Shift4Shop eCommerce Blog | Social Media (2)

In the last several years, Facebook has exploded in popularity. It's fair to say it redefined social media. It definitely innovated new opportunities for many walks of life. This includes business owners.

With the introduction of Facebook Pages, businesses were able to stake a claim on Facebook and create their official social media profile. This led to new avenues of customer service through reviews and messaging. It also helped create a kind of directory that helped customers find all types[...]

In a period of just a few months, the societal and economic effects of the Covid-19 crisis have greatly accelerated the shift towards online shopping and digital adaptation in general. This is also true for several other underlying trends. Overall, lockdown transformed almost overnight how consumers shop and how retailers sell and interact with their customers.

Social media sites are popular all over the world, with billions of users on Facebook, Twitter, and now TikTok, from across the globe. This makes it increasingly crucial for brands to leverage the power of social media platforms to engage potential customers.

But, to present a cohesive brand image, you need social media guidelines to communicate the brand’s expectations to its employees reliably.

Let’s find out how you can create useful social media guidelines for your business.

Two years ago, I had ordered a t-shirt online. When I received it at my doorstep days later, I realized that it was the wrong size.

I tried calling the company on the phone. Nobody answered. I emailed them. Nobody replied. Then, I did what most frustrated customers do in such a situation – complained to them on Twitter. At that point, they finally responded to me and even solved my problem.

But this is not always the case with every eCommerce store.

As an eCommerce brand, generating sales on a consistent basis can be difficult with so much competition in the digital space. With eCommerce sites ranging between 12 million to 24 million in the world, it's hard to stand out.

However, there are a variety of social media platforms that give eCommerce brands the opportunity to increase their revenue through marketing.

Anyone who has worked in digital marketing knows how important social networks are in this line of work. They provide a great way to communicate with your customers, run marketing campaigns, collect feedback on your products, and so much more.

But there are so many social media platforms nowadays that, sometimes, it can become an overwhelming task to keep track of them. Which ones do you need to have a presence on? Where does the target audience of your marketing campaign gather? There are a[...]

Consumer behavior has changed over the last decade. The number of internet users has grown to 4.13 billion people, so it’s no wonder that more and more people discover new products and shop online. Simply put, eCommerce is flourishing, and brands are constantly seeking out new ways to promote and sell products online.

Since Instagram has over one billion active users and 83% of shoppers use this platform for new product discovery, many eCommerce brands have already started selling in-app. If[...]

Many B2B companies fail when it comes to leveraging social media for their benefit. Different strategies are used when marketing to businesses versus end consumers; the only common denominator between B2B and B2C companies is people.

This is the main reason that B2B sellers lag when it comes to adopting new marketing strategies. They should be leveraging social media marketing, or SMM, for online businesses if they want to reach the actual decision-makers. A B2B technology company can optimize[...]

Every year, the competitive field of marketing becomes more and more challenging. Markets are already saturated with alternative options, even niche products. While that may make it more difficult to create an impact in your space, your marketing can still flourish. Thanks to the substantial reach of social media platforms, particularly Facebook, it’s possible to create a larger customer basis and much greater product awareness.

Recent surveys from Facebook state that up to 83% of shoppers run to Instagram to discover new products and services. The same study shows that 81% of people use the platform to research about brands. Based on those numbers alone, it’s clear how Instagram has grown to become an invaluable platform for every successful online entrepreneur.

If you’re thinking about advertising on Facebook but are not sure how to, this guide will help you create your very first ad campaign in a few easy steps.

When Snapchat hit the scene back in 2011, it shook the social media world by taking an entirely unique approach to social sharing. Today, Snapchat is one of the largest social media apps in the world and has influenced almost every other social media platform to adopt similar practices.

Unfortunately, many advertisers still seem to underestimate how powerful Snapchat is. Let it be known that ignoring the potential of advertising on Snapchat is a mistake – especially since the app is leading the[...]

At present, there are roughly 2.82 billion social media users worldwide and the number is expected to cross the 3 billion mark by 2021, says Statista.

With such a vast majority of netizens being connected to social media, it comes as no surprise that brands consider social media sites like Facebook and Instagram among the best marketing platforms.

Until a few years ago, social media was primarily restricted to interacting with people; things have changed quite a lot since then. Though it is[...]

Ecommerce is taking over the retail industry. According to Oberlo, by 2021, ecommerce is expected to make up more than 17% of all sales worldwide. This growth represents a massive opportunity for online sellers, but there is a catch; and it doesn’t just come down to your order fulfillment strategy. You have to compete with online giants like Amazon, which owns about half of the US ecommerce market.

Social media used to be all about connecting with friends. You'd simply search for a friend, connect with them, and start talking about anything and everything. Today?

Social media grew from just connecting friends to uniting brands and communities online. In recent years, social media has turned into an essential piece of everybody's lives and, in turn, your marketing strategy.

Consumers today are online and are very social. In fact, 90% of consumers turn to social media for assistance with a[...]

Social media marketing, from the outside, looks easy. But for those who’ve tried it, they’ve learned that there are a lot of hidden secrets to running a successful social media marketing campaign.

Even the best campaigns, however, can be derailed in just a matter of seconds...

One insensitive post...

One political tweet...

And POOF! Everything you worked for, almost all of your followers, gone.

While social media marketing has the firepower to take your ecommerce business to greater heights, it[...]

Social media is now integral to the daily lives of billions of people around the world, and that includes being inseparable from business strategy. If you run an eCommerce store, you must take advantage of these platforms to spread the word and enable customer interaction. However, this is a two-way street and goes beyond creating and maintaining accounts on the major sites. You also must allow people to easily share your content and products on them.

Including social media icons on your[...]

In today’s low-trust world, social proof matters.

Millennials currently tout the greatest buying power among generations, but they don’t trust traditional advertising. So, if conventional adverts are an ineffective strategy for capturing consumer dollars, how can eCommerce brands reach target audiences to increase sales?

Influencer marketing is a strategy that has become revered for its effectiveness in increasing brand awareness, boosting engagement, and driving sales. A Twitter-sponsored study

Do you remember when a bright picture evoked wonders in the mind; back when we were first introduced to the concept of the internet as a place where text wasn’t the only resident, but colorful digital images as well?

Maybe you do and maybe you don’t. The point is that the days when images reigned supreme are long gone. Do you know why? It’s simple, really. Whereas a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million.

It makes sense too—a video is a collection of images that come[...]

Recently, the number of social media users from across the globe has reached 2.77 billion. The number is expected to exceed 3.02 billion by 2021, according to Statista:

Image credit: Statista

Taking into account both how fast these numbers are expected to grow and how enormous social media user bases have already become, it would be foolish not to start using these platforms for marketing as soon as possible.

However, no matter how beneficial social media can be for a business, it’s not all[...]