We put together a few more articles on social media…

When tracking your success of any social media marketing one key element is to set your goals first. For each organization or company there will be separated goals and reasons for engaging within social media. This channel has matured to the point where there are a couple of core success points for engaging. Some items that are important to measure for success are direct sales from social media, prospects and leads, mentions and conversation, and sentiment.

How Do I Measure and Track The Success of My Social Media Marketing Strategy?

What are some of the best social media tools out on the market? What tools should you be using to distribute your messages and communication to your target market?

What social media tools can be used to distribute messages to consumers and clients?

People are already talking about your products or e-commerce website. These conversations used to happen over dinner, at work, or over a cup of coffee. While this is still happening something has replaced the water cooler—social media. It’s also been said that social media is the new Monday. Many people would make sure that they see the just released movie so they can talk about it with co-workers on Monday—now social media plays this role. With one key difference it’s always on and it’s happening instantaneously.

eCommerce Social Media Marketing Strategy

While on LinkedIn recently I saw a question about increasing sales on an ecommerce website. I wanted to share my response as I think it is one of the keys to figuring out how to sell more online.

Here is the question:

We have a website that sells art prints, sculpture and photography, but have only sold one piece. Any ideas? We already had a company help with keywords, still only one sale…

Now most of the responses fell into the technical realm. From traffic, process, stats, SEO, to order processing. I believe you have to take a step back and look at things such as positioning and niche target market.

Here is my response:

All these comments are good but most are on the technical side, I’ve found most Ecom issues have to do with positioning and reaching the target market–not traffic.

First step would be to find one niche that you can dominate in. Create unique positioning for that product line and focus on reaching the core influencers within that niche.

Let’s say you pick sculpture… take a look as a consumer of these items and see what they see. Search with the SE’s, real time search engines (like SocialMention.com), and social media.

Once you have a deep understanding of this then focus like a laser on reaching this core audience in a unique and engaging way. Might be via social media, might be with forums, targeted ad buys, or increased search engine optimization. The key is focus and positioning.

Position your product line in a completely different and engaging way compared to the competition. Introduce personality and uniqueness.

Image coutesy of Burt K

Business is increasingly moving to social media. This allows business of any size to engage directly with their target market and done correctly can create a lasting relationship. We wanted to highlight a story from TechCrunch and it’s overview of six business case studies.

Out Take

It’s great to see case studies like this popup. One of the things we like to do with case studies is to tear them apart and find one thing that we can take an employee in our own business. Years ago when I started reading business books I made a practice to write down key ideas that go beyond that—find ways that I could implement these ideas in my business professional life. We suggest you do the same thing with the six case studies.

Google Seller Ratings

Google introduced seller ratings to its growing lot of ad extensions last month. In addition to titles, prices, and thumbnail images, a searcher now gets treated to a 1 to 5 scale indicating past customers’ satisfaction with a particular merchant. A great roundup from Paul Burani on this move.

Our Take

As with all things Google you know this went through a series of testing. As Facebook steamrolls towards 500 Million members and super high engagement Google house to take notice. The next step for Facebook could be merging social media and shopping. We already know that one of the biggest reasons why people choose to follow companies and Brands within social media is for special deals in special offers.

Is it that far of the leap to think that this could be used as a direct channel for sales. Now we know social media is not for selling but if it was inherent within the experience this could be a game changer. All we have to do is look towards games like Farmvillle to see how social media has changed a dynamic. Social networks have virtually made some of the biggest names in the casual gaming world. Why couldn’t this be done for E-commerce?

Integrating Social media in Ecommerce Report (PDF)

Social media undoubtedly has a presence in eCommerce. If you spent any amount of time in social media you will find that conversations around brands, companies, and services happen all the time.

New research indicates that more than 75% of consumers trust peer recommendations of products and services, while less than 15% trust paid advertising. The opportunity to tap into this trusted form of communication to market your e-commerce business is huge, so it’s important to think beyond your immediate network and find creative ways to encourage fans to spread the message about your business.

One important aspect of integrating social media into eCommerce is giving your customer or potential customer the ability to easily share your products. We recommend the below services for all eCommerce driven websites:

• Integrate Facebook Like button into each product page and category
• Provide easy way for someone to share via email
• Integrate Twitter share
• Integrate Facebook share button
• If your target market is younger integrate MySpace
• Integrate social bookmarking sites such as De.Lecious.us

While integrating social media with your e-commerce presence may be free, it may still come at a price: your valuable time. Maintaining multiple online presences, pages and feeds can be extremely time consuming. Fortunately, with the right e-commerce platform, you can easily integrate—and automate—these efforts to save time.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Social media has made your average user sophisticated enough to know the difference between “customer care” and PR. Corporations that try to confuse the two could confuse customers, and potentially suffer even more in the long run.
Customer service isn’t a silo; it requires excellence across multiple channels and still excludes non-social media consumers. (Shayon, 2010)

Some American companies that have been early adopters in the space have witnessed measurable benefits. One such case is Frank Eliason’s turnaround at Comcast. Another example is at the end of FY 2009-2010, Dell’s ‘chief blogger’ Lionel Menchaca announced that Dell is not only servicing customers through social media but made revenues of the tune of $6.5 million, double the preceding year. (Nandi, 2010).

If you are considering building an eCommerce website one element of your plan should include how you will provide customer relations within social media.

Special Report

We’ve put together a special report on the social media and eCommerce. You can find the report and a quick video presentation here at eCommerce Social Media Web Design.