at the popular table: Twitter, Google+, Instagram and Pinterest. It’s a good idea to limit your activities to one or two channels initially, and utilizing Facebook would surely seem like the first thing to aim for. Then again, there are some of our partners like Tuna Melts My Heart who provide proof for a chance to hit it big with “smaller” networks. Tuna’s designs do very well on Instagram with some 970,000 followers eagerly receiving updates from the cute little Chiweenie on a regular basis!

  When joining a network, you should be sure to register your own “company page“ (as it is obligatory with Facebook) to avoid the notion that you could register a private profile.

• Content.  Content.  Content!

  Once you have an account, you need to fill it with valuable information. Stuff it with interesting stuff in an entertaining way. It’s becoming increasingly important to provide relevant content – particularly on Facebook. It’s not enough to just link up to your own shop or products, as this will make Facebook weed out your page from the newsfeed of your followers. But: Facebook is very eager to promote content that is considered interesting for a user, and they make sure that such content makes more appearances in the newsfeed. The interesting aspects here are the engagement numbers, which tend to be measured in the number of “like” clicks, comments and shares. Only recently has the time spent on a page linked to in the newsfeed started to be tracked.

  Concentrate on the content that can be associated with your shop – that’s the stuff you know best and here you can come up with interesting content that others will want to read. Let’s say your shop sells cat designs. Sharing funny cat content such as “The ABCs for Cat Owners“, funny cat video clips, photos etc. is definitely something that will improve your shareability factor.
  About our own followers on Facebook, we have noticed how diverse their interests are. They like taking a look behind the scenes, reading success stories of our partners and seeing new and clever designs.

  Make sure that you post in a way that suits the nature of your network. It’s important to be concise on Twitter, and Facebook doesn’t necessarily require a wealth of words either. Instagram is very much image-based, and Pinterest doesn’t really like text at all. Consider these elements specific to each network when posting.

• Concrete Objectives

  Create your own goals for what you want to achieve with your social media activities. Are you aiming at getting a certain number of followers, or are you targeting a clearly-defined turnover success with your endeavors? Could your Google ranking still be improved? Or do you want to get in touch with your customers in a more direct way?

  Have a specific strategy in mind when setting your goals and plan ahead by scheming steps that will make sure you can achieve stage victories.

• Evaluation

  Don’t forget to assess your activities. Facebook offers an insight feature that helps you analyze how well your posts went down. You can also distinguish the groups of people that follow you, see when they are online, etc. Twitter has just released its own analysis tools, and Instagram is about to publish theirs in the next weeks to come.

  There are also a number of external tools that are often available for free in their basic version or as trials. We recommend Fanpage Karma for Facebook and Twitter as well as Iconosquare (formerly known as Statigram) for Instagram.  If you are active with Pinterest, you can use Pinterest’s built-in analysis features.  Another recommendation would be Tailwind.

  We would definitely also suggest the acquisition of your own Google Analytics ID that can be implemented directly in your social media profile or by use of apps especially designed for this purpose.

• Act and React!

  There is a reason why the words “social” and “networks” are used by Facebook and Co. These platforms feed on an active user exchange. They thrive on the opportunity provided by an immediate exchange between company and user as well as their facility for customers to get in touch with the company directly.

  On Facebook, people will get in touch with you by means of either private messaging or commenting on your feed. Make sure to react to requests (and maybe complaints) immediately. Don’t procrastinate or ignore your customer feedback on social channels, as this is bound to backfire. An honest and authentic conduct that creates an atmosphere of transparency is what works best.

  Spreadshirt has its own service team to take care of customers’ needs in a time frame of 24 hours max. Try and not let your customers wait longer – the Internet is a very fast-paced and unforgiving place. And always be positive!

We hope that you can get your entrance to the world of social media marketing off to a flying start. And if you should have any questions or professional advice, please leave a comment below.