Social Media Marketing Value Rising for Marketers

Order Up! Social Media Marketing-Driven Traffic Spending More on Average than Last Year

While some business leaders discount the value of social media marketing, e-commerce sellers who are successfully engaging on social media are laughing all the way to the bank. This year, Instagram more than doubled, joining Facebook and Pinterest in driving traffic to e-commerce sites that resulted in average orders of more than $100.

A new E-Commerce Quarterly report from Monetate shows not only a year over year increase in average order for e-commerce sites from traffic that arrives on their site directly from a social platform, but also predicts that this trend will continue.

It’s hard to disagree with this prediction; more and more consumers own mobile devices, more consumers use them for shopping in general, plus, visiting social networks is one of the activities most frequently performed on mobile devices.

In fact, a February 2014 ExactTarget survey of daily activities performed on mobile devices indicated that 75% of all smartphone users use their device to go onto a social network at least once each day (64% of tablet users said the same thing). Brand marketers may also be undervaluing the role of social networks in the e-commerce customer’s journey. For instance, a consumer may discover a brand or a brand’s offer on a social network then enter the site’s name into a search engine. While the brand marketer will trace the visit back to search traffic, in all reality the visit should be attributed to social.

When it comes to the average order value by social network, Instagram blows competitors away with a 150 percent year over year increase. Here’s a closer look at some of the numbers reported by Monetate, comparing the traffic driven to ecommerce sites by four social networks in quarter one of 2014 vs. the same quarter the previous year:

• Instagram – 150% increase – average order rising from $51 to $128
• Pinterest – 25% increase – average order rising from $85 to $106
• Polyvore – 20% increase – average order rising from $124 to $149
• Facebook – 14% increase – average order rising from $90 to $103

Whether it’s time for your organization to launch social media marketing efforts or you need to up your game and produce results (i.e., leads and sales!), then make sure that your strategy does these three things.

Order Up: 3 Ways to Improve a Social Media Marketing Strategy

Get More Followers

Merely having social networks is not enough; you must have followers. Only people that actually follow your brand page (or your page) will see what you post on either page. It’s a numbers game. The more people who will potentially see your posts, the more people who will potential respond (like, share, comment or click). Here are some tactics that can help you get more brand followers on social networks:

• Ask. Sounds obvious, doesn’t it — but have you actually asked your customers and contacts to follow your professional pages online? Have you asked them to recommend your brand’s pages to their social network followers?
• Contests. Contests and drawings that feature prizes that would be of value to members of your target markets are likely to bring new followers to your brand’s social pages. You can even make social sharing part of the contest so that new followers also share your brand pages with their own networks.
• PPC (pay per click). Most social networks allow you to sponsor brand posts and pay – essentially – to put your ad or update in the path of members of your target markets, so that they are more likely to find and like your brand’s pages on social networks.
• Make it easy and obvious. Including links to your brand’s social pages on your website, blog, email marketing and other communications makes it easy for readers to like your pages so that they can receive updates about your brand in their social news feeds.

Reach People in Your Target Markets

The more you tailor your brand’s social pages to appeal to and attract members of your target markets, the more likely they are to (a) find them and (b) follow them. Merely having a presence on social networks is not enough, your presence there must be cohesive to your brand overall and must be optimized so that your brand’s pages will be displayed in relevant online search results.

Facilitate the Next Step

So you’ve gotten a new follower on a social network – now what? If you never make it clear that the next step they should take is to visit your website, subscribe to email updates, visit your store or take some other desired action, chances are that they aren’t going to do it!