1. Use smart scheduling for maximum engagement
Content marketing is the way of the future for online marketing and should be embraced by most online retailers.
The internet masses have become used to discovering highly entertaining, high quality content and media through social networks, content discovery services like Flipboard and via word of mouth.
As an online business you need to compete on this front which means that sharing or creating highly relevant, high quality content is critical for success.
There are numerous tools out there to help with the discovery of quality content deemed shareable and to help with scheduling this content to be shared with social communities.
My favorite service in this space at the moment is Swayy which helps you kill two birds with one stone. Swayy recommends highly relevant, quality content based on the interests you select from its list.
Once you have identified an article you feel your community would enjoy, you can schedule it for publication within two clicks.
Using a service like Swayy or Buffer will increase your productivity, allowing you to share more quality content each week which will result in more engagement and more fans and followers.
2. Spread the workload among your staff
All social media management tools and even some social networks themselves allow for multiple moderators and admins. Add all your staff to which ever solution you are using and teach them the basics of how to manage your social profiles.
Designate time slots to each individual and spread the workload among your entire team. The more your team gets involved with your social marketing the more likely they are to feel connected to your brand and be able to provide important insights on how you can improve your business.
If you have a large business and want to add many moderators then the best option would be to contact your management tool provider and try and get a bulk rate. They will be happy for the business and you should be able to drop the price per moderator.
This approach is especially powerful if you have multiple offices in different continents. By adding multiple moderators which are spread around the world, you will essentially be able to provide 24/7 support via your social channels which could be a very strong competitive advantage for your business.
Hootsuite is one social media management suite which offers multiple teams and moderators.
3. Be aggressive with social buttons
One of the easiest ways to increase the growth rate of your social communities is by increasing the number of potential impressions of your social profiles. The more people that see your Facebook page, Twitter account or Pinterest profile the more fans and followers you will get over time.
Every day you and your staff communicate with a wide range of leads, customers, partners and random individuals who inquire about your business. Use these opportunities to increase the number of potential impressions of your social communities.
Automate the growth of your social communities by placing social buttons linked to your social profiles within emails, newsletters, coupons and other marketing material.
Make sure you have social buttons within your site. Ideally within the header and footer of every page.
Make sure you don’t overdo it and affect the overall layout of your site and/or customer experience.
Example of social buttons within an email signature.
4. Open your blog up to guest bloggers
Using a blog to increase traffic to your site is very important for most small/medium businesses. The problem with operating a company blog is that regularly writing quality content and marketing this content is very time consuming.
If you plan to publish two posts a week (the minimum in my opinion) then choose one of these slots and open it up to guest bloggers from your niche. Every niche has many bloggers and these bloggers are always looking for guest blogging opportunities.
In addition to cutting down on the time needed to run your blog, allowing guest posts is a great way to take advantage of the existing following of your guest bloggers.
Make sure you encourage your bloggers to share their guest posts with their online communities and this will result in a nice boost in traffic to your site.
Make sure you aren’t cutting too many corners and be strict with the quality of the content. A good idea is to draw up guidelines that you can share with interested bloggers to help them refine their content around your requirements.
Conclusion
Marketing your online store doesn’t have to take up all your time. These four tips will save you valuable hours every week which can be used to focus on other areas of your business or to run more out of the box, complex marketing campaigns which will help you push a head of the pack in your industry.
If you use other tools or have your own strategies for automating your social marketing then please share them with all of us in the comments section below.
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