When the documentary “The Social Dilemma” was released in 2020, consumers demanded an end to social media exodus and user data collection. While it was important to open the public's eyes to the inner workings of social media, it failed to demonstrate the benefits of online personalization that would not be possible without data collection.
It turns out that the rally calling for people to quit social media was unsuccessful. According to Datareportal, more than 84% of adults worldwide now use social platforms, and more than a quarter of their users use social platforms as inspiration for things to do and buy. He says he is leveraging the platform. This is good news for e-commerce companies looking to better understand their customers and provide personalized recommendations that are most likely to convert. See how social media data such as follower demographics, post-post engagement, and geographic location can help businesses better understand their target audience, improve engagement, and increase sales. Let's look at.
Social media data collection strategy
Knowing that a user has a dog and doesn't miss a CrossFit WOD helps the site show content that is relevant to the user. For e-commerce brands, that might mean showing ads for dog crates instead of cat trees or protein powders instead of Oreos. Businesses can leverage a variety of data collection tactics on social media, including analytics, polls, behavioral metrics, and social listening tools, to gain valuable insights about their customers.
- Social media analysis: By analyzing data from social media platforms, businesses can gain insights into customer behavior, preferences, and sentiment. Social media analytics tools like Hootsuite and Buffer provide information on metrics such as engagement rates, reach, impressions, and viewership statistics. This allows retailers to understand how customers engage with their brand, identify trends and patterns, and surface relevant content.
- Polls and surveys: Businesses can conduct surveys and surveys on social platforms to collect customer feedback about specific products, services, or overall satisfaction. This method provides both quantitative and qualitative data to understand customer preferences, needs, and pain points. It's also a way to connect with your customers on a personal level by asking for their feedback, furthering your relationship with them.
- Behavioral indicators: Collecting and analyzing behavioral metrics such as click-through rates, conversion rates, and purchase history can help businesses understand customer purchasing patterns and preferences. This data can inform personalized marketing campaigns, improve product recommendations, and optimize the overall customer experience.
- Social listening tools: Social listening tools like Brand Watch and Meltwater allow businesses to monitor and analyze conversations taking place on social media platforms to understand customer sentiment, trends, and brand perceptions. By tracking mentions of their brand, products, and industry, businesses can identify customer pain points, address complaints, and proactively engage with their audience on the topics they care about most.
Use social media data to understand and communicate with your customers
Social media data is just one input that businesses can use to understand and serve their customers. For best results, data should be combined with data obtained on a company's site, in-person at a store or event, and/or through third-party research. When leveraged properly, the insights gained from this data can help e-commerce brands personalize customer experiences, create detailed customer profiles, create user-generated content (UGC), and stay competitive. Masu.
Improving your customer profile
Accurate and detailed customer profiles are essential in e-commerce. At a minimum, it should include demographics, psychographics, purchase history, and browsing behavior to uncover relevant content and product recommendations. Social media data is especially useful in determining the psychographics of your target audience: their interests, preferences, and lifestyle, especially when no other sources of information, such as in-person shopping, exist. It's the latest way for e-commerce brands to understand their current audience and personalize the experience.
Creating meaningful user-generated content
User-generated content ranges from social media posts and comments, video content, game content, and online reviews, and can significantly influence purchasing behavior. One-third of U.S. adults rely on customer reviews to learn about products, and his UGC-heavy TikTok Shop is expected to grow his U.S. business by 10 times more in 2024. He aims to grow it to $17.5 billion. Social media data and polling can help businesses identify and align with trending topics. Leverage user feedback, reviews, and engagement to generate authentic UGC and build trust with your customers.
understand the competition
E-commerce is highly competitive, with many brands competing to sell similar, if not identical, products. By monitoring competitors' social media profiles, brands can glean insights into their strategies, content themes, engagement strategies, audience demographics, and identify strengths and weaknesses. It also measures public perception, sentiment, and reaction to products and services and helps determine strategic decisions and competitive positioning. Research may reveal that the brand's target audience of CrossFit athletes (and people like them) love a particular protein powder that consistently sells out. Using targeted advertising and competitive bidding on keywords, the company can recommend similar protein powders to this audience with the message that they are in stock and ready to ship overnight.
Educated shoppers are still shopping.
Consumers now have a better understanding of what data they share and how it is used, but this does not preclude them from participating in social platforms. Some smart shoppers like the ability to influence the content they see by the accounts they follow, the posts they engage with, and the sites they allow cookies on. Transparency in e-commerce (even if forced on brands by government or compliance mandates) helps build trust and stronger connections with customers, but transparency We also provide the information you need to view high-quality products.
About the author: Zohar Gilad is an experienced technology entrepreneur. Executive. In 2013, he co-founded Fast Simon to create a shopping optimization platform for retailers. Fast Simon's product, InstantSearch+, powers tens of thousands of e-commerce stores with AI eommerce search, AI merchandising, cross-selling, PP selling, and personalization.
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