Social media has a strong role to play in fueling the growth of ecommerce businesses. From bringing in viable leads to improving brand awareness and building better customer relationships, social media helps in many ways.
And to make the most of this channel to grow your ecommerce business, you need quality content that engages your audience. If the recent shift towards video content on social media has been intimidating you, fear not, we have put together the best ideas to get you started.
We’ll talk about the different types of social media video content to use, where to use them, and some effective tips for designing them.
Create a video that simplifies a topic in your niche. If you need ideas, look for popular questions on online forums. When you know what your target customers are looking for and use your social media page to provide the answers that clarify their doubts, you win their trust. When they look at you as an industry expert, they will be more willing to do business with you.
The above video, for example, introduces a new feature and also explains how to use it. Videos like these let users learn something new. When you value their time and give them such concrete information within a quick few seconds, you are building trust in your customers. And this helps you emerge as a reliable name in your industry.
When you post such resourceful videos, your customers might tag their friends or even share the video. This brings in better engagement on social media.
One other dimension to informative videos will be webinar-style Q&A sessions with industry experts.
After this you have two options:
Though both Instagram and Facebook allow long-form videos, YouTube is a much better platform for this. Instagram and Facebook, on the other hand, are best suited for short-form videos as well as live sessions with your customers.
You can also share insights from experts in your team to acknowledge and give a shoutout to your team members and to let people get a glimpse of the faces behind your brand.
You can also create a series of social media video posts where different members of the team or different experts in the same niche share quick insights each answering a question. In such cases, clearly indicate that this will be a series of videos with multiple parts focusing on different questions. This will create anticipation. You might even win some new followers who are curious to know what comes next.
Like industry experts, influencers can also have a strong influence on your marketing efforts. Short and long social media videos where influencers review your products will be beneficial to your ecommerce brands in so many ways.
Let the content focus more on the experience and the quality of the products. This way your customers will know what to expect when they buy your products. For your customers, trusting an individual they have been following on social media for quite some time will be easier than trusting a new brand. That’s why many startups use social media videos for influencer marketing.
There are so many ways to do it. Instagram, for example, allows collaboration posts. This way brands that are looking to build their network on social media will be able to reach out to the followers of this influencer as well.
Making your customers feel included, and creating a sense of community will be the best ways to make the most of social media. And for this, popular brands make use of user-generated content. A few ideas you can use here will be:
Did you know that nearly 90,000 people search for unboxing videos on YouTube every month? So, if you have a signature packaging style that delivers the best unboxing experience your customers will be more than willing to create unboxing videos. And these can strongly persuade buyers with second thoughts to leave their doubts behind and place that order.
To improve the chances of customers tagging your brand, you can also use creatively designed packaging inserts. This can be a thank you card that gives them details about your social media handles.
The most profitable products that you wish to sell more or product lines that currently do not have enough traction can all be given a little extra boost through social media. For this, you can create introductory videos that talk about a new product that is to be launched. Or better yet, do a live launch event if that sounds feasible.
And when it comes to introducing your product, do not limit yourself to Instagram and Facebook. Pinterest is another productive space to consider, for it’s one of the most popular social media channels where people look for ideas. A simple video that introduces your product or even tells how to use it will improve your reach. 80% of weekly Pinterest users report having found some new products on this platform.
Product introduction videos on social media are enough to evoke your audience’s curiosity. But to get them to buy the product you should strengthen their awareness about the product. A few ideas to try here will be:
To keep things interesting, create a series of short videos dedicated to a set of features that make this product a worthy contender in a competitive space. You can use these videos to highlight the USP of the product you wish to promote.
Product demo videos are highly effective ways to boost sales. For example, when you are trying to sell a robotic vacuum cleaner on your ecommerce store, you will be adding product specifications along with the product listing. But for an end-user who is curious to try new technology, a video that shows what an “anti-collision” sensor is will be much more effective than a product description that mentions this feature.
Videos that elaborate on the features will make a lasting impact on customers. So, if they have plans to buy the promoted product this video will support their buying decision. Or if they think about purchasing the product anytime in the future, they will remember the video better than the product description.
If you need social media campaigns that engage your audience and also widen your reach, then giveaways and online contests are great ideas. To introduce these campaigns, videos can be the most effective tools. A single video that gives a gist of the contest details will help the campaign.
Most giveaways and social media contests ask customers to tag their friends and share the post on their Stories. All of these tactics strengthen the brand’s following on social media. And they increase the chances of the brand reaching new leads through customers who are already engaging with the brand. Make sure that you create and actively use a campaign-specific hashtag in such cases. This way you will be able to track when customers share your videos or talk about the contests.
There is a whole bunch of content you can create to talk about your brand. For ecommerce businesses, it is about building a strong rapport with your customers. Most ecommerce businesses are about recurrent purchases from customers.
Getting your customers to buy from your ecommerce site once is not the most effective result of marketing. Engaging them actively and maintaining consistent customer relationships will ensure that customers will come back to your ecommerce store for future purchases as well.
So, you can use your social media pages to talk about your brand story, or even explain to customers what your brand stands for. Information like this will help them understand how your brand is different from the others in the segment. For this, you can use company culture videos, videos that introduce your team, or even videos that show what happens behind the scenes.
Globally popular ecommerce player Amazon is a trendsetter when it comes to sharing employee videos and videos that showcase backstage activities. And these are videos that make it easier for customers to connect with the brand.
Now that you have a handful of content ideas for social media videos for your ecommerce brand, here are a few things to keep in mind when you create and upload videos.
Set clear goals for your social media video strategy. And start small. Do not try to create different videos for each social media platform. Aim at creating versatile videos that can be repurposed across different channels. If you do not have enough time or support in creating long-form videos, start with short-form videos that grab the attention of your target audience. And slowly, you can diversify your video portfolio and include more extensive videos that customers will enjoy. But the key is to start somewhere. Do not pin your hopes on an image-only approach for social media growth.
So, are you ready to get into the social media video marketing wagon with these cool ideas?
