10 Simple E-Commerce Social Media Marketing Tips for 2020

A Holiday Season Unlike Any Other!

2020 has certainly been anything but dull. Between the global pandemic, social unrest, the Presidential election, and the resulting economic challenges have taken their toll on businesses big and small alike. Shoppers have forsaken actual in-store visits for the safety and convenience of online shopping. And this presents both new challenges and new opportunities for online retailers. The following e-commerce social media marketing tips will help you make the most out of the online shopping season.

There are 29 shopping days between Black Friday and Christmas Day in 2020, a shorter shopping season than last year. Online retailers need to maximize their online exposure to stand out from their competitors. Most likely, you have already considered your holiday email marketing and perhaps even paid search marketing. But you also need to focus on your e-commerce social media marketing!

E-commerce social media marketing is an excellent opportunity for smaller brands to attract and convert more consumers this holiday season. Social media helps you extend your brand reach, build awareness for your promotional efforts, and support your overall e-commerce holiday sales activity.

Let’s help you get started with your e-commerce holiday marketing. Here are ten e-commerce social media marketing tips you can employ this holiday season.

10 E-Commerce Social Media Marketing Tips

1. Don’t Focus Only on Social Media

Suppose you want your e-commerce social media marketing to succeed. In that case, you need to focus on more than just social media. Yes, we know that sounds weird, but it works. You will do much better if you use social media to support your other online marketing strategies.

For starters, make sure that your website and online store are optimized and prepared for online consumers. In 2020, most shoppers will purchase online instead of visiting brick-and-mortar stores.

Think multi-channel and integrate social media into your e-commerce holiday marketing instead of using it as your only tool. You may also want to include some creative holiday email marketing ideas in your overall marketing strategy.

Helpful Tip:

Add social sharing buttons through AddThis to your essential product and service pages on your website. Then create content that people will want to share and social network content that links back to your e-commerce site.

2. Decorate for the Holidays

You most likely will decorate your brick-and-mortar store for the holidays. You may even send out holiday-themed emails, have holiday events or promos in your store, and perhaps you even send out Christmas cards. But are you decorating your social profiles for the holidays?

Almost every social platform utilizes profile images and cover graphics. Some, like Twitter, also include background images. First, you should check out the type and size of pictures for the most common social platforms to ensure your holiday art will fit exactly. Put your shoppers in the holiday spirit by updating such imagery with seasonal themes.

Helpful Tip:

Don’t worry if you are not very creative or don’t have the budget to engage a graphic designer. There are many great tools available to help you create your holiday art, including Ripl, Spark Post, Canva, and Pixlr.

3. Create Engaging Content

During the holiday season, we are all bombarded with sales messages. Suppose you want to succeed with your e-commerce social media marketing. In that case, we recommend you dial back the sales messages by a lot! Your online audience will be much more receptive to content focused on topics of interest to them.

Helpful Tip:

Include creative seasonal decorating tips, a list of ways to reduce stress during the holidays, ideas for making the holidays more meaningful, inspirational quotes, and more.

4. Get Visual

One of the biggest e-commerce social media marketing trends for the 2020 holiday season is the rise of visual storytelling. You have many options to choose from holiday-themed videos to large hero images, duotones, and even graphics and infographics.

Helpful Tip:

Include a visual element in all of your social posts. And don’t forget to include a featured image in your holiday blog posts. When visitors share your content on their social platforms, your image will appear along with it.

5. Inspire Shopping Ideas

Another very effective e-commerce social media marketing strategy is to inspire shopping ideas for your audience. Many holiday shoppers are looking for brands to provide them with ideas and sell them products or services. So oblige your audience by offering ideas for everything from holiday decorating to the perfect gift idea.

Helpful Tip:

Both Instagram and Pinterest are handy for visual storytelling. Even better, many people frequent these platforms over the holiday season specifically for getting holiday ideas from people like you! So be sure to create holiday-themed stories and boards for your e-commerce social media marketing.

6. Run Social Media Contests

Another very effective e-commerce social media marketing strategy is to run social media contests. You already know about the “Ugly Christmas Sweater” contest. But how about running contests for the best holiday decoration, the worst Christmas wrapping disaster, or the most unusual gift idea?

Helpful Tip:

If you are looking for some more unusual social media contest ideas, check out RafflePress for some cool out-of-the-box contest ideas!

7. Send Personal Holiday Greetings

Contrary to popular belief sending out Christmas cards to your customers is an effective strategy for your e-commerce social media marketing. Especially during the busy holiday season, a personal note will make you stand out! Here are some helpful tools and ideas to help you create the perfect e-cards for your holiday marketing. Strategies you can implement include creating an Instagram video and posting it or sending direct messages to social media followers. In 2020 you may want to host a Google Hangout or Zoom virtual event with your most loyal customers.

Helpful Tip:

This tip may sound super old-school, but if you want to stand out and get noticed, why not send out a handwritten personal note to your best customers or most loyal brand advocates.

8. Use Social Influencers

This strategy is, unfortunately, frequently overlooked when it comes to e-commerce social media marketing. Most of us trust our friends more than commercial brands. You can use that fact to your advantage! By drawing upon your customers’ social influence and having them share or recommend your products and services, you will reach a much bigger audience.

Helpful Tip:

Offer your social audience incentives for recommending your products. Rewards can include discounts, featuring their business on your social platforms, or inviting them to an exclusive virtual holiday event.

9. Support a Worthy Cause

Supporting a worthy cause is another often-overlooked e-commerce social media marketing strategy. People’s minds turn to giving during the holidays, and that doesn’t mean just friends and family; charitable giving tends to rise, too. You can tie into that emotion by supporting a worthy cause for the holidays.

Supporting a worthwhile cause, such as your local food bank, homeless or animal shelter, is a great way to build goodwill between you and your customers. At the very least, it will result in increased brand recognition and loyalty.

Many small businesses are suffering because of the ongoing global pandemic. Find out how you can support local small businesses in your area. Here are some helpful tips to get you started.

Helpful Tip:

Use crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter or Go Fund Me to offer your customers an opportunity to support a worthwhile cause as well.

10. Consider Paid Advertising

Especially for new or smaller brands, e-commerce social media marketing alone may not be enough. In that case, you can get an additional boost from paid ads and marketing.

Helpful Tip:

Facebook ad campaigns are very cost-effective when compared to other forms of social media advertising. Therefore they are a great way to increase your reach and introduce new people to your brand or products, especially if you have a long conversion funnel.

Overwhelmed by E-Commerce Social Media Marketing?

Like many other digital marketing strategies, e-commerce social media marketing can be overwhelming, especially at the beginning. So let’s take this one step at a time. For starters, you may want to use one of these social media marketing tools.

Select Your Primary Social Platforms

Start by identifying your primary social marketing channels. They are most likely the ones you use most often, like the best, are the easiest for you and your team to use, etc. Focus your e-commerce social media marketing on those platforms first. You can always add more later.

Plan Your Strategy

Decide which of our e-commerce social media marketing tips are most applicable to you and your business. We did not say you should use every one of them! But you can if you like!

Develop Content

Once you identify your social platforms and plan your strategy, you can create the content for your e-commerce social media marketing campaigns. Keep in mind that the holidays can be a touchy subject depending on your social audience.

Remember that there are several different holidays at the end of the year. Many of our clients and associates celebrate Kwanza, Hanukah, and Festivus in addition to Christmas and the New Years Holiday. Make sure not to exclude a segment of your target audience during the holidays.

Use a Social Media Management Tool

You have plenty of other things to do during the busy holiday season. Using a social media management tool, you can make your e-commerce social media marketing more effective and less time-consuming. Score!

Develop a Posting Calendar

Keeping your e-commerce social media marketing on track during the busy holiday season becomes much easier if you use a social media calendar for planning. Here are a few key e-commerce holiday marketing dates you want to keep in mind as you plan.

How Are You E-Commerce Social Media Marketing in 2020?

OK, now that you have our e-commerce social media marketing tips, you are ready to rock your holiday marketing! And since we are always interested in how this works out for other brands and product companies, please share your results and feedback. Did your sales improve over last year? Did you get more engagement from your social audience? Inquiring minds want to know!

And do you have anything to add to our e-commerce social media marketing tips? Please leave your comments below so our audience can benefit and grab our feed, so you don’t miss our next post! And give your audience an early Christmas present by sharing our e-commerce marketing tips with them!

Thank you! We appreciate your help to end bad business websites, one pixel at a time!

By PixoLabo
A Mobile-First WordPress Design Studio
@pixolabo