You can do this in multiple ways. You can:

• Promote images of your own products you have on offer
• Share your promotion campaigns — Eg: a collage of different products in a particular “collection”
• Announce sales — this tempts your existing customers as well as target audience to visit your online store / estore
• Provide discount coupons — exclusively on social media, so that audience becomes your regular followers, and eventually loyal customers
• Post suggestions on related products / accessories — For example, if you are selling ladies dresses, you can provide suggestions on shoe types that would “match” the look.

It’s important to plan precisely and then go in for multiple, short-term campaigns.

Launching contests and discussing future launches to get feedback is also important as it arises interest and builds a returning traffic. Just keep the information flowing, and keep your followers, viewers and prospective customers ‘engaged’. This engagement grows into ‘fan’ following and eventually converts to sales.

Well, let’s say you have launched your campaigns, but how do you achieve a long term growth? This is possible by creating a brand presence — building your fan following on the social media.

For this, you can follow the below listed suggestions:

1) Keep the message simple

It should be easy to understand, having an effortless comprehension. Use small sentences with simple words. If a 12yr old can understand the message, you are good to go. Eg: If you are selling handmade fused glass jewellery, and you describe same with ‘spectrum 96 glass’ — it may complicate understanding for someone who is yet to use fused glass jewellery. So, you lost the chance of a potential sale. Instead, you could use simple, common use words like handmade glass jewellery in the promotion, and give the exact description in the ‘materials / specifications’.

2) Use hashtags

You need to use hashtags so that prospective followers / buyers can ‘find’ your products easily, and with time can become loyal to your brand.

Eg: #handmadegifts, #glassjewellery, #pearlnecklace, #giftsforher, #exquisitexmasornaments, #handmadejewellery could be few suggestions for a shop selling handmade glass ornaments targeted at female buying audience.

You can actually test out your hashtags by searching products with your chosen hashtags. If products similar to yours do appear in the search result, then you are on the right track. Competition mapping also plays a very important role – check out the hashtags being used by your competition / other shops selling products similar to yours.

You can take help from some hashtag sites like www.hashtagifyme.com, etc for the trending hashtags for your segment of products. Do not try to be different by ‘creating’ your own hashtags. Commonly used hashtags appear in SEO. Follow the leader, even if that’s your competition.

3) Display links

This is needed for a path to your online store / estore while promoting products on the social media, for easy access whenever your reader wants it. Regular, multiple promotions are required and that will only lead to a brand name established over a period of time.

You can use help from websites like www.bitly.com to shorten the links to your e-store (to save on the character space). Try using the customization option on ‘bitly’ to display your brand name or an easy recall name in the link, for full optimisation.

4) Use a lot of images

“A picture speaks a thousand words” goes an old saying, and it stands true even in today’s times. They get more views on any social media, and increase the chances of traffic directing to your online store and building brand recognition.

Eg: If you are selling jewellery, and you need to promote a pendant, you can use 4 different images for 4 different promotions of the same product:

• Image of the pendant — front view
• Image of the pendant — back / side view
• Pendant with a chain
• Pendant with a chain on the neck of a lady

5) Measure the results

Finally, how successful have been your efforts? This is determined by measuring the ROI (return on investment). You can use analytics to measure the clicks (eventually sales) through each medium. Once you have the inputs, invest more time / money in the channel that is most productive for your kind of products. Social media sites provide some limited analytics for free promotions

Eg: You can get the number of impressions as well as link clicks from Twitter. For a more detailed analysis on whether that click resulted in an actual sale or not, you would need to invest money in a ‘paid’ promotion.

Your next steps

Concluding, please remember the basic thumb rule for you to follow for getting maximum sales from your online store:

• Promote more and more — be ‘noticed’
• Do repeated promotions to ensure maximum traction
• Promote multiple times — With different frequency rates as recommended for each network
• Schedule promotions for optimal time, networkwise
• Use most popular hashtags, increasing the chances for your products to be ‘found’. Monitor them regularly, and rotate them over time
• Keep the message short and simple
• A picture speaks a thousand words — so use lot of images
• Use links back to your estore for easy access, customised links for increasing brand recall
• Keep analysing the results at regular intervals, and tweaking your promotions

Try out these suggestions and you will find the ‘sweet spot’ for your business soon!

Happy marketing and happy selling!