New Avenues of Social Media Marketing for Online Stores
Dan Kogan
- December 17, 2021
How is Social Media Marketing Changing?
By now, you’re probably slightly overwhelmed with the new advancements surrounding certain social media platforms. *cough* *cough* the Metaverse, for example. It seems that every time you click on your For You page on Tik Tok or your homepage on Facebook, there is some new feature; some new trend. It can be exhausting to keep up with, especially as someone who relies on social media as a form of marketing for their online business.
Social media continues to be one of the best marketing tools out there, but how can you keep up with ever-changing terms and conditions as an online store owner? While your personal use of certain social media platforms can prompt you to waive the right to involve yourself within the constant changes, if you’re an eCommerce business owner, that’s not an option.
To stay current, fresh, and “with the times,” you need to remain smart, diligent, and on top of the latest trends, features, and even involve your brand on newer social media platforms that are coming out of the woodwork.
While all of these social media platforms, newer or older, are constantly changing, there is one aspect that is shared between every single one of them that will always remain constant: infinite social media marketing opportunities.
What once worked for social media strategies and marketing, may not work now. Changes in consumer behavior, the rise and fall in popularity of certain social media platforms, and new digital spaces that are emerging into the scene are just some of the reasons why you probably need to switch it up.
To take advantage of these boundless digital marketing opportunities, you first need to become well-versed in what is going on in the world of social media. While platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Tik Tok are still going strong, other smaller platforms may soon become the future and authority of social media marketing.
At this point, we have far surpassed the need for generic, copy and paste, corporate-chic kind of content for social media platforms. Disingenuous and boring content just won’t cut it anymore. It won’t produce results as it may have before.
Create content that is unique to your online brand, something that will garner attention, likes, followers, and hopefully, conversions. It’s now easier than ever to diversify your content, as there is so much to work with on each social media platform, with new features and trends to follow.
Video is the Future
Video is becoming a much more utilized medium within social media spaces. Platforms such as Tik Tok, and more recently Instagram, have shifted their focus to be centered around video-based content. This shift has been a huge proponent of using videos as a way to connect to the people around you.
Now, digital marketers and business owners are taking advantage of video as a social media marketing tool. The way that you can market your products or your business by using video far surpasses what you can do with just photos. Videos can create a narrative that amplifies your brand voice and gives your followers a better understanding and view of your brand overall.
The Creator Economy
This might seem like a certain kind of phenomenon that really only exists in a digital world and that’s because it is. Since many creators online and brands garner so much attention and bring in so much revenue, there’s an entire economy centered around the creators we follow.
What exactly is a creator economy, though? According to Signal Fire, the creator economy is defined as, “a class of businesses built by over 50 million independent creators, curators, and community builders including social media influencers, bloggers, and videographers, plus the software and finance tools designed to help them with growth and monetization.” Whew, that’s a mouthful.
While the creator economy is a somewhat new concept, the people that belong to it are massive. Needless to say, there is A LOT of money to be made online, with more than a handful of ways to do so on each and every platform.
Newest Social Media Platforms to Watch
TikTok
Tik Tok holds endless possibilities in terms of social media marketing and eCommerce growth. As being one of the top-grossing social media platforms of 2020 and 2021, it’s no wonder that all major brands, and smaller ones, have flocked to this video app to be actively present within this massive platform.
With ad opportunities, eCommerce shopping experiences, and probably the most diverse set of audiences you can cater to, Tik Tok is one of those social media platforms you cannot ignore when it comes to social media marketing.
More recently, Tik Tok has partnered with Shopify, which has increased the opportunities for eCommerce websites tenfold. With this new Shopify collaboration, Tik Tok now has in-app shopping experiences. Similar to the in-app shopping ventures Instagram has implemented, Shopify has now made it possible for Tik Tok users to purchase items without ever leaving the app.
Shopify merchants will be able to add a shopping tab to their businesses’ Tik Tok page, giving them the ability to create a digital storefront right on Tik Tok. This new collaboration only amplifies the potential of social commerce and changes the way we all shop online.
Octi
This app is quite new to the digital sphere and still in its infancy. This social media network aims to work inside of augmented reality. Many sources have stated that this new app wants to, “put the metaverse in your pocket.”
By simultaneously merging reality with the metaverse, Octi is soon to be a platform to look out for. What’s unique about this app, is how users interact. Much of the interaction with Octi is based on a reward system. The more quality content you post, the more engagement your content gets, which then awards you with “octi-coins.” Those coins then can give you shopping opportunities for digital or physical items that can actually be shipped to your door.
While this kind of platform seems like it would work better in the far-off future, it’s happening now and the traction surrounding this app is picking up quickly. This is especially intriguing for social media marketing for online stores because of the opportunities to showcase your brand and products on one of the most up-and-coming platforms.
Hyprr
This new app is said to be a social platform for NFTs. Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are a form of digital currency that can be bought and sold through a blockchain. This blockchain social media and content delivery platform aim to provide users, creators, advertisers, and influencers with full control of their products and digital work.
With an app like Hyprr, it’s designed with the creators and fans in mind. By establishing genuine connections with fans, creators are able to earn more notoriety and money for their work, with a special conscientiousness surrounding the environment. You can discover new NFTs, share and engage with pictures and videos, and even live stream.
Old Platforms, New Trends
As many of you have already heard, Facebook has changed….a lot. Well, not the actual platform, you can still see what you’re grandma is up to, but the company as a whole has changed. The metaverse is simply described as shared virtual worlds where people can interact and connect with each other from avatars.
While it’s quite a vague term, the complexities of what it actually means can make your head spin. There are many different technologies that make the metaverse the metaverse, such as virtual reality and augmented reality, and can be easily accessed with the help of a PC, video game console, or even your phone.
When it comes to social media marketing ventures, the main thing to pay attention to regarding the metaverse is how it plays into the digital economy and eCommerce. While on the Facebook platform, you can still go about your normal social media content on your business profile, whether that be entirely organic or paid.
Pay attention to the metaverse with social media marketing, as it will soon be a major player in terms of buying, selling, and marketing your goods and services.
Sometimes, it’s good to stick with the classics. While Instagram might not be quite old enough to be considered a classic, it has withstood the test of time and change within social media. It’s still one of the top social media platforms, and the ways you can market your online store are consistently changing, as well.
As mentioned above, videos are becoming the main focus of most social media platforms, especially Instagram. The CEO of Instagram recently stated, “We’re [Instagram] no longer a square photo-sharing app.”
Even by searching on your homepage on Instagram, you might’ve noticed a huge amount of videos surfacing rather than pictures. For anyone who runs a social media account for their online store, this is a great opportunity to showcase your products, services, or business with the use of videos in the form of reels on Instagram.
You can quickly and easily add reels to your business’s profile, giving your account a diverse and entertaining selection of content for your followers to consume.
While photos are seemingly a thing of the past (they’re not) with a new feature called “product tagging” you can amplify the power of each photo you post. When posting photos that feature a product, you can add a product tag.
Similar to tagging the faces of your friends and family in pictures, you can link the products featured in the image, which then goes straight to the product on your Instagram shopping storefront for anyone to purchase. It’s an easy, streamlined way to get customers to convert instantly from just one photo.
In the way that Instagram is moving forward, it’s time to regularly start applying video-based content to your page. If you’re managing multiple platforms at one time, it can be difficult to think of ideas for video content. What many people have been doing is repurposing their Tik Tok content and posting them straight to their Instagram page.
Repurposing Tik Tok videos onto your Instagram page is an easy way for different audiences to view your content. Plus, it’s a free way to advertise your Tik Tok page to your Instagram followers.
If Twitter hasn’t been on your radar recently, it’s time to start to work it back into your social media marketing strategy. While Twitter is most known for catching up on the news, and for many, the latest memes, the plans for Twitter’s future may have you rushing to create an account if you haven’t already.
While in the past, Twitter hasn’t been recognized as the best platform for social media marketing for online stores, with things like the new Twitter subscription service, Twitter Blue, and monetization options built into the app, that opens itself to many more opportunities than ever before.
It’s still in the early stages, but Twitter Blue offers many different features compared to the Twitter we’re all used to using. Now, you’re able to organize certain tweets into different categories and folders, so you can easily find and organize the content you want to keep for later, you can finally have the opportunity to edit or undo tweets, and you can even customize your profile.
With enough recognition to your Twitter account, there are even more opportunities to monetize your content with built-in monetization options for you to further your brand and reach within the social sphere.
upcoming feature to link to Opensea (NFT marketplace) to display your NFTs as your profile, new built-in monetization options, can accept payments in crypto, recently switched to a more graphic and video-friendly UI
Putting Together an eCommerce Marketing Strategy for 2022
With the entire digital ecosystem is inundated with new trends, new apps, and even new digital spaces, it can be quite an overwhelming and daunting process to get yourself into. However, it’s probably one of the most crucial ways to market your brand and gain recognition online.
As an online business owner, you are responsible for so much more than making sure your social media presence stays consistent and up to date. It can be a real challenge juggling the responsibilities of running an online store along with your digital and social media marketing ventures. That’s where 1Digital Agency can step in.
With our skilled team of social media experts and content producers, we can be the ones to do all the dirty work and determine what’s best for your online store and what social media marketing strategies will work.
Learn more about our extensive social media services, PPC services, or any of our other comprehensive digital marketing services, by reaching out to our digital marketing experts at 877.572.7428 or at info@1DigitalAgency.com.
Dan Kogan
