It has always been said that, the more visible your business is the more sales you get. In order to increase the visibility, businesses should be available on all possible platforms. As more people are now engaging with social commerce, it is advisable to have presence on digital platforms. While e-commerce is broader term, Social commerce is a part of e-commerce. It includes social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. It helps a businessman to interact as well as collaborate with their customers by sharing feedback, ratings, etc. & do commercial transactions by selling their products or services. Not only for online sales but also growing on social media platforms proves to be golden egg for small scale investors as it helps in enjoying good amount of profits with less investment. A touch of creative thinking with meaningful content is a key requirement to be visible and grow on social platform. The article ahead will help you to have deeper insights of understanding social commerce and knowing its benefits.
The major purpose of Social commerce are:
Top mediums of Social Commerce:
Growing on Social Commerce:
Social commerce is not only useful for online sales but it also proves to be helpful for marketing. Different platforms have their own benefits. Now when everyone is thinking for going digital, it is necessary to find the right way of entering into the digital world and sustaining in it. Even after going digital it is necessary to handle the business in right and efficient way! Below are some key points that can be considered for sales platform to make your business live in a day.
Marketing Medium for growing the business
Pinterest is a social network where people can find inspiration and ideas for their interests and hobbies. Every idea is represented by a Pin, which is an image that is searched and saved by Pinterest users. Pins can also link back to websites, which is why Pinterest is great for driving traffic and market your business.
Snapchat is a popular messaging app that lets users exchange pictures and videos. It has 229 million user out of which 75% users engage with artificial reality lenses every day, creating a sponsored lens that reflects your brand. It can be an effective way of using Snapchat for marketing.
YouTube is an online video hosting service that lets people share their videos. It can be used for marketing your business as it allows to promote the products, share an advertisement and also help your customers spread the world about your business.
Sales Medium for growing the business
WhatsApp is one of the most famous social media tool & it has its Business feature as well. One can start their social media presence through WhatsApp as it processes approx. 60 billion messages each day. Promoter just needs to download WhatsApp Business application and create a Business account. Below mentioned are some guidelines which can help an individual to use it effectively:
You can add various pieces of information about your business, such as contact information, company’s website as well as location. And that’s something that will help you build the credibility of your business.
One of the biggest things you’ll need to consider while using WhatsApp Business is keeping a track of your customers. While you’ll need to manually add them to your contacts list, you’ll also be able to assign labels to your conversations. These are helpful while interacting with a large number of users. You can setup labels for your customers and then label your chat conversations using them.
It allows your customers to know when the best time to reach you is. At the same time, this also allows you to manage expectations when it comes to customer support.
Just like your personal WhatsApp account, you can use WhatsApp Business mobile app with the desktop variant too. This makes it much easier to interact with a large number of customers. To check how many messages were sent by you and how many of them were read.
It allows you to create your own product catalogue to showcase and share your goods easily. This makes it easy for customers to browse and discover things that they would like to buy. Say goodbye to sending tons of pictures and repeating pricing and product information like a broken recorder!
Automated message can be created like greetings, quick replies, or away messages. This helps in reducing turnover time. Also, It helps the business owner to send same message to multiple clients which eventually leads to time saving.
Below mentioned are some of the advantages of using WhatsApp,
Facebook, From its powerful advertisement options to Facebook groups, it has many tools small businesses can and should use. A solid Facebook presence helps you engage potential customers and grow your business. With so many ways to promote your business on Facebook, it can be difficult to know where to start. So here are some steps to make your social presence worthy. Here are some guidelines which can help an individual to use it effectively:
If you want to have a solid and professional Facebook presence, you need to create a separate page for your business – your personal Facebook profile won’t cut it. A page is like a regular profile, but it’s for brands and business. You should add as much information about your business as possible, including your Brand logos, Photos, address, contact information, website, business hours, products, etc. It’s important to also add profile and cover photos that reflect what your business does.
To use Facebook to promote your business, you need to use it and post regularly. Your audience and customers want to feel like they know your business and can relate to you. Update posts which seems helpful to customers as well as update them about your products or services. You can use Facebook’s poll features to ask what they want to see or take a look at Facebook Page Insights, which helps take the guesswork out of sharing.
When you first create your page, send invites through Facebook to your current customers. Put a special coupon or promotion on your Facebook page, and tell customers to like your page to get the deal. If you create a simple and memorable Facebook URL, it’s easier to promote it.
Facebook’s new algorithm favors posts and pages that create engagement. Before posting anything on Facebook, you should ask yourself if it will create a conversation. The key to engagement is posting quality content. For best results, try to be friendly and conversational. Keep updates timely and respond to comments and private messages.
Social media is the new ‘word-of-mouth.’ You want people to be able to tag your business when they’re talking about you. As your customers are your best advocates, when customers interact with your page, their friends will see the activity in their newsfeeds. You can also foster more interactions using polls and asking questions followers want to answer.
Below mentioned are some of the advantages of using Facebook,
Instagram is famous & most used application among the youth. With over 1 billion active users monthly, it’s hard to ignore the potential benefits of getting your brand on Instagram. Here are some guidelines which can help an individual to use it effectively:
When it comes to Instagram, Youth relates the most; so all that owner needs to do is create a page, post relevant pictures and videos related to your business look lively and provide everything what a customer wants under one roof.
To make your post reach most of the audience, a business owner can use promotion tab, this will be paid promotion but it will also help to cover wider range of audience.
Always be open to DM’s and be fast and efficient. This will help in creating image of a good customer relationship and loyal customer engagement.
Insights is a native analytics tool that provides data on follower demographics and actions, as well as your content. This information makes it easy to compare content, measure campaigns, and see how individual posts are performing.
Below mentioned are some of the advantages of using Instagram,
Key Insights for Social Commerce:
As mentioned above there are many social media platforms available but if the business is already present in any of the platform, it is advisable to start sales/marketing from the platform where it is already present. Later owner can create business presence on all of the social media platform in one go! This would also help in cross over marketing and create more awareness in the society.
Business can tap all the pages which are related to the respective business and try to share their business link on the page. This would help in tapping the most relevant audience for the business; cherry on cake would be more followers to your page which may increase sales
To start business in short term, owners can pitch current customers by creating multiple groups, posting photos/videos of the product and start taking orders, which can be delivered now if they are essential ones if not it can be delivered once the market is on place.
To revert back to customers queries, inquiries or questions; a team can be developed which may not be more of 2 to 3 members. This will help customer in getting answer and it will also develop healthy customer relationship between customer and owner.
Owner can also collaborate with the similar businesses who are already on social platform, this will help in just sales as already followers will be there so no all the energy and resources will be used in sales and not in increasing followers! Also business should provide what customer wants.
Owners can always bring in their friends & relative to promote their pages by sharing it in respective circle to gain more visibility. This will help the business to grow and reach more set of audience.
Author:
Saloni Surani, a Strategic Business Consultant, who pursued her Masters in Management & has an eclectic experience in J.Hirani with various industries like Manufacturing, Real Estates, Hospitality, FinTech, etc. She is a keen observer who silently achieves her goals and happily surprises everyone with the results. Adapting & learning new things has been her forte which helps her in getting new ideas always, anyone who wants to refresh their Values- just look at her.
Heli Shah– an MBA graduate is associated with J.Hirani as a Business Analyst. She is fresh soul with humble and optimistic approach who is working in different industries like Manufacturing, Retail, Hospitality etc. Flexibility and greediness in learning new things helps her to conquer the challenges coming on her way.
About J.hirani: J.hirani is a Strategic Transformation team which works as a growth partner for different organisations in various industries by providing services like Agile transformation, Scenario mapping, Strategic alignment, Balance scorecard, Digital transformation, Incubating new ventures, Operation excellence and Aligning human capital.
©J.Hirani, Creating Magical presence – Going social for small retailers, June 2020. All rights reserved
