Organic social media includes the unpaid activities that businesses employ on their social media platforms of choice, which can include stories, videos, blogs, posts, etc. Considering that approximately 1 of 3 People use social media to learn more or discover new products, organic social media is a great addition to any ecommerce marketing strategy. Aside from being extremely cost-effective (since it’s free!), here are some important reasons why ecommerce business owners should incorporate organic social media into their marketing efforts.
1. Conveys brand values
Social media platforms give business owners a platform to tell their business’s story to the world. In the digital age, it’s common for consumers to visit a brand’s social media page to check who they are and what their brand values are. Building trust with your audience in this way can increase brand loyalty and create a positive outlook for your business as a whole.
When creating content for your page, ask yourself: Who are you as a brand? What does your brand represent? Not only can you create content to illustrate this, but you can also share external posts that mention your business to reinforce the positive things others have said about you. After all, how your brand is perceived can ultimately decide whether a potential customer will consume your content and make a purchase.
2. Makes engagement easier
Social media is social, which means consumers now have more opportunities than ever to build relationships with businesses. Not only does social media allow you to engage with your current customers; it also allows new customers to discover and interact with you.
Relationship Building
Using organic social media is a great way to connect with current and potential customers once they become followers. Building a connection with your customers can lead to long-term benefits, including customer loyalty. Engaging with your followers on your social platforms allows you to interact with, support and retain your audience.
Plus, the community you create online allows you to learn more about your audience while discovering yourself. What are your potential customers saying? What are their needs ? What do they ask? Engaging with them can answer these questions, allowing you to better understand how your ecommerce business can provide solutions to their daily lives.
Customer service
Did you know that 65% of people aged 18-34 believe that social media is an effective channel for customer service? As social media grows, many consumers are contacting businesses via direct message or commenting on posts to resolve an issue.almost 70% of consumers respondents used social media for customer service.
The good news is that responding to a complaint on social media can increase customer advocacy by up to 25%. Use social media as an extension of your customer service to maintain trust by regularly responding to comments, private messages and questions. When you respond to your followers online, you encourage more engagement from current and future audiences.
3. Complements Other Marketing Efforts
Maintaining active social media accounts can also help (and in some cases enhance) your other marketing efforts in a variety of ways.
Paid social networks
Organic social media complements paid social media quite well. In general, you’ll want to target organic posts to current customers and use paid posts to attract new customers. When running paid ads, make sure your social pages are updated with interesting, quality unpaid content so new visitors have something exciting to see. Maintain a sense of consistency between paid and organic efforts to allow customers to benefit from your brand trustworthiness: you can even post organic promotional content, such as sales and new products.
Reviewing your paid ad analytics can help you strategize how to implement your organic content, and vice versa. If an organic post performs particularly well, you can pay to distribute it to a wider audience, integrating it into your paid strategy.
SEO
Although social media does not directly contribute to SEO rankings, it can indirectly positively affect your search rankings. Social media profiles provide you with link building opportunities that can help you improve the organic rankings of other pages on your site. Having an active social media presence increases your visibility, which can also lead to more backlinks from other sites. Creating content that your customers share adds validity to your links, boosting organic SEO.
In conclusion
Having an organic social presence online can build brand authority, increase customer engagement, and complement other aspects of your marketing strategy. This cost-effective component can be a powerful ally for your online store if used correctly. Maintaining a relevant social media presence is not easy and can be extremely time consuming. Our marketing and design experts at Marketing360 can help you develop a social media strategy and guide you every step of the way! For more information, visit our website at volusion.com/marketing360.
