Top 5 Shop Partner Solutions for Social Media Marketing

Far from being the latest invention, Social Media Marketing has long established itself in the world of eCommerce. Reputable companies offer the position of Social Media Managers, and these steer their marketing activities into new sales territory on social networks. There are, however, different overall aims and approaches depending on the objective.
We’ve put together a few basic tips to get the foundation for building up your successful media world in place.  
Here we go!

• Choose your platform

  There are a plethora of online social networks out there in the world wide wilderness. Facebook is by far the biggest player, and then there are your popular allies Twitter, Google+, Instagram and Pinterest. It’s a good idea to limit your activities to one or two channels initially, and utilizing Facebook would surely seem like the first thing to aim for. Then again there are some of our partners like Min Resa Räknas who provide proof for a chance to hit it big with “smaller“ networks. Min Resa Räken’s bodybuilding designs do very well on Instagram with some 11,000 follower eagerly receiving updates from the Swedish think tank on a regular basis!
When joining a network, you should be sure to register your own “company page“ (as it is obligatory with Facebook) to avoid the notion that you could register a private profile.

• Content. Content. Content!

  Once you have an account, you need to fill it with valuable information. Feed it with interesting stuff in an entertaining way. It’s becoming increasingly important to provide relevant content – particularly on Facebook. It’s not enough to just link up to your own shop or products as this will make Facebook weed out your page from the newsfeed of your followers. But: Facebook is very eager to promote content that is thought to be interesting for a user, and they make sure that such content makes more appearances in the newsfeed. The interesting aspects here are the engagement numbers, which tend to be measured in the number of ”like“ clicks, comments and shares. Only recently the time spent on a page that has been linked to in the newsfeed has also started to be tracked.
Concentrate on the content that can be associated with your shop – that’s the stuff you know best, and here you can come up with interesting content that others will want to read.  Let’s say your shop sells cat designs. Sharing funny cat content such as „The ABC for Cat Holders“, funny cat video clips, photos etc. is definitely something that will improve your sharability factor.
About our own followers on Facebook we have noticed how diverse their interests are. They like taking a look behind the scene as well as reading success stories of our partners or seeing fun designs. 
Please make sure that you post in a way that meets the nature of your network. It’s important to be concise on Twitter, and Facebook doesn’t require a wealth of words for every post either. Instagram is very much image based, and Pinterest doesn’t really like text at all.

• Concrete objectives

  Create your own goals for what you want to achieve with social media activities. Are you aiming at getting a certain number of followers, or are you targeting a clearly defined turnover success with your endeavors? Could your Google ranking still be improved? Or do you want to get in touch with your customers in a more direct way?
Have a keen eye out on your goals, and plan ahead by scheming steps that will make sure you can achieve stage victories.

• Evaluation

  Don’t forget to assess your activities. Facebook offers an insight feature that helps you analyze how well your posts went down. You can also distinguish the groups of people that follow you, see when they are online, etc. 
Twitter has just released its own analysis tools, and Instagram is about to publish theirs in the next weeks to come. 
There are also a number of external tools that are often available for free in their basic version or as trials. We recommend Fanpage Karma for Facebook and Twitter as well as Iconosquare (formerly known as Statigram) for Instagram. 
And if you are active with Pinterest, you can use Pinterest’s in-built analysis features. Another recommendation would be Tailwind here.  
And then we would definitely suggest the acquisition of your own Google Analytics ID that can be implemented directly in your social media profile or by use of apps especially designed for this purpose.

• Act and react!

  There is a reason why the words “social” and “networks” are used by Facebook and Co.  These platforms feed on an active user exchange and strive on the opportunity provided by an immediate exchange between company and user as well as their facility for customers to get in touch with the company directly. 
On Facebook & Co, people will get in touch with you by means of either private messaging or commenting on your feed. Make sure to react to requests (and maybe complaints) immediately. Don’t procrastinate or ignore your customer feedback on social channels as this is bound to backfire. An honest and authentic conduct that creates an atmosphere of transparency is what works best.
Spreadshirt has its own service team to take care of customers‘ needs in a time frame of 24 hours max. Try and not let your customers wait longer – the Internet is a very fast-paced and unforgiving place. And always be positive!

We hope that you can get your entrance to the world of social media marketing to a flying start. And if you should have any questions or professional advice, please leave a comment below.