Sometimes, we can’t believe the times we live in, right? Running a D2C brand in the current times must feel like that. The ecommerce ecosystem has made it possible for small businesses and retailers to take their products to a global audience. But as the industry grows, so do the challenges.
Earlier all you needed was a good ecommerce website and a solid go-to marketing strategy to make a successful brand. But now, customers have too many discovery channels and a lot more brands competing for their attention. This means that you have to improve your game and meet your customers where they are.
And that is social media.
What was meant to be a platform for customers to interact with friends and family, is one of the primary sources of brand discovery. We are seeing reports of customers using TikTok to find brands and Instagram seeing their users follow more than one business profile on the platform.
Ecommerce is slowly being replaced by social commerce. So, social media marketing is something you cannot ignore.
Even if you don’t sell on social media just yet, you need a brilliant social media content strategy to show up strong where your customers are looking for you.
A decade ago, online shopping seemed revolutionary. Business experts from the retail industry never thought that customers would trust a brand with just a website and invest money in them.
But now, we are seeing sales happening off apps and not just any app – social media apps. Ever since social media platforms integrated payment gateways and Shop features, social commerce has exploded like never before.
Small businesses have been able to reach new heights and even global brands have seen a spike in their sales numbers by including social commerce in their strategy.
As online shopping picks up and the time logged by social media users on these apps increase, social commerce will be one of the most significant sales channels for retail brands.
But how relevant is a strong social media content strategy to the success of social commerce for a retail brand?
We would say, very.
Why?
Social commerce, ecommerce, in-store sales, and customer attribution matter to brands and marketers way more than it does to a customer. Across all channels, a typical customer’s journey looks almost identical.
They stumble upon a brand aided by SEO or the social media platform’s algorithm and start exploring/interacting with the content. If they qualify as your target audience and have an imminent need, they will continue to interact with your brand until the point of decision arrives. Post this, the customer will evaluate their options and choose the brand/product that best fits their needs.
In social commerce too, the buyer’s journey of brand awareness → consideration → comparison → conversion → referral stands.
So you have to begin the journey at brand awareness if you want to execute a successful social commerce strategy for your retail brand.
Now that will only happen if you have a social media content strategy that caters to your target audience, speaks to them at every stage of their journey, and is effective enough to convince them that you are what they seek.
How?
You can follow our tips for a successful social media content strategy for your retail brand.
The content you post on social media goes a long way in impressing your target audience and converting them into paying customers. On social media platforms, it is important to be unique, entertaining, engaging, and consistent at all times. The content for the largest part is what will push your customers down the sales funnel.
While your social media content strategy will take cues from the overall marketing strategy, there are some unique tips for this medium that a D2C retail brand must make the most of.
Let’s dive in.
When you are running a D2C brand, it is tempting to make it all about the products and nothing more. Technically, if you post enough gorgeous photos of what you sell, customers will get attracted, right? They should but they see so many photos and videos across every app that it becomes virtually impossible to differentiate one from the other.
That is unless the brand decides to do it.
Social media marketing is not posting memes or photos to stay on always. No, understanding your customer journey and modeling your content strategy to reflect their needs at various stages has a greater impact than anything else.
So, when you devise your social media content strategy, choose :
You need all these and more to convince customers at different stages of their purchase journey.
You know your customer’s story but what about your story? There must be another hundred brands doing what you do, why must the customer pick you? More often than not, customers pick brands because they resonate with their story. Especially if you are a niche business that is just starting out.
Feature your story across your social media creatives and tell the world who you are.
Branded storytelling is an important tool that can attract your audience and successfully create an emotional bond between the viewer and your brand. It is much easier to convince a customer who is invested in your brand because of the story than someone who is there for the discounts.
It is a myth that the content you create in-house will be of a higher standard than what your customers create with your product. On the other hand, featuring your customers actively in your campaigns will bring you closer to them and break a very important sales barrier in the audience’s mind.
Studies show that when it comes to social media, the users have a stronger hold than the algorithm can ever have on a community. It is important to reduce friction in the conversion process by consistently championing customers.
Some ways to do this include:
There is a direct formula of what content works and does not work on certain social media platforms. Over 9000+ tools exist to guide these decisions, along with numerous case studies and live examples. It is important that you research the platform well before diving into content creation. These platforms are governed by their algorithms and it is best to leverage those characteristics.
Social media and social commerce hold immense potential for the growth of D2C retail brands. Consistent analytics and a well-planned social media content strategy can make that happen for you.
And at the base of it all lies strong social media graphics. If you want to save time and money while also having catchy graphics to adorn your branded social media page, outsource your design.
