Social media has become a huge part of most people’s daily lives. Almost every industry utilizes it in some form or another and at different levels. The industry that has perhaps the most to gain and lose is the retail industry. How often do you go on social media and see ads for various products whether you are interested in them or not? The answer is probably at least once a day. If you, as a retail company, are not utilizing these different platforms, then you might as well consider yourself far behind the competition.
Why social media is important for retail marketing
As mentioned before, many people are on social media sites every day. A lot of these people depend on social media websites and applications for their daily news, keeping up with friends and family, and purchasing decisions. Depending on how you approach and utilize your social media retail marketing strategy, you can become part of a customer’s daily life and get continuous business from them.
Social media can be fairly easy for a retail company to use as the various sites are very visual. You can get a leg up on the competition by showing your products off on social media. This way, customers can see them in advance and weigh their options. You can also use social media to connect and build relationships with your customers before you meet them in person.
Before you do any of this, you must set up your eCommerce store, optimize your Google My Business listing (including your 360-degree virtual tour), consider your local SEO, and decide which social media sites to use based on your target market(s). According to webfx.com, 68% of adults use Facebook and 73% use YouTube with other sites including Instagram and Twitter raising every day. The products that you sell can also affect which platform(s) you should choose for your social media retail marketing strategy. The tips highlighted below will give your social media retail marketing strategy a strong advantage.
Social media techniques for retail marketing
Think before you post
An important thing that you should know is to post a variety of content, not just the same things over and over. You should be posting products, deals, and company updates, but you should also be posting company culture content including photos of employees, recognition that your business receives, and reviews from happy customers. If you only post products and nothing else about your business, you may end up seeming robotic or that you do not care about your employees or customers. A healthy mix is a very good thing and will keep you fresh in the eyes of customers.
Be consistent
As you become more serious about social media for your business, you’ll realize that you need to post consistently. It varies depending on the platforms you use, but Focused Engagement recommends that you post at least five times a week on Facebook. By posting consistently, you’ll appear in a follower’s feed more frequently and raise chances of them choosing you.
Stagger your content
While you are planning your content for the week, you should consider publishing it at different times throughout the day. By doing this, you can gauge when the best times for posting are. You can look at the analytics for each platform and determine when you should be posting in the future. This is especially helpful during the earlier stages of your social media retail marketing campaign.
Use marketing automation software
As you get more comfortable with posting for your social media retail marketing campaign, consider using a marketing automation software. This software allows you to schedule posts in advance and will save you a lot of time. Instead of using many hours per week creating posts and publishing them, marketing automation allows this task to take a mere 1-2 hours. At Focused Engagement, we utilize SharpSpring and heavily prefer it to alternatives. These software options are not free, but they pay for themselves once you get an increase in customers.
Capitalize on current trends
As the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us, retail shopping and retail marketing strategies by association, are constantly changing. This means that the trend of this month may not be the trend of next month. You may have to experiment with new strategies quite often, but that can often lead to improved social media engagement from your followers. Pay attention to hashtags and user-generated content for the next potentially huge trend. If you want to track this more officially, you can utilize a query builder. This tool allows you to track trends more effectively for a monthly fee.
Conclusion
Now that you’ve taken our tips into consideration, you are all set to create a truly effective social media retail marketing campaign. If you are still struggling to come up with ideas, please reach out to us via our website or give us a call at 385-232-2464 and we will gladly help you!