Crafting a Brand Story on Social Media for Your eCommerce Business

Intro

Social media is a powerful tool for your eCommerce business. You can use well-crafted content to guide followers to your sales funnel and highlight the quality of your wares.

A robust social presence can reassure wary consumers that your eCommerce site is legitimate, too. This is crucial, as 42% of adults have encountered eCommerce scams before and could be wary when approaching a site with a minimal brand presence.

Crafting your brand story on social media is also cost-effective. You do not have to pay for a business account and can grow your following organically with content that makes use of current social media trends. This will expand your reach and help grow your business sustainability online.

Starting an eCommerce Business

Creating a small eCommerce business can be daunting if you’re new to the world of entrepreneurship. Fortunately, there are plenty of online sites that exist to support your creative vision and host your brand. Sites like Etsy and Shopify give you a blueprint to follow and help you connect with consumers quickly. If you’re thinking about starting an eCommerce business on a site like Etsy, be sure to complete basic start-up tasks like:

• Take care of legal requirements related to zoning, permits, and safety regulations. You’ll need to register your business and get in touch with a Certified Public Accountant ASAP.
• Complete billing information, a business name, shipping information, and a description of your store.
• Create a customer feedback process to handle both positive and negative reviews.

Setting up an Etsy store is relatively easy, as the site will guide you through the necessary steps. Completing these steps will help you create the bare bones of your business’ brand, too. This is crucial, as you’ll need a strong sense of brand identity if you want to stand out from the crowd and gain traction on social sites like Instagram and TikTok.

In addition, stay vigilant for any eCommerce sites or social media that pops up out of the fray. Social media is constantly adapting to accommodate eCommerce sellers, and by utilizing the best one and adapting, your business is more likely to stay afloat in uncertain times — a lesson you’ll inevitably learn in the competitive eCommerce field.

Creating a Brand Identity

Before you start selling, you should set aside some time to create a strong sense of brand identity. A strong brand identity will guide your decision-making and help you put forward a consistent appearance to potential customers. This is crucial, as consumers are far more likely to buy from businesses they trust online.

You can use social media to start your search for a compelling brand identity. Research your potential competitors and look through their existing content. Use these insights to identify common themes and consider how your brand will differentiate itself from the pack. You can use this preliminary research to start creating key brand identity points like:

• Colour scheme;
• Logo;
• Name and tagline;
• Voice and tone.

These core components of brand identity will give you a better understanding of your business and help you create pre-launch social content. You can use these insights to conduct keyword research, too. For example, if you’re looking to break into the cosy knitwear industry, you might use the keyword research tool to find long tail keywords with minimal competition like “homemade knitted sweaters for sale”.

This refines your understanding of the market and helps you create content that appeals to consumer’s needs. This is crucial when crafting a brand story online, as you need to gain a following quickly if you want your branded content to result in conversions after launch.

Crafting Compelling Content

Researching your audience and creating a strong sense of brand identity is a good way to get started in the social media world. However, if you want to use your social media to craft a brand story online, you’ll need to create compelling content that engages your audience. This is key, as engaging, story-based content is proven to skyrocket your popularity and engagement online.

Get started by drafting a few potential stories that reflect your brand vision. For example, if you’ve recently launched, you might focus on the process of creating a brand identity and the reason why you decided to enter the market. This can be emotionally engaging and will help to humanize your brand identity.

However, creating or editing existing content all at once can be especially overwhelming. To break it down better, use process visualization. This process breaks down the publishing process step by step. Not only is this helpful to understand where you are in the progress of your content creation, but it can be helpful if multiple people contribute to your content.

When publishing your content, consider whether or not your posts are valuable and shareable. Will your followers be interested to see your content, or is it just a sales pitch? Folks want to see content that entertains or educates them when on social media and will hit “unfollow” if you post nothing but sales-y images. If you’re unsure of how to start creating engaging content, consider hopping on TikTok Trends to learn more about today’s most viral content. This will give you plenty of ideas and help you seem relevant to the folks who follow you.

Engaging Followers

Once you gain some traction on social media, you should seek to engage your followers. This is easier said than done, as a recent survey by RivalIQ found that a good engagement rate on social media is around 2%.

Increase your chances of receiving likes, comments, and shares by running giveaways and contests. This compels folks to start engaging with your page, and needn’t break the bank on your end. Be sure to respond to anyone who comments on your posts and follow folks who share your social content.

Engaging with your followers helps you create an authentic brand story based on engagement and responsiveness. Responding to the folks who participate in competition-style content may result in future sales, too, as engaging with people online is sure to increase their trust in your business and build a sense of loyalty amongst existing customers.

Foregrounding Reviews

As a new business, positive reviews are gold dust. They show potential customers that your site is legitimate and help you build a brand story based on quality goods and great customer service. By foregrounding reviews on pinned posts, you show folks that their insights are welcome and may generate further reviews.

If possible, send folks who complete social reviews to your SERP review page. This can help you gain a massive traffic boost and improve your brand reputation. You can use rank trackers to measure the impact of reviews on your site and your progress compared to competitors in the eCommerce space.

Behind the Scenes

Giving consumers a peak behind-the-scenes (BTS) can be a powerful way to promote your brand story. Put simply, folks who buy from small businesses want to see how their goods were made and will be thrilled to see progress updates on their orders. This kind of content can easily go viral, too, as there’s something special about seeing someone work on projects that they are passionate about.

BTS content can be particularly useful if you sell handmade goods like knitted sweaters, wood sculptures, or hand-thrown pottery bowls. Using your social media presence to show folks how you make your products convinces followers that you sell high-quality, handmade goods that are worthy of a little more cash and a little longer wait time. Folks are likely to engage with this kind of content, too, as few followers can resist exclaiming “That’s mine!” when they see their order pop up on their social feed.

You can also give followers a glimpse into your operations. This humanizes your brand and helps you create a brand story that folks connect with. Followers love seeing family-run stores come together to fulfil orders and will come to recognize the efforts of your key employees. You can also highlight charitable initiatives that your business supports, like community clean-ups and food drives. These promote a positive brand story and are sure to impress customers who want to support a business with strong brand values.

Measure Your Success

Crafting a brand story on social media protects your image and helps build loyalty amongst your followers. However, you’ll still need to track key performance indicators related to reach and engagement online. This is crucial, as tracking metrics like comments and shares will help you craft a social strategy that sustains consistent growth.

Fortunately, major social sites like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook have inbuilt analytics pages. These analytics pages give you a deeper insight into follower behaviour and help you identify high-performing posts. You can use these analytics to create similar posts to all-but guarantee that your reach will continue to expand.

You can get more out of your social media success by ensuring that your eCommerce site is set up for SEO success. This is crucial, as SEO fundamentals will ensure that your social media pages bring traffic to your website or blog and boost your sales volume. Linking your social media and SEO strategy will protect your brand reputation and help you create a unified story that customers recognize no matter where they find your business.

Conclusion

Crafting a brand story on social media can improve your engagement rate and help you gain followers. A strong sense of brand identity convinces customers that your business is worth supporting, too. Simple social content strategies, like posting BTS videos, humanize your business and help build loyalty amongst your existing followers. Just be sure that your social media efforts align with your wider SEO strategy to maintain a consistent brand across all platforms.