Try These eCommerce Social Media Ideas for Your Business

Try These 50 eCommerce Social Media Ideas for Your Business

April 19, 2015 - Holly Cardew

If you own an online store, expanding your eCommerce social media reach can be a great thing. Social traffic leads users to your business and allows for easy sharing with friends. And if you do things right, your customers will do the advertising for you!

Social media marketing is not the easiest thing to get started with, so I’ve prepared a list of 50 eCommerce social media marketing tips you can use for your eCommerce business.

Insider and ‘behind the scenes’ photos: One of the great things about social media is how personal it is. When customers see behind-the-scenes photos, they feel connected to your business.

You could include photos of your breakfast, a day in the life as the founder, the inside of your office, or what you do at a photoshoot or a buying trip. Remember, customers (especially fashion consumers) aspire to be like the person behind the brand.

Trivia: Once you have a certain audience size, trivia is a great way to engage them on your pages. Ask them a question related to your brand or something you know they love.

Curated content: When you come across an article or video that’s useful to your audience or people in your field, share it!

Look for trending videos on YouTube or from influencers in your space. Funny videos always work.
Interviews: Who has a fascinating story you can feature on your social media? This can come from your customers, muses or someone you know your customers would want to hear from. Bloggers always love to be featured, so take a look through Bloglovin’ for bloggers who appeal to your customers.
Try out Reddit: While most businesses are on Facebook and Twitter, fewer venture onto Reddit. The comment-driven site is a great source to reach engaged audiences.

Get pinning: If your product or service lends itself to anything visual, getting started on Pinterest is a great step forward. It’s a great way to engage a largely female audience.

Make sure your images look beautiful as this will increase the likelihood they will be repinned as inspiration on someone else’s board! I suggest you mix it up with in-context photos, as well as products on a white background.

Make sure all product images have links back to your online store/the product itself, making it easy for the customer to buy. For more about Pinterest, read one of our previous blogs posts on using the website.
Don’t be a copycat: By all means, check out what your competitors are doing for inspiration, but don’t copy directly. I saw this fantastic quote the other day: ‘Just because everyone is going one direction doesn’t mean you should too. Everyone could be wrong’.

Your customers will love you for being YOU and unique.
Chose the right platforms: If your brand is targeted toward businesses, make sure you’re on LinkedIn. If you target a young audience, consider Snapchat. Tailor your channels to your customers. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram are a must!

Google+: One of the biggest advantages of using Google+ is the social media platform’s results are prioritized in Google search results. That alone is worth investing some time there; however, you don’t have to post content much different from what you’re posting on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms. You can post the same thing.

To be more efficient, use a platform like Buffer to auto-post to Google+.
Capitalize on current events: Try to leverage current events your audience may be following, like Denny’s did here.
Ask questions: This is a great way to engage your audience (but make sure your questions are brief, fun and something your audience would want to share).
Recycle: Have some great older content on your website? Share it again!
Interact: Make sure to follow up with comments and interactions! That’s how you build a social media audience.

Use quality photos: Make sure to show your products in their best light. Consider using our background removal services for product images!
Play nice: Don’t pick any fights on social media, even with trolls who are looking to push your buttons. It’s a no-win situation!
Consider video: Video messages, from simple behind-the-scenes clips to professionally produced ads, are a great investment — with the right message, right channel and right time.
Hashtags: Using hashtags effectively will maximize your reach, bring in a broader audience and cross link your posts to similar content to make it useful.
Be creative: The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf came up with a great idea when they asked users to cut off the end of the company’s signature purple straw and snap smartphone pics through it. This resulted in the hashtag #PurpleStrawCam engaging tens of thousands of followers!

Be generous: What can you give away through your social media channels? Maybe coupons or free gifts — or maybe you can promote a business partner or blogger in your field.
Laughter: A good joke has the potential to go viral, but be sure it matches your company culture.
Contests: How can you challenge your audience to do something beneficial to your business while giving them a good incentive?
Live chats: If you have an engaged and curious audience, one great way to build some buzz is to host a live chat.

Guest posts: One great way to build your audience is to bring in well-known people from your market for guest posts.
Tips: Pull in your audience by sharing simple, straightforward tips and tricks related to your business that are useful in everyday life.
Brand it: Make sure your eCommerce social media presence has a coherent ‘brand voice’ so you don’t confuse your message.
Controversy: This one is tricky, but sometimes it’s worth wading into controversial topics to stir up some excitement.
Polls: Facebook, Google+ and other platforms allow you to pose a poll to your users and gather useful information while engaging your readers.

Feedback: Ask your customers what you could do better for instant access to valuable feedback.
Apps: Are there any apps that would be useful for your customers? Consider creating a review or highlight.
Testimonials: Social channels are a great way to gather info from people who had great experiences with your business.

Recommendations: One of the main reasons people go online is to gather some info, so why not share your expertise?
Quotes: There are millions of inspirational and informative quotes floating around the internet. Some of them are surely relevant to your business!

Favorite things: Personalize your business by sharing a bit about your favorite places, books, movies, etc.
History: Where did your business come from? Sharing the humble beginnings can help people connect.
Cuteness: Sometimes you just need to find the cutest possible YouTube video and share it around. Who can resist watching a slow loris eat rice?
News: Share important news about changes in your industry to build a reputation for being in touch.
Happy holidays: Take the time to wish your followers happy holidays! (You can also promote your holiday sale at the same time!)

Predictions: Give your take on what’s next for sports, fashion, the weather or anything else.
Be sneaky: Can you promote your products by linking to another business that sells something complimentary?
Thank you: Take the time to show gratitude to those who have helped you reach this point.
Sneak peek: How can you tantalize your audience and start to build some excitement about what’s coming next?
Paid posts: If you’ve got something to promote, paid posts on social media can be a great way to get it out there. Make sure your message is unique, clear and compelling, and research the competition before you pull the trigger.

Share newsletters: Having a good email list is critical for any business, so why not use social media to increase your subscriber count?
Answer FAQs: Social media is a great place to answer some of the common questions about your product or service.
Study your audience: Set aside some time to look over the profiles of your followers to get a sense of who these people are. Market research!
Periscope or Meerkat: Share a video feed of something interesting going on at your HQ.
Use analytics: Take a look at the search keywords that lead people to your site to generate some new ideas for social media content. Check out these 19 social media analytics tools on the Buffer blog, which include services like ViralWoot and Quintly.

Data: What sort of statistics, data, graphs or charts can you share that would engage your audience?
Events: Use targeted social media posts to inform your audience about in-person events they might be interested in.
Promote your business: The bottom line for all social media is it’s just another way to promote your business. Remember that the sale doesn’t happen on social media; instead, these platforms are how you build trust and develop an engaged base.

If you liked this post, you should also check out these other posts on the Pixc blog:

If you want to increase sales with stunning product photos, Pixc can help! See what we can do for you with a free photo edit today.