Create a Social Media Strategy for your Shopify Store
How to create the best Social Media Strategy for your Shopify Store in 2022?
Your Shopify Marketing Strategy must include a Social Media strategy, especially if your target audience is receptive to this type of channel. This is a huge opportunity for your brand and your Shopify store, particularly for developing your e-reputation and positioning yourself as a leader in your market.
First, what is a Social Media Strategy? A social media strategy is a comprehensive plan that your brand must implement to define its goals and objectives for using social media, as well as the tactics it will use to achieve those objectives. A Shopify Agency can help you implement such a strategy.
The strategy must consider the different ways to use social media (awareness, relationship building, traffic, etc.), as well as available resources and budget. ), as well as available resources and budget.
Creating a social media strategy can help your brand focus its efforts and ensure it gets the most out of its activity in this area.
In this article, we will see together how to define your business objectives and your target audience, choose the right social media platforms so as not to dissipate your efforts, how to develop a content strategy that aligns with your business objectives, how to create quality visuals and optimize the visibility of your publications, how to track the success of your Social Media campaigns, and how to stay in the race against the competition.
Table of Contents
Define your Marketing Objectives and Target Audience
To build your Social Media Strategy, you must take into account that Social Media has two sides; Indeed, there are two concepts to master to achieve high engagement on social networks:
• Inbound Social Media, which corresponds to responding to users who interact with your brand, whether by comment, direct message, chatbot... (Directly refers to inbound marketing, where the consumer comes to the brand.)
• Outbound Social Media, which corresponds to directly interacting with the network user, without that user having really "requested" this interaction.
To succeed in your Social Media strategy, you must combine these two concepts to achieve the best possible engagement rate.
How to define my marketing objectives for my social media strategy?
Your marketing objectives for your Social Media Strategy must be clear, achievable — you can use the SMART tactic — and above all, MEASURABLE.
It's hard to imagine a Social Media campaign without results, so it's important to define clearly measurable metrics and KPIs such as click-through rates, engagement rates, conversion rates, etc. We will discuss this in more detail in another part of this article.
Why set objectives for your Social Media strategy?
Simply because without these objectives, you won't be able to put in place a precise action plan to guide your campaign. What's the point of running a campaign without an objective?
Furthermore, without objectives, you will be at greater risk of multiplying your costs and thus spending money without a return on investment. Because let's be clear, your Social Media strategy should not be a cost, but a way to acquire leads and then turn them into customers.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of objectives you can set for your social media strategy:
• Increase in engagement rate
• Increase in Revenue
• Increase in CTA click-through rate
• Awareness campaign / Gaining followers on the brand page
• Lead Generation campaign
• Increase in website traffic
• Establishing a presence on social networks
• Promotion of a new product / Shopify site
• Strengthening brand image
• Increase in online sales
• Reaching a new target audience
Of course, these objectives should be adapted according to your brand, but this gives you an idea of where to go and what to focus on for your brand.
How to define your target audience on social networks?
Social networks represent an audience of more than 4 billion people in 2022. This is a huge fragmented market that you need to be concerned about because they now have immense power. New generations are born into it, and older generations are adopting it. Whatever your target audience, they are inevitably on social networks.
Of course, you're not going to target 4 billion people. You will therefore need to refine your audience according to your brand. So, take your target audience with your persona, then apply it to your Social Media campaign based on your marketing objectives and the types of content you plan to create with your brand.
To help you, you can use either a persona creation sheet or create it yourself. You can use the sales data and statistics from your existing Shopify store. For example, by collecting the age of your buyers, their socio-professional category, their average basket, whether they buy for themselves (is the buyer the user?), etc. This data is important because it gives you a direct insight into your customers' profiles.
The clientele you target will also be crucial for adjusting your social media strategy. If you offer services or goods for a young audience, platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook should be prioritized. However, if you target people of an older age and greater maturity, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook may be preferable.
Once your target is defined, you will then have a good start for the next steps in this article.
Why is defining your target audience so important?
As every successful marketer knows, defining your target audience is essential before launching a campaign. After all, you can't sell products or services to everyone. By taking the time to understand who your target market is, what they need, and how they make their decisions, you can tailor your marketing message to speak directly to them.
This way, you'll be much more likely to capture their attention and convert them into customers. In addition, well-defined targets will allow you to save on your marketing costs by ensuring that you only reach the people most likely to be interested in what you have to offer.
From a branding perspective, if you target everyone, you are really targeting no one, and no one will identify with your message.
In short, taking the time to define your target audience is one of the most important steps in any successful marketing plan.
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Choose the social media platforms that are best for you
Once you know how you want to sell and to whom, you should understand which social media platforms will be best for you. Each platform has its own characteristics and its own audience. And even if some have similar functionalities, we are far from a standardization of Social Media, very far indeed.
• Facebook: Still dominant in the social network market, the giant, however, no longer attracts young people, who are abandoning the giant in favor of trendier social networks like Instagram and TikTok. Facebook remains, however, the preferred platform for certain communities, those over 30-35 years old and certain professionals.
• Instagram: Instagram remains the most popular platform at the moment, despite its latest update which is far from being unanimously approved, especially with the disappearance of Instagram's historical 1:1 format — Polaroid-style square format — to switch to a video format, in the TikTok style. It is perfectly suited for a target audience aged 15 to 30, young professionals, and students looking for quick entertainment. You can combine a mix of vertical photos and videos, even though video will become increasingly important in the coming moments.
• TikTok: A platform beloved by teenagers, it is suitable for a young, student target audience who seeks ultra-fast entertainment. The content is extremely condensed, very fast, and aims for humor and trending effects. It is not a platform for all brands. Prefer a very short, fast, and dynamic format.
• Youtube: Youtube remains a very mainstream platform, and that's its strength. It's a very versatile platform that adapts to almost all audiences, even niche ones who sometimes find a way to share their passion on the platform. A very good investment considering that video has one of the highest CTRs in digital marketing. Prefer an informative and entertaining format lasting ten to twenty minutes depending on the topics covered.
• Twitter: The platform for fast information has very good statistics. However, it is very difficult to make a name for yourself there, and the repercussions for a single wrong word can greatly harm your brand. Suitable for a political target audience, aged 15 to 35.
• Linkedin: A very good way to reach your B2B target, most professionals will be on LinkedIn. You can then combine marketing automation and content creation to build a community and capitalize on it. Targeting will be primarily based on your target's position and not on age.
Of course, choose a network where your strategy makes sense, aligns with your objective, and where you know your target audience is present, and where your brand has an interest in positioning itself.
Develop a content strategy that aligns with your marketing objective
It goes without saying, you need to create content that 1. your target consumes, 2. aligns with your brand image, 3. aligns with your marketing objective.
What is a content strategy? (Content Marketing)
A content strategy is a plan for how to use content to achieve brand goals. It involves creating and managing content that is both useful and engaging, then distributing that content through the most effective channels.
A good content strategy considers the needs of the target audience, the overall business objectives, and the available resources. It is important to remember that a content strategy is not a one-time effort; it should be regularly reviewed and updated as necessary.
When done well, a content strategy can help a brand build trust with its customers, drive sales, and achieve various other goals.
How to create an editorial line for my brand's content?
Any brand that wants to succeed online must have a clear editorial line for its content. This means having a clear idea of the type of content you want to produce, your target audience, and the topics you want to cover.
Without a clear editorial line, it's easy for brands to get lost in the ocean of existing content and end up producing generic and unappealing material. How do you create an editorial line for your brand?
First, take the time to think about the type of voice you want to give your brand. Do you want to be authoritative or friendly? Educational or entertaining? Once you've determined your brand's voice, you can start thinking about the types of content that fit that voice.
Are you looking to produce informative articles, inspiring stories, or something entirely different? Once you have a good idea of the type of content you want to produce, it's time to start thinking about your target audience. Who are you trying to reach with your content? What topics interest them? What kind of tone would resonate with them?
Keep all these factors in mind as you develop your editorial line, and you'll be on the right track.
How to create my brand's editorial strategy plan?
A brand's editorial strategy plan is a roadmap that outlines what content will be published, who will publish it, and when it will be published.
Once the target audience is clear, the next step is to create a content calendar. This calendar should include a mix of evergreen and timely content that aligns with brand objectives and addresses the interests of the target audience.
Finally, it's important to assign responsibility for content creation and publication to specific team members or freelancers. By following these steps, your brand can create an editorial strategy plan that will help it achieve its marketing objectives.
Create high-quality visuals and optimize your publications for SEO
Use professional tools
A carpenter would be nothing without his plane and hammer. Well, it's the same for your brand. You need to equip yourself with the right, and best, tools to maintain your brand image.
Some would say a Canva license is enough, and that it's perfectly sufficient for a brand's needs. Perhaps at the very beginning — and even then — but not when you want to grow and attract more sales.
A good investment to make as soon as you have the opportunity is a Creative Cloud license. You will benefit from the latest applications in the Adobe suite and this will allow you to increase the quality of your visuals and photos.
Call on professionals
If you don't have the skills to create these visuals or if you don't know how Adobe suite software works, two options are available to you.
The first is to train yourself by investing in a course that will allow you to become an advanced user of the Adobe suite. This is not a waste of time, even if it's not your field of activity. It allows you to better understand how professionals work and gives you a deeper insight into their world.
The second is to call on graphics, branding professionals and/or a Shopify Expert Agency. They will be responsible for creating professional visuals and copy that align with your brand image. This alternative requires a certain investment, however, by hiring either freelancers or for one-off assignments on your online store and/or on your networks.
Use images specially created for your brand or, failing that, quality images
Regarding the content of your visuals, prefer content that you have created yourself for your brand, such as product highlights or infographics. This will increase your engagement rate, and it is more interesting than emotionless images from any image bank.
Failing that, use images that are in line with your brand, in line with the message you want to convey, and in line with your target audience.
Optimize the visibility of your publications
The visibility of your publication will greatly depend on the network on which you publish it. But a rule to take into account on most networks is the use of hashtags. Whether on TikTok, Facebook, or Instagram, their use is crucial to effectively target your audience and their interests.
The engagement rate is also taken into account on most networks, from the very first second the content is published. Prioritize saves, shares, comments, viewing time, and then the interactions your post can generate.
Track the success of your social media campaigns and make necessary adjustments
Which KPIs to track for your Shopify Social Media Strategy?
Everything depends on your marketing objective. If you implement a Social Media strategy with the objective of increasing traffic to your e-commerce store, good KPIs to track are your traffic, which you can find through Google Analytics, your click-through rate on your call to action or your publication, and the bounce rate your site generates. Here is a non-exhaustive list of KPIs to track for your Social Media strategy:
• CTR
• Traffic
• Number of subscribers gained
• Bounce rate
• Engagement rate
• Action rate
But you need to personalize these metrics by adapting them to your brand and your situation. And above all, you need to adapt the KPIs tracked according to your objective!
How to track my KPIs?
Various methods are available to you to track your different KPIs in one place. You can certainly use Excel, but it's 2022, and there are much more attractive and user-friendly solutions for you.
A good data-tracking tool can already be found at Notion. Notion is an all-in-one project management tool where you can easily set up automations from Zapier or Make.io to make data entry automatic and secure. The advantage of Notion is the collaboration that is an integral part of the software.
A very good data-tracking and analysis tool: Airtable. Airtable aims to be like a much more advanced Excel, because Airtable allows you to perform automations from its interface with its API. You can manage everything from your projects and thus no more manual data collection and Excel copy-pasting. In terms of collaboration, you can easily define roles for your collaborators and clients if you are analyzing client results.
Modify my Social Media Strategy along the way
Despite all your efforts, your social media strategy may not pay off at first. This is why you need to analyze how users interact with your social media pages. How do they interact with your posts? Do they prefer your videos, your images, do they click on the links?
To modify your Social Media Strategy along the way, for whatever reason, simply use your guiding objective, and ask yourself: How can I achieve my objective?
Then, you can adjust your editorial strategy accordingly and modify content that has already been written and created but not yet published.
Regularly update your social media profiles to keep them active and relevant
Users like change, so post regularly, change your profile picture often, and make sure that every time people log in, they get a notification that you're still around. The purchasing decision for 70% of consumers begins on social media, so be sure to take advantage of it.
Also, regularly update your hours if you have a physical store and post regularly, of course, everything will depend on the networks, and each network has its own rules, make sure to respect them to be highlighted by the algorithm.
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