The success of an online store depends on a number of factors. It begins from the true value of your product and its use to the market reach. Let's stick to the latter as  the market reach can directly determine your sales' results. The broader it is, the less of your products stay in the inventory.

If you're an eCommerce owner, you are well aware that the most profitable solution for advertising online is social media sites.

What's in it for your business? Just look at the statistics.

• As of the third quarter of 2016, Facebook had 1.79 billion monthly active users.
• 71% of consumers will purchase an item based on social media referrals.
• 78% of consumers said that brand's social media posts influence their purchases.

How to start?

Increasing your website traffic may look like an easy job, but rest assured that it needs a sound marketing strategy to achieve that. On top of that, it needs time and patience.

Set your priorities straight. Before you even get into planning, you have to establish the goals and determine:

• how much traffic you want to generate to your website from social media
• what percentage of visitors will take action
• whether the number of posts will correspond to the engagement
• what content your customers want to see

Next comes understanding your typical customer's mindset. Asking them directly or tracking their interactions or social media behavior can show you where to aim. It can be done by your website's analytics which provides data about the location, engagement and the type of content that gets viewed the most.

Time to take action

Once you get to know the customer, it is time to take action and post daily on social media. Different audiences prefer different types of content and different posting regularity. Test it for a while to see the convenient posting time.

Also, use images to increase engagement. Using photos on Facebook will give you 53% more likes than the average post. Images are far more eye-catching than the plain text. Posts with visual content get shared more often, thus providing you higher visibility.

After your viewers have clicked on your post and decided to stay, give them a reason to stay and turn them into readers. Offer quality content that doesn't spell “selling” in it. We'll talk about direct selling later. For now, it is important to comprehend that forcing someone to buy your product is not such a wise move afterall.

If the content is tailored to your customer's desires, they will share it on their own social media profiles. Encourage them to share it by putting social buttons on your website and in your newsletter. The buttons make it easier for people to spread the word. They only need to click on them and half of your work is done.

In perfect conditions, shared content becomes sales. Making sure your social media posts are optimized is a great step forward. Try making a keyword research to see what are your visitors searching for and then integrate high-conversion keywords into your posts.

Keywords make up a small part of social media marketing strategy. On the other hand, interacting with customers directly is something worth of your precious time. Facebook and Twitter are perfect platforms to communicate with the followers. You can do it by commenting or sending private messages and newsletters.

The last thing to look after are the feedbacks. Show the old customers and the new visitors you care by asking them for a feedback. Feedbacks are a powerful factor in a decision-making process because the majority of users will trust brand reviews from other customers as much as personal advice.

When the technicalities are put in place, you would want to decide whether your strategy will be based on direct marketing, indirect marketing and what kind of system will you use along the way.

Direct social media marketing

As we mentioned before, forcing somebody to buy your product and using aggressive methods simply doesn't work. But direct marketing has come a long way. Now you can use direct social media marketing without being afraid you will offend someone.

Direct promotion works through special offers and giveaways made for the targeted fanbase. The fanbase then grows exponentially with each share. You can also create contests and special events for loyal customers that follow your eCommerce on Facebook or Twitter.

Indirect social media marketing

Besides direct advertising, you can use the power of blogs to show the viewers what's your shop all about. Sharing daily blog posts with insights on new products, trends or articles that provide general knowledge can establish a high level of trust between your business and the customers.

What's more, answering questions about your product or about any product within your industry maintains the level of trust you earned from the fans and the customers.

What about the time spent?

Social media may help your online store gain fans and potential customers, but keeping up with multiple pages is severely time-consuming. Luckily, choosing the best eCommerce platform for your business can save you both time and money.

Ecommerce platforms offer you integration with social media sites to simplify everything from the advertising process to the purchase of your product. Also, adding a new product to your inventory or sharing a new post is synced directly with every social media site you use.

Conclusion

Social media advertising strategies and selling can elevate your online store when you plan wisely, take action and choose the system that fits your needs. Creating an online presence for your business is a fun way to connect with your customers on a more personal level which is a guarantee your hard work has paid off.