Guest Post by DataHawk.

DataHawk's Amazon software for Brands, sellers & agencies, unleashes the powerful set of tools to grow and protect your Brand on the hyper-competitive Amazon marketplace.

‍DataHawk is the go-to professional Amazon data analytics and business management software for brands & sellers. It is renowned for its leading enterprise-grade SEO, Ad Analytics, Product & Market Analytics solutions, and API.

‍‍1. Introduction

Social media usage is undoubtedly the most popular digital activity today, and skyrocketing social networking penetration across all industries is no surprise. According to Statista, we are looking at a number projected to increase to almost 4.41 billion people using social media in 2025. (Statista)

As brands & sellers are scrambling to offer more products online, social media platforms, such as Facebook & Instagram, have been rolling out tools & integrating with eCommerce to help businesses boost sales through their social pages. 

Now, as social media networks expand on affiliate & in-platform shopping tools, it's clear that the integration of Social media & eCommerce is gaining steam. 

‍How Brands & Sellers on Amazon are profiting from this? 

Well, they are leveraging the traction on these platforms. 

Amazon has been building upon its social commerce capabilities even before lockdown. However, the pandemic played a significant role in skyrocketing growth. This is one major factor that has led to the rising popularity of social media marketing among brands & sellers on Amazon.

2. Why Is Social Media Marketing Important Today?

The pandemic has completely reshaped the way marketers have been looking at "foot traffic." 

Retailers have now started focusing on the shoppers strolling through their stores on social media & eCommerce. Indeed, you can't replicate the experience of touching a product or trying it on via social media. The increasing number of shoppers simultaneously leveraging social media in multiple purchase decisions has dramatically changed strategy. 

Shoppers now prefer to use social media channels to read reviews, get social proof, learn about a product's specifications and benefits, discover new products or brands, and make direct purchase decisions via their favorite social media pages or influencers.

In this article, you will learn how you can leverage social media to boost your Amazon sales & maximize profitability.

‍3. Leverage the power of your social media

A compelling Amazon social media marketing strategy will help you tell your customers your BRAND STORY and nudge them to follow for updates about new products and information.

According to Smart Insights, there is a substantial shift in consumer behavior, and more purchases in the last five years have happened through social media than ever before. Therefore, it is interesting to see the trajectory of social commerce and innovation in eCommerce social media strategy and tools.

Given the ever-increasing role social proof plays in informing purchase decisions, now is the best time to leverage social media as a full-funnel demand generation and customer acquisition tool for relevant audiences. 

‍4. Driving Off Amazon traffic to your Product Listings 

When driving off Amazon traffic to Amazon, it is essential to make sure that only high-quality leads are targeted, as this will increase the chances of conversion once they are on your product listings.

‍Why should you be doing so? Here are some reasons:

• You have the upper hand on your competitor because you are directly bringing the visitor to your listing while bringing the traffic from social to eCommerce. You are therefore not competing to find a spot according to Amazon's Search Engine.
• This will help you retain your customers & visitors and also bring in new net customers.
• Leveraging Social will help you better tell your Brand Story and boost your brand credibility. 
• Ranking high organically on Amazon will be a plus. In this case, while bringing traffic from social, you are working on the sales velocity of your product, where you can expect a significant increase.
• With your brand presence on social media, you can facilitate new product launches and easily convey the usefulness of your product. 

In 2021, there are massive opportunities in social media, which all Amazon brands & sellers must look at.

5. Top ideas to leverage social media for Amazon

Leverage the power of organic traffic

There's a lot of power in organic content not only on your Amazon product page & Amazon listings but also on your social media. 

Most social media networks indeed need "pay to play" to get higher traction to reach your posts, but there are various ways to utilize organic traffic to reach your audience. 

Creating content on why your brand is different and how your products & services are useful for your customers is a great way to drive attention. So what more can you do?

‍Here is a quick checklist:

➡️Use Amazon's templates to create quick social media posts.

➡️Announce sales & deals on your social media using Amazon's ready-to-use graphics.

➡️Use posts to promote your product with its specifications and related offers to get more clicks. 

➡️Use polls to increase interaction and spread a buzz about your products.

➡️Use relevant hashtags for your product or any upcoming sale. For example: #primeday2021.

➡️Use Videos for product demonstrations to develop trust among shoppers.

Leverage user-generated content

Content put up by your customers and fans is really compelling. Why? 

Because it's free and it is the voice of your customer. 

Your customers tell stories about why your brand, your product, your services matter to them and why they trust you. 

When shoppers see that your customers like them, they're more likely to shop and leave a review as well. This is social proof 101. 

Therefore, it is very important to continuously solicit UGC to build a customer-seller relationship as a brand. 

You can incentivize customers to create content. This could be a small discount for your products or services, a coupon code, or an Amazon gift card.

Such incentives are potent for customer testimonials or feedback to use on your social media, and they even act as the backbone of paid ads.

Leveraging Social Media Influence

While influencer marketing for e-commerce may seem sexy on the surface, there's an ugly underbelly. Unfortunately, there are plenty of unscrupulous "influencers" out there happy to take your money without providing much tangible ROI. 

That said, there are some legit eCommerce influencers out there. Finding them, however, is the challenge. And that challenge is cost-prohibitive given what legitimate sourcing platforms charge to help you build relationships.

In 2021, instead of trying to land the big fish, why not try to form relationships with micro-influencers that can still pack a punch? Niche influencers — in many cases — have even more loyal audiences than macro-influencers because they've taken time to build a brand that positions them as a niche authority.

This authority creates loyalty from people that follow these micro-influencers. That loyalty is there for you to monetize as they share your products or services.

‍Leveraging Amazon-specific features & programs

➡️ Promotional codes & Coupons: 

Using social media promo codes could be a great option if you are planning to offer a discount.

The feature is currently available in the US marketplace only for sellers approved in the Amazon Brand Registry or sellers having positive feedback ratings (+80% positive feedback, at least 20 ratings to seller account). 

You can use this to offer a percentage discount to customers on eligible products and share it with the customers through social media and influencer marketing content. Use this promotion type to create more targeted promotions, where you control how it's marketed and how the customers redeem it.

(Source: Amazon)

‍➡️ Amazon Associates Program: 

This program is very beneficial in funneling traffic from your websites and social media to your Amazon Product detail page while monetizing the traffic.

The program not only helps build brand awareness among your prospects but also helps you recover the cost of some of your spendings with the Amazon associate program fees you earn.  

You can also gain more attention by leveraging the reach of other Amazon associates and sharing your social media promotion codes for a larger reach. This is quite effective as the codes or links used brings the shopper to the final stage of buying and hence make conversions smoother.

‍➡️ Amazon Influencer Program:

The Amazon Influencer Program is an extension of the Amazon Associates (affiliate) program that brings product-related content from Influencers onto Amazon to help customers research and discover products they might be interested in.

The program allows content creators, who have a meaningful following on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, to get commissions on products sold on Amazon based on their recommendations.

Given that influencers across any product category with either an active YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook account can qualify, you can reach out to influencers in your product niche to see if their values align with your brand's mission and vision. 

‍Why should you be considering this seriously? 

• They will help you build credibility and expand your customer base.
• Getting help from influencers will free you from having to create professional content for product promotions on social.
• Facebook is undoubtedly one of the most used social media platforms by influencers, but leveraging their presence on Youtube, Instagram & even blogs is definitely worth it.
• You can leverage trusted influencers to launch new products to amplify your visibility and also build brand loyalty.‍

‍Leverage Amazon Attribution to track off Amazon traffic

Shoppers are not always ready to make an immediate purchase, so it's important to continue the conversation with them even when they leave Amazon to keep your brand and products on top of the mind. But how do you know where they are coming from?

Well, for Brands & Sellers using non-Amazon channels, Amazon Attribution will help you keep track. Amazon Attribution helps you grow your business by optimizing customer experiences away from the platform.

‍➡️ You can measure how your off-Amazon marketing channels are performing and how that affects your Amazon performance. 

‍➡️ It can also track traffic sent to a different website that ultimately converts on Amazon.

‍Amazon allows you to track the following metrics from off-Amazon traffic:

• Impressions - how many times your content shows up in feeds
• Clicks - how often people click on a piece of content
• Detail page views (on Amazon)
• Add to carts
• Purchase rate, and 
• Sales

By taking advantage of the beta program, you can use channel-specific insights to help build your future marketing strategies and understand how your cross-channel campaigns are contributing to your Amazon sales. 

‍Wrap Up

Social media is continuously evolving, and the explosive growth in e-commerce in the coming years will create so many more opportunities for brands to create social commerce experiences. The integration of social media and Amazon allows brands to create frictionless shopping experiences and reach consumers in the places that matter. 

To ensure consistency and achievement of goals, it's important to align your social media strategy with your amazon advertising strategy. You must perform thorough research on product & category trends, demands and make data-driven decisions to reach your target audience for higher conversion.

‍DataHawk helps you continue to work through the bigger picture of your Amazon advertising strategy with our library of Amazon Seller tools designed to make your life easier.

And if you are not yet leveraging social commerce, we highly recommend reading about the features & programs mentioned and signing up to be present where your customers are to drive growth for your business.