Social media is no longer just a place to chat with friends or look at pictures of cute kittens. It is becoming the fastest growing platform for making direct sales online. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and others all have Buy it Now buttons to allow viewers to instantly make a purchase. This has the ability to streamline the selling process by removing a few steps to a completed sale. Instead of using social media as strictly as a marketing platform to draw customers to your store or website, they can now buy an item with one simple action.
1. It is cost-effective
The best part of social selling is that there are no listing fees or commissions…at least for now. Your only expenses to use social media are your payment processing fees and a subscription for your e-commerce platform. Of course all of the social sites encourage you to use their paid promotions and advertising. If you already have a strong social presence with a lot of followers, you may not need to pay for additional promotion. Experiment with both free and paid approaches to see which works best for you.
2. Be visual
Social media requires an extremely visual presentation. Sites like Pinterest and Instagram rely on photos to attract viewers. The key to social selling is to eliminate as much text as possible and provide high quality, accurate photos of your products. Videos of jewellery items rotating on a turntable are a good way to show the entire piece from all angles.
3. Keep it simple
Increasingly, consumers are viewing the sites on mobile platforms so simplicity is essential. Most of your images should be only the item on a white background for easy viewing but an image showing a ring on a hand or a necklace on a model can help to establish size and proportion. A text overlay can be used to state sizes or carat weights and a price.
4. Stay social
Never forget the social side of social media. You need followers, likes and shares to make this work. Your goal is to be part of a community. On text based sites like Twitter and Facebook, join groups that target your customer demographics and participate in conversations and threads without constantly trying to sell something. Like and share other people’s posts as much as possible. People like the validation of their thoughts and ideas and it keeps your name visible.
5. Make it easy for yourself
Utilize an e-commerce platform like Shopify that can integrate with all of the social platforms. You’ll only need to load products and data once to cover all platforms. It will work easily as an online storefront on your own website as well. It will also give you a consistent look throughout your social campaign.
6. Get started now
If you are thinking about experimenting with social selling, it’s the perfect time take the plunge. This aspect of online sales will only become more popular and effective. Be an early adopter and get a head start on your competition. A year from now you will be glad you started today.