Social Networks: A Complete Guide to Your E-Commerce

With the emergence of digital technology in recent years, using social networks to sell is an effective solution. For a company it is now impossible to ignore social networks in their communication strategy, these social networks are even vital for some companies.

With Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest… the list of social networks is great. However, in order to take full advantage of the potential of social networks and maximize its chances of success, it is necessary to target each social network, because they are not all suitable for your business. This will depend on several factors such as your activity, your goals, your target or the content you want to share.

In this article, we have made a list of the most popular social networks and we will give you all the numbers and all the keys to choose, but also, use the social networks most suited to your e-commerce!

A social media strategy can be integrated into your online store’s development and communication strategy. Learn more about using social networks for E-Commerce, as well as learning the ropes of online project management

Why use social networks to sell?

With several million users in the world, being present on social networks has become a necessity to be visible. Indeed, among these users are probably hidden some of your customers and your future customers. Social networks have clearly changed the way consumers will react with your brand, discover your products, and make purchasing decisions.

Social selling

Social selling is an approach that involves using social networks in the sales process in order to develop your business. The goal is to detect users who match your target(buyers persona)and convert them into potential customers. It is a process of research, selection, interaction with potential prospects via social networks.

Be visible on social media

Being present on social networks allows you to be seen, to make your brand known, it is a very good way to improve your notoriety. You then have the opportunity to highlight your products and also to look for new customers. No matter what your company’s target is, if you share the right content on social networks, at the right time, on the right platform, you’ll have every chance of reaching them.

Moreover, it is an excellent channel to improve your SEO and your e-commerce traffic, the more we talk about you on social networks, the more visible you are, the more your users will share your content and the greater the opportunity to reach new customers.

Get as close as possible to your customers through social networks

Social networks are one of the best tools to get you closer to your customers and prospects through their targeting. You will be able to get in direct contact with them on social networks, answering their questions, thanking them for their interest in your company or to keep them informed of your news. In addition, through the different feedbacks of your customers, you will have the ability to improve your products or services. Social networks are a wealth of information to keep watch and know the needs of consumers in your industry.

Social networks are also the opportunity to unite a community that will meet your expectations regarding purchases, feedback, but above all that can act as a group of ambassadors for your brand.

Choose your social networks based on your activity

The list of social networks is vast, but before you go headlong and register on each of them, you need to know which social networks your target is on. Here are the most popular and used social networks in France:

Facebook, the leader of social networks

Facebook has more than 2.70 billion monthly active users. It is the reference social network in many countries and particularly suitable for the B2C.

Messenger, also part of Facebook, along with WhatsApp and Instagram, also attracts a large audience, with more than 1.3 billion people using instant messaging each month. There are 40 million companies that use Facebook Messenger for their business.

Objectives

• Build a community and build loyalty;
• Relay content like your blog posts;
• Highlight your products and promotional actions
• Highlight general information and company life

Tools

• Facebook Ads: a promotional tool that allows you to target people accurately. For example, you can target them by gender, age, location, interest, etc.
• Facebook Marketplace: Connect sellers and buyers around online sales ads.
• Facebook Insight: a tool for all administrators on your company’s page. It allows you to analyze your audience through numerous statistics on publications and engagement.
• Facebook Pixel: an analytics tool that allows you to measure the effectiveness of your ad by tracking the actions taken by people on your website.
• Facebook IQ: a tool offered by the platform to obtain data and analysis on consumer behaviour, and marketing advice that you can apply on the network.

Instagram, photography on social networks

Instagram, created in 2010 and acquired by Facebook in 2012, is growing and has become one of the most popular social networks with young people. The mobile platform has 1 billion monthly active users, it is also 14 million unique visitors average per day. Every day, 500 million stories are posted on the network.

Objectives

• Highlighting your business, your feed represents your identity.
• Make your products known.
• Getting closer to your community (by showing behind the scenes with stories, for example).

Tools

• Instagram Shopping: a tool that allows you to add a product link directly to your photos (Instagram advertising is managed from Facebook, so you first have to upload your catalog to Facebook, and Instagram will import it).
• Instagram Business: Linked to your Facebook account, this tool allows you to advertise on Instagram. There are two types of ads on Instagram: in the publication format (either image or video) or in story format. Important point: To be able to add links to your posts, you must have 10,000 followers.
• Snapppt: a free tool that turns photos posted on Instagram into a product card.
• Mojo: a tool that creates creative stories to differentiate yourself.
• In Shot: mobile software that makes it easy to edit videos.

Twitter, the micro-blogging network

Twitter is the social network of real-time information and micro-blogging in up to 280 characters. The platform has 330 million monthly active users worldwide , but also and 4.4 million unique visitors means per day.

About 6,000 tweets are sent every second, and $200 billion for a year. The total number of accounts created on the social network is 1.3 billion.

Objectives

• Keep your watch and control your e-reputation.
• Share content, news and expertise.
• Get closer and interact with your subscribers.
• Improve its visibility and create virality.
• Improve your brand image.

Tools

• Twitter for business: a tool that allows you to create and distribute your advertising campaigns on Twitter.
• Tweet deck: an online tool that allows you to manage and view several items in your twitter account.
• Buffer: a tool that lets you program your tweets and post them at the best time of the day.
• Tweriod: a tool that analyses your audience and twitter follower activity to let you know the right time to tweet.
• Talkwalker: a tool for monitoring and analysing social networks. The tool will allow you to control your e-reputation.

LinkedIn, the professional platform

With 310 million monthly active users worldwide including . It is the social network 100% dedicated to professionals, so to B2B. In total, the professional network has more than 610 million members worldwide, including 40 million decision makers.

Objectives

• Prospecting and developing its network.
• Promote your business and show your expertise.
• Increase the visibility of his company.
• Share content and news.
• Share the life of the company and highlight its team.

Tools

• Campaign Manager: a tool that makes 5 types of ads available from Text Ads to sponsored content.
• ProspectIn: a tool that automates prospecting on LinkedIn.
• LeadFuze: lead generation tool.

Pinterest, pins for social media

Even though Pinterest is still quite underrated in many countries, it is a very interesting social network for e-commerce and has 400 million monthly active users worldwide. In fact, 55% of registrants use Pinterest to make purchases. This platform can offer a good visibility to your products, especially in terms of fashion, beauty, gastronomy, decoration, or tourism.

Objectives

• Give visibility and highlight your products.
• Bring traffic to your website and improve your SEO.
• Generate leads.

Tools

• Pinterest Business: a tool that allows you to advertise on Pinterest.
• Canva: a free online graphic design tool that makes it easy to create visuals of any kind.
• Tailwind: a programming tool for Pinterest (and Instagram), it saves you time and gives information about your audience.

YouTube, the video platform

Although YouTube cannot be considered a social network in its own right, the video platform offers many possibilities for online shopping. YouTube is the second most visited site in the world, behind Google. A boon for Alphabet, Google’s parent company that also bought YouTube.

Worldwide, the video giant attracts more than 2 billion monthly users. Overall, more than 80,000 videos are viewed every second. Of course if you don’t make video content, unfortunately you’ll have to forget about this platform.

Objectives

• Founding and uniting a community.
• Gaining notoriety and virality.
• Valuing your Referencing and bringing traffic.
• Show your products on video.
• Getting closer to the consumer through video.
• Humanize your business.

Tools

• YouTube Analytics: a tool that provides detailed statistics to assess the success of your videos.
• Tube Buddy: a diagnostic tool that reviews your video to see if it’s well configured and optimized to generate views.
• KineMaster: easy-to-use video editing tool, accessible on smartphones.

Snapchat, the 100% mobile network

Snapchat is a social network entirely dedicated to mobile, thus benefiting heavily from mobile commerce, or M-Commerce. Every day, the photo-focused social network attracts nearly 210 million users around the world. The success of the network is such that it results in more than 3.5 billion snaps being sent to the world on a daily basis.

Objectives

• Get closer to your community and show your business behind the scenes.
• Create and share viral content.
• Offer creative content.
• Highlight your products.

Tools

• Snaplytics: a tool to get a performance report on your Snapchat account.
• Paperclip: This tool allows you to link directly to a snap, helping you redirect your community to your site.

WhatsApp, the world’s first instant messaging service

WhatsApp is an instant messaging app created in 2009. Purchased in 2014 by Facebook, WhatsApp quickly established itself in the world . Today it is the world’s first instant messaging service.

As a witness to this success, WhatsApp announced in February 2020 that it had passed the 2 billion user mark worldwide. The app is increasingly being used by businesses to communicate more easily with their customers. There are 50 million companies worldwide that use WhatsApp business.

Objectives

• Getting closer to your young clientele
• Use the app as a customer service
• Respond faster to your customers and customize the conversation
• Relay your information
• Highlight your services and products

Tools

• WhatsApp business: An app designed for small business owners. It allows you to interact with your customers with ease, to present your products and services.
• Landbot: This tool allows you to create a chatbot for WhatsApp.
• Polls for WhatsApp: a tool that lets you create polls on WhatsApp.

There are, of course, other social networks, each bringing together its specificities and its communities. We can find:

• Clubhouse, the 100% vocal social network,
• Tumblr, which mixes blogging and exchanges,
• Flickr, which also allows photo sharing on the Internet, and has an image bank,
• We Heart It, whose operation strongly recalls those of Pinterest and Instagram,
• Medium, which mixes blogging and exchanges, such as Tumblr, organized in the form of collections,
• Reddit, which is closer to a community site organized around sometimes very specific topics,
• Stumble Upon, which allows you to discover content based on your tastes and popular content on the Internet,
• and many more …

Today, it becomes very complicated if not impossible to do without social networks for your company. Being visible on the internet and social networks is not synonymous with being everywhere at once, there is no point in scattering. It is important to have a clear strategy depending on your activity and your target.