Use of Social Media in E-Commerce
We can’t just build an e-commerce website and/or a store front (in a popular marketplace) and expect people to come shop from us all by themselves. We need to reach them where they are.
In this respect, social media has become an important means to reach potential and existing customers, and has been more and more commonly used by businesses active in e-commerce.
An important characteristics of online selling is that businesses has to go to the customer, not vice versa.
In today’s online world, a huge number of people use one or more social networking site.
To be more specific, there are 2.77 billion social media users globally (Statista, 2019).
This makes these platforms a perfect place for companies to reach potential customers, engage existing customers, and showcase brands/products.
Social networks offer new and diverse ways to build a customer base and retain previous customers.
Social media is a powerful tool for e-commerce purposes. Nowadays, online sellers choose to improve brand awareness, promote their products, drive traffic to their websites/online stores, and make sales via these channels.
Businesses engage with shoppers and create a sense of community as well as brand loyalty by benefiting from these platforms.
Another common usage of social media platforms in e-commerce is related to consumer care issues.
You can reach customers in (almost) real-time when they are in urgent need for your assistance. In this respect, social media interactions are useful in retaining customers and demonstrating a commitment to resolving their problems.
The most commonly used social media platforms that attract businesses conducting e-commerce are Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+ and Snapchat.
The benefits of these platforms within the scope of e-commerce will be analysed in forthcoming articles. For now, it is enough referring to the figure below for better visualising of the most popular social networking sites’ usage.
In summary, the number of social media users has globally reached 2.77 billion.
This creates a huge platform for e-commerce companies to reach potential customers, engage existing customers, and showcase brands/products. There are diverse uses of social media in e-commerce.
In addition to other purposes, social media platforms are commonly used by businesses for improving brand awareness, promoting products, driving traffic to websites/online stores, making direct sales and providing real-time customer care services.
