28/06/2019

The importance of social networks for your ecommerce

The social networks started more than 15 years ago. They became a part of our daily lives and we spend a lot of time on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. There is nothing wrong with it. The social media let us to keep up with our friends and family in a very busy world. It is hard to not be a part of it. More than 2 billion people around the world is using Facebook and another few millions other social media channels everyday. In the article I will describe the most popular social media networks and how you can use them and be beneficial out of them.

Facebook

Facebook is still the most popular social media in the world. Despite problems with the security and multiple user accounts leaks, FB is still the most popular social media in the world. FB messenger and the What’s App communicator are currently two the most used communicators. Facebook account will allow us to stay in touch with our customers, communicate with them not only directly but by posting some news they can follow you or easily join a discussion. For your PrestaShop you can add a way for your customers to use their FB or Google accounts for log in to your web store

Youtube

In our opinion number two but still a very powerful sales/marketing tool which helps you to promote your business and your eCommerce. Yes, delivering content and running a Youtube channel it is a very time-consuming thing, but results could be outstanding. You can promote your web store your products in a way you cannot do it on any other social media and the videos may be watched by hundreds of thousands potential customers. Over time your Youtube channel will grow brining more customers and business partners.

Twitter

Recently Twitter is losing popularity but still more than 300 million people around the world is using it to tweet everyday. It’s a great tool to notify people what’s new with the company, about new products and upcoming sales.

Instagram

Instagram is a very specific social media tool. Extremely popular within young people who can follow they idols. The idols who call themselves the influencers, but their popularity is very fragile.
As a company willing to promote on Instagram, we may need to find an influencer who fits our business profile and reaches our target audience. That person can promote products or services which may increase our sale but what of that person will say or do something which the followers will not like? Your image is damaged too. 

Chat bots

From some time already more and more popular are chat bots. Very often linked-in to one of the company’s social media account provides a customer support. Chat bots can check the current inventory status, checking the RMA, or answer simple questions. All the chat history with the chat boot stays within the social media account.

How to start?

Create an account on each of those popular social media channels will take you just a moment. Keeping them alive and delivering an interesting content at least once a week is another thing. From our experience it is hard to provide the same quality of information and content for all of them. For the beginning do your research and check what is the most popular social media for your customers. Put a survey on your website, ask customers visiting it what is missing there. Next, be sure you can deliver enough interesting content and do it quite often. 

Conclusion 

The question is: Is it possible to run a successful web store without investing time into the social media? Probably yes but it will be extremely hard. People used to the social media. They like to follow they favorite brands, favorite manufactures and stores and they love to participate, by sharing their comments. It is a great source of feedback. It is unwise not give them such an opportunity.
Are the social media more effective than traditional marketing tools? In some cases, for sure.
PrestaShop provides many useful addons for your eCommerce. Starting with possibility to use the social media accounts to log into the web store, chats, direct and instant updates to the social media directly from the web store, there are plenty of useful addons provided by PrestaShop and their partners.
PrestaShop allows to build a fantastic eCommerce by adding the social media to it you will make it just way more interesting than a regular web store. 

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