Social selling is a smart choice for an ecommerce webshop. But maintaining inventory levels when you’re selling on multiple platforms can be challenging without the right tools. Enter: Social extensions for your WooCommerce Store.
Social Extensions for WooCommerce
Facebook for WooCommerce
How To Use Social Selling To Drive Ecommerce Websites
Facebook for WooCommerce allows you to sync WooCommerce products to a Facebook store, buy Facebook and Instagram ads directly on WooCommerce, and engage customers via Facebook Messenger.
Connect your entire catalog to Facebook with a single click and add it to your Facebook Business Page shop by following these steps:
Sales people use social media to provide value to prospects by answering questions, responding to comments and by sharing content throughout the buying process – from awareness to consideration, until a prospect is ready to buy. Social selling is the new sales model or sales 2.0. Start Using Hashtags. At first glance, hashtags might appear to serve no more purpose than to add comedy or personality to a post. However, the key impact of hashtags in driving sales for businesses is unprecedented. Hashtags are used across nearly all social media posting platforms as a means to categorize posts into appropriate sections.
- Download the extension from the Facebook for WooCommerce product page.
- Go to Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin and select the ZIP file you just downloaded.
- Click Install Now and then Activate.
- Click Configure and read the next section to learn how to set up the plugin.
Pinterest for WooCommerce
Use the Pinterest for WooCommerce extension to connect your store to Pinterest’s 250 million monthly active users. Here are just a few of the many cool features offered by this extension:
- List your entire WooCommerce product catalog on Pinterest in minutes.
- Add new products automatically to your Pinterest boards.
- Every Pin contains a direct link to the product on your website.
- Use the Pinterest tag to track conversions.
- Replace the original product image with the custom one intended for Pinterest.
- Create a Pinterest catalog for advertising.
- Add Pinterest hashtags right from wp-admin.
- Manage all your Pins in one place and sync images, pricing, and product details in real-time.
Installation is simple, but before you get started, you should set up a business account with Pinterest. Once that step is complete, just download the extension and install it by following the steps outlined above or click here for more documentation.
WooCommerce Instagram
Developed by ThemeSquad, the WooCommerce Instagram extension gives your business an immersive storefront for people to explore your products, turn your Instagram posts into ads for campaigns, and connect with Instagram Shopping.
The other features of this extension include:
- Increase the visibility of your store on Instagram.
- Upload your catalog to Instagram and create shoppable posts and stories.
- Define product hashtags to let people tag their images with them.
- Showcase how your customers are using your products in your store.
- Boost your sales by redirecting your audience to your product pages with just a single click.
To install, simply purchase the extension here, install it, then activate the plugin in your WooCommerce store. After that, go to WooCommerce > Settings > Integrations > Instagram and connect your store to Instagram. You can find extensive documentation here.
Pricing
Facebook for WooCommerce is entirely free and comes with 1 year of updates and support, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Pinterest for WooCommerce is $79 and comes with 1 year of updates and support and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
WooCommerce Instagram is $79 and comes with 1 year of updates and support and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Conclusion
Since reaching the significantly larger audiences of Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram is as easy as installing an extension and paying $79 bucks, ecommerce business owners would be crazy not to. But if this seems like too much to deal with, or you just don’t have the time, consider migrating (or starting!) your WooCommerce store to Nexcess.
Managed WooCommerce Hosting by Nexcess makes enterprise-level technology accessible to businesses of any size. Sign up for our 14 Day free trial and experience the difference of Managed WooCommerce.
You’ll get 2 weeks to explore a dashboard and site that load ultra fast, with auto scaling and automatic plugin and platform updates built-in, so you can focus on what you do best. Not to mention 24/7/365 support from a team of WooCommerce experts who are happy to walk you through installing the extensions we’ve covered in this article and much more!
Related Posts
Marketing your online business and learning how to attract customers to your ecommerce store or sales page is much harder than marketing a blog or any other type of website.
Why? It’s because no one really cares about your business. Nobody really wants to know what you have to sell and no one likes being led to a sales page.
Even if you think you’re offering the most magnificent products ever, by default people are going to ignore you unless they know who you are.
Editor’s Note: If you are interested in learning how to start your own business, click here to take my FREE 6 day mini course on ecommerce.
People Hate Sales Pages On Social Media
Marketing your business on social media is all the rage right now but simply posting your online store URL on Twitter or Facebook is not going to get you customers.
For one thing, most people are extremely suspicious of any type of sales page they encounter. Anything that even resembles a product page is just going to get passed on.
For example, whenever I click on my stumbleupon button or a twitter link and am taken to page full of products, I get pissed off and immediately leave.
99.9% of the time, I’m using social media to do research, to read about what others are up to or to just relax. My marketing and BS sensors are on full alert and I hate being led to a random store or ecommerce site.
Similarly, I hate it when I’m on the forums and I notice that someone has randomly dropped a link to their ecommerce website. Simply blasting your website URL to uninterested parties is not going to work because no one is paying attention!
You Need To Create A Connection
The other thing you need to realize is that customers don’t necessarily shop at your store because of your products per se. They are shopping at your store because you have created a connection somehow. They want to buy from you because of the personality your store projects.
The best way to illustrate this point is to tell a story about an experience I had at a company I used to work for. At the time, I was a hardware engineer designing circuit boards and I had to select a device to use in my design from 2 competing manufacturers.
Company #1 was the leader in their field. They produced devices that were technologically superior to every one else. Feature wise, their product was the device of choice among developers.
Company #2 was not as well known but had a decent product. However from a technical standpoint, their product was not as powerful as Company #1 but adequate for most applications.
In any case, it should have been a no brainer to go with Company #1, but ultimately I went with Company #2 and a lesser known product.
Why? It’s because Company #2 projected this aura of really caring for their customers and providing superior customer support.
Because Company #1 was already the leader, they didn’t dedicate as many resources in trying to help me integrate their device into my design.
Finding literature and documentation was more difficult as well because I had to manually request access to each document, a process which often took several days.
Meanwhile, Company #2 had a very open philosophy with their documentation and it really showed on their website. All of their content was freely available and as a result I got to know their products better and felt more comfortable using their devices.
Whenever I had any questions, they immediately sent an engineer over to help even for the most minor of problems. Over time, I even became friends with the sales guy and FAE.
I continued to use Company #2’s devices throughout my entire stint at my job and never even considered switching, ever. I was a loyal customer for life.
The key takeaway here is that the superior product isn’t always the one that sells and the decision to buy is not always about the product itself.
If you can establish some sort of connection to your customers through your website or customer service, then you will have the upper hand.
In fact, that is one of the main ways that a small niche store or boutique can take on a larger business. The key is to make people want to buy from you and no one else. And to do that you need to make your store standout.
Company #2 snagged me as a customer because their emphasis on good customer service was plastered all over their website.
The Secret To Marketing A Niche Online Store
So what is the secret to marketing your store? **Drum roll** The secret to marketing your online store is to keep your customer engaged with your website by showing them your personality.
The secret is to keep your customer so interested in what you have to say that they don’t even realize that you are selling to them. And to accomplish this feat, you need to have engaging content.
In fact, I would argue that you shouldn’t think of your online store as a store at all. You should think of your ecommerce site as a content site that happens to sell products.
Similar to a blog, if you have good content, the word will eventually spread, people will link to your website and you’ll get tons of organic traffic without having to spend much on advertising.
For our store, my wife and I engage customers by providing useful craft tutorials and other projects that can be created with our products for free.
70% of our web traffic comes directly through our content pages and a good portion of this traffic eventually goes on to purchase from us. I would say that initially, many of our customers don’t even visit our website to shop.
Instead, they read about some of our cool DIY wedding projects and want to make it themselves. In the future, we also plan on adding video tutorials to our store as well.
Bottom line, the more you can engage with customers, the more you’ll be able to sell. Instead of a direct sales pitch, show them that you are a real person and that you are passionate and care about your products.
How To Use Social Selling To Drive Ecommerce Website
In order to be successful, simply listing your products online is just not going to cut it especially when you are just a small niche store with no reputation.
How To Use Social Selling To Drive Ecommerce Business
Strive to make your business stand out! Let customers know what you are good at and pound that idea home.
How To Use Social Selling To Drive Ecommerce Marketing
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