Social Media for E-Commerce: Tips to Boost your Manufacturing Sales

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Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post.

Social media plays an important part in the gain of e-commerce businesses. It is estimated that by 2025, social media will account for over 5% of the United States’ e-commerce revenue. That translates to about $80 billion!

As a manufacturer, you might be interested in being a larger part of this statistic, and social media can help you get there.

You can utilize social media platforms to connect with possible clients and expand your audience by building brand awareness, thus generating leads and increasing your revenue.

So, if you’re a manufacturer looking to harness the power of social media and expand your e-commerce business, take a look at our all-encompassing guide.

From building brand awareness to social listening and outstanding customer service, there are many ways for you to boost your e-commerce business on your social media accounts.

Here’s a closer look at the top seven!

1. Use Hashtags

Hashtags are one of the most basic and essential aspects of social media marketing or social commerce, and using them correctly is key to success.

The advantages to using hashtags include:● Improving customer engagement – which in turn can boost leads and sales.

Creating brand awareness – which can encourage more conversations about your products and help you reach more potential customers.
Promoting products – you may not even realize how much potential your products have until you use the right hashtags. This is especially true if you manufacture something unique in your market niche.

Making a hashtag specific to your brand is prudent, as this makes your content easier to access. You must mix these in with trending and relevant hashtags for your niche.

For example, if you’re a skincare manufacturer, you could use related hashtags such as #skincare #cosmetics, etc.

You can also add your brand name to them, such as #BrandMoisturizer, so that customers can find posts related to your specific brand and product.

If you’re unsure of how to make creative hashtags, use online hashtag generators to find the most relevant and trending hashtags. Use a mix of popular, niche, and local hashtags, while focusing on the latter for optimum results.

2. Build Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is essential to boosting sales. Despite the progress we’ve made, word-of-mouth still remains a crucial aspect of marketing, although via social media.

Here are some basic, highly effective strategies to grab the attention of your target audience:

Be creative and add some personality to your social media. If your page is unique, it’ll stand out.
Make it easy for viewers to understand what your brand or products are about. Use your bio, display picture, and profile to improve recognition and get your message across.
Ask your customers to review products on your page and theirs. You can offer them various incentives to do so.
Collaborate with influencers whose viewership overlaps with your target audience.
Aim for greater product discovery and visibility for newly launched products before a competitor has the chance to imitate them. You can do this by promoting your new product line on your social media.
Create a presence across multiple platforms – Facebook (for B2B), Twitter, Youtube, and Instagram are longstanding favorites. Each of these platforms offers manufacturers all-encompassing advertising packages as well.

3. Be Mobile-Friendly

People spend most of their time scrolling through social media on their mobile phones. Laptops and tablets are usually reserved for other types of entertainment such as games and Netflix.

Therefore, it is essential to optimize your social media to be mobile-friendly.

This means that you should:

Focus on your Facebook content to make it mobile-friendly. While Instagram and Twitter automatically format content for mobile phones, Facebook requires additional effort.
Make your links suitable for mobiles – shortening links using Bit.ly is crucial to avoid turning away potential buyers who would otherwise click them.
QR codes are the latest trend and make websites and social media pages more accessible. Use them efficiently.
Include links in your promotional text messages – this is often overlooked, but is extremely effective, as the “impulse” that drives a purchase doesn’t last long. Make it easier for your prospective customer to find the “buy now” option.

4. Offers and Discounts

Everyone loves a good deal and giving your viewers and followers special offers and discounts is a great way to convert leads into sales.

You can:

Provide special discount codes to certain followers.
Give special coupons to those who place their first order to garner attention.
Provide influencers with codes that their audience can use for special discounts in exchange for a small cut.
Sell ‘rejected’ goods from your manufacturing plant at discounted rates in a “Waste Less” campaign.

The key here is to be creative and promote your offers on your social media, to direct your followers to your store.

You can also promote seasonal discounts, flash sales, and other limited offers to garner attention and boost sales.

An effective way to do this is to unexpectedly post a discount code on your social media page, which is valid for a limited time – say, a few hours or one day. That might encourage followers who are interested in your products but haven’t taken the leap yet, to finally purchase something they’ve been eyeing for a while.

5. Promote Free Shipping

Free shipping is an effective strategy. Buying products in bulk directly from manufacturers can attract large shipping fees. This often discourages customers who would otherwise gladly make a purchase.

To ensure that you appeal to such an audience and convert their inquiries into sales, offer free shipping and promote it on your social media.

If it’s a limited period offer, build up to it by posting about your upcoming free delivery sale a few days prior.

If you provide free delivery throughout, that’s a huge plus, and you should definitely highlight it across all your platforms as a USP. You can do so by writing it in your bios and the caption of your posts, along with a link to your store.

6. Optimize Posts

Making posts that appeal to your potential buyers will help improve your engagement levels. The more your audience interacts with your posts through likes, comments, and shares, the more likely it is that your account will grow. This improves your viewership and can drastically increase sales.

To optimize your posts:

Use visual content that is engaging and fun.
Include links in your caption so the viewer can easily and quickly access your website or the product page.
Provide useful product details if you’re showcasing a specific product.
Make your captions fun and relatable while using specific keywords that your audience might search for. You can find these through different tools online.
Add backlinks to your SMM posts to redirect prospective buyers to your website.

7. Be Creative and Follow Trends

Follow trends on the marketplaces and social media platforms you use. See what similar brands in your niche are doing, and keep track of which latest trend is making the rounds. You just want to make sure that the content you create is unique and creative and reflects your brand.

Some ways you can use relevant trends are:

Use popular songs in your videos. Make references to trending pop culture.
Make fun videos of your products, packaging, and other behind-the-scenes of your business and turn it into a “challenge”.
Show unique aspects of your products, or make “tutorial” videos to appeal to your audience.

However, this isn’t just about social media trends. You must also ensure that your products are up to date and that you stock only the latest.

Not sure how to do that? Keep up with trends by looking through marketplaces such as Amazon.

If you can capitalize on the latest trends and fads, you’ll surely boost your sales!

Conclusion

Though it might seem like big brands dominate the social commerce market, individual manufacturers and local businesses are also thriving.

This is because social media provides an equal platform, in most aspects, to all e-commerce businesses.

You can take inspiration from GE, Toys “R” Us, etc., to understand how they use social media for e-commerce, but don’t be intimidated by them!

With these strategies in your arsenal, you too can boost sales with the help of social commerce!

Contributor: AMZScout is one of the most popular tools for Amazon sellers worldwide. Our aim is to help sellers maximize growth, revenue, and achieve success on Amazon.