Today’s eCommerce sites are fortunate—on top of traditional methods of marketing, they have the option to leverage on social media to help drive traffic and conversions for their site.

While there are a lot to choose from these day, Facebook is still, by far, the most popular. In fact, it’s likely that you already have a page dedicated for your business. So assuming that you already do, we wanted to talk about how you can actually generate all the perks of using Facebook to boost sales.

Read on to find out how—

1. Build an audience—

But not just any audience…build YOUR audience. The great thing about Facebook is that it connects you to people with similar interests—so think of your target audience and figure out existing Facebook groups and pages that they might frequent so you can introduce your page to them.

Now the question is, how can you do that?

• Don’t just post text, make sure you use an image to go with it.
• Speaking of images, make it eye-catching but still simple.
• If you’re trying to draw attention to a particular product, use words that are known to capture the attention of users. You can find a list from a previous post we wrote here.
• Tag relevant groups in your post. For instance, if you’re posting about a new fashion collection, you could tag related blogs.

Vogue Magazine, a known fashion glossy tagged The Metropolitan Museum of Art to tap into both group’s audiences and highlight the relevance of their latest content for various interest groups.

• Relate posts to current events or special occasions for added relevance.
• Announce special promotions and contents.
• Repost articles related to your products and services on your page.

Be sure to drive the traffic back to your site by adding a call to action that will bring them to your website.

2. Illustrate the lifestyle around your product

This is a strategy that has proven itself effective time and time again.

Instead of focusing purely on static product shots, tell a story—through copy and images—so your Facebook followers will see that you aren’t simply selling something, your products support an aspirational lifestyle that they want and need.

Here are some great examples:

Urban Outfitters illustrates the lifestyle behind their brand by implying that they are so much more than just about clothes–this post highlights style, connectivity, summer and all attendant must-haves associated with a fun, sunny day.

Ikea focuses on an important lifestyle need–safety inside homes. To demonstrate it, they posted original content that shows they share the same aspirational lifestyle need and establish expertise by sharing what they know.

Go Pro, the popular adventure camera, demonstrates the lifestyle behind the technology by constantly asking users who share the same adventurous spirit to post amazing images from their trips.

3. Mix it up a bit

Yes, the whole point of having a Facebook page is so you can showcase your products. But at the end of the day, your users follow you because they gain something valuable from your site—announcements, information, perks, freebies, etc.

That said, it’s kind of boring to have product shot after product shot on your news feed or one service announcement after another.

Try—

• Reposting related posts from blogs to improve engagement.
• Promote your own content from your blog that creates a story around your product.
• Find trending stories and images or even videos to offer more interactive content.

Barnes and Noble’s tribute to the world’s loss of one of the greatest pop icons was fitting, poignant, and shared by many.

• Create polls and surveys to encourage engagement.

Starbucks engaged their audience and at the same time gained valuable insight into customer needs by asking about their daily orders.

4. Encourage engagement

Social media is a great way to easily reach out and engage audiences—use it to get them to interact with your brand. This will help you gain insight on what kind of products or services get the most impact from your target audience.

Facebook specifically has a lot of features that you can use—

For instance—

• Try creating a poll that asks a relevant question. All audiences need to do is click on their answer.
• Encourage them to leave a comment or share their thoughts by call to action that directly ask users to do so.

This is a great example from Ikea USA’s Facebook page–banking on the numerous Ikea patrons, they’re building and encouraging engagement by asking them to post their own Ikea-decorated spaces.

5. Provide all the necessary information

 Along with your website, Facebook seems to be one of the primary ways users seek out pertinent information about your brand, products and services.

Nordstrom makes the most out of Facebook’s About Page by providing all the necessary information a user could possibly need from them.

To that end—

• Make sure content is consistently updated and is up to date.
• Be sure that your address and contact information, including your website address is prominently visible on your Facebook page.
• Be sure to show that you engage with your users. It’s likely that your Facebook page will become a repository of questions and inquiries, sometimes, even complaints—be sure that you demonstrate your involvement in customer service by replying to users promptly.

6. Advertise on Facebook

This goes beyond traditional posting on your newsfeed. Facebook actually offers opportunities for brands to create more visibility and generate more leads and possibly conversions through affordable advertising opportunities on the site.

Advertising on Facebook is a practical and more cost efficient way of leveraging on the site’s marketing opportunities.

Facebook is still the most common social media platform used, so leveraging on that for your paid advertising efforts will guarantee more visibility from your target market and provide exposure to new audiences. Best of all, these are scalable–so depending on what your budget permits, you can easily increase or decrease your advertising efforts depending on what you can afford or what you need.

There you have it. If you have additional ideas, leave a comment below and tell us all about it.