How to Social Media

Shockingly, social media isn’t just for sending tweets that say “omg i love u plz retweet or ill DIE ?” to celebs (they love that, trust me.) It’s also an insanely good – and crucial – tool to promote your product and yourself.

Let’s look at 1: what sites create the most sales, 2: which to use, 3: how to use them and 4: how to get creative with them.

1. What sites create the most sales?

• Facebook is the leader here, dominating at getting the most social traffic and sales. According to Adweek, Pinterest came in 2nd here and Twitter came in 3rd.
• Facebook also has the highest conversion rate (rate at which visitors actually go on to buy something after visiting social media)
• Instagram, Pinterest, and surprisingly, Polyvore were the leaders in terms of order value.
• For clothing and apparel, 87% of online sales were made from Facebook.
• People feel more connected to a brand after following on Twitter. It’s like the promise ring of social media.

(Stats courtesy of Shopify 1 and 2)

2. So which sites should you actually use and why?

For an apparel/accessories/art online store, I recommend the following big ones:

FACEBOOK

• Top site for social traffic/sales.
• Top site for conversion rate of e-commerce traffic.
• A little goes a long way in terms of how much bang you get for your buck when you throw down for advertising your product.

 

INSTAGRAM

• One of the leaders in terms of highest order value, and that’s without being able to click a link in the photo description. So you have more people going to your main Instagram page, which always rocks.
• Liking and commenting on photos is a solid way of promoting your brand/product, and also gaining followers.
• It’s a pretty purely visual medium. On Facebook, 93% of the most engaging FB posts are visual. As a designer, platforms like Instagram that are super visual-friendly are your friend.

PINTEREST

• Pinterest has the highest revenue per click than any other social networking site.
• Another visual medium which, remember, is your friend.

TWITTER

• Twitter is a good way to generate brand loyalty – people feel more connected to a brand, apparently, after they follow them on Twitter. Which if you think about it is kinda true. You have to really like a brand to actually want to see their tweets enough to actually follow them. Twitter is clogged as it is.

(Stats courtesy of Shopify, sumall, and Kissmetrics) 

Kissmetrics also recommended trying out several of these “smaller” sites:

• Tumblr: can help appeal to your niche audience (tags are your friend here!)

• StumbleUpon: can also help appeal to your niche audience, since it’s customized to what particular users “thumbs up” or “thumbs down.”

And finally, they recommend utilizing one niche site as well, a list of which you can find right here [LINK HERE].

3. So how do I actually use these sites?

Everyone always wants to know how often to post on social media. But Forbes reported that, plot twist: there’s no real connection between amount of posting and follower gain/loss.

The three real keys?

• Posting on the daily

• Consistency

• Quality of content

It’s more about finding the Goldilocks amount of posting – not too much, not too little – and, most importantly, to maintain that level. Which is why it’s OK to be selective about what social media sites you choose to use. It’s better to have a couple of social media profiles with content that is high quality and consistent rather than a dozen social media channels that are poorly kept up with half-assed content (Buffer can help with this).

But, if you’d like some posting guidelines:

Again, this varies by person, product, and how much you’re able to keep up. Marismith, for example, said that for them, 6-7 tweets per day on weekdays and 3-4 on weekends was good.

4. The fun stuff – what content should I create?

SO, you’ve picked your social media outlets, made your profile look pretty…and now you’re sitting there, watching that little flashing “type” line thing on your screen…forever.

Social Media is a way to promote yourself and your stuff, but you’re a creative. Let that bleed into how you post and what you post. Don’t be a robot.

Here’s 5 basic yet creative ways to post on social media that lets you utilize social media without selling your soul to being boring:

• Photos, photos, photos

1. Process art – your final product while it’s still just a sketch/concept
2. Behind the scenes shots of you working/your space/your life
3. Photos that have nothing to do with your brand, but rather the feel that you want to portray (ex. Anthropologie organizes their products into rooms/lookbooks that portray a specific lifestyle aesthetic)
4. Fan photos! Post pics of people using your product

• Give ‘em something to share – share a book recommendation, TV show thoughts, a funny comic or meme. Gives your customers something and makes you a human being who’s fun to follow (online, not in real life – that’s the following you don’t want).

• Have a voice. Your voice. Don’t be afraid to post random stuff sometimes. They make you seem more real. Pizza Hut is really funny on Twitter. It makes them follow-able.

• Get people involved

1. Funny polls (ex. if you have a pizza shirt and a burger shirt, do a “which is the better food?” poll. That’s kinda lame, but you get it.)
2. Send out a pic and say “caption this” and pick a winner

• Post things your audience might be into: if you’re a geeky, pop-culture oriented brand, maybe share cool geekcentric news, or caption your posts with references your fanbase would get and appreciate. ThinkGeek does this all the time.

• Have regularly-scheduled ongoing “series” – Foodie Friday where you post a (quality) food pic and a recipe with it, maybe do a Throwback Thursday to some super old drawings you did back in 3rd grade, etc. Weekly things that people will expect, along with your other content.