Make Your Ecommerce Business Thrive with Social Currency
Gone are the days when social media was just about staying in touch with friends and family. Today, social media is a potential gold mine for businesses that know how to use their profiles to make their brands known. When done right, social media marketing can translate words such as “like” and “share” into “money” and “market”. Digital marketers around the world work to make their brands go viral through social media. However, none of them have the foolproof formula that can guarantee the virality of the content they share. There are logical reasons, indications, and steps that determine whether or not content will go viral.
What is Social Currency?
The concept of “social currency” comes into play when there is talk of effective marketing. Although this concept existed long before social networks became popular, it became more relevant after the rise of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and others. To put it in simple terms, social currency refers to the level of influence your business has online. How much access do you have to online influencers? And how do you leverage these relationships to your advantage? The answer to these questions will let you determine how much social currency your brand has acquired over the years.
How to measure Social Currency?
When it comes to measuring social currency or social influence a brand has, tools such as Klout comes in handy. It is a scoring system that makes use of social media analytics to rank users according to their social influence. The ranking is determined based on “Klout Score”, a numerical value from 1 to 100. The more social currency you have, the more credible your brand appears to be on the web. Businesses with the highest social currency are more likely to have a lot of reach, as well as influence. If you are connected with a brand that has high social currency, chances are your brand will receive a huge boost from it too.
What is the value of social currency?
Social currency has tremendous value whether you are looking at a brand or an individual. We live in a world of information overload. It is estimated that in 2016 there will be 2.13 billion users on social media networks. Millions of posts, tweets and comments are shared each day, which makes the realm of social media very noisy. It is easy to get lost in such a chaos, and that is why consumers are pickier than ever in what they choose to read and share on social platforms. You need to ensure that your brand content does not get discarded as irrelevant.
To make digital marketing reap benefits for you in today’s connected world, you need to bank on social currency. Whether you are trying to build your brand, acquire new customers, or improve customer loyalty, high social currency will take you closer to your goal. Building a unique brand identity, maintaining a high status, and connecting consumers to your brand is crucial for eCommerce businesses. Social currency is the glue that holds it all together.
How to gauge the value of your brand’s Social Currency?
With a lot of social currency, you have better chances of making your social profiles go viral. Your content will inspire more engagement (likes, comments and shares), and more users will get to know about your business. With increasing traffic to your eCommerce site, you can obtain more leads. Turning leads into saless also becomes easier when your credibility is higher. However, before you begin to reap the benefits of social influence, you would need to determine whether or not your existing social currency has enough value to deliver the desired results. To gauge the value of your brand’s social currency, ask yourself the following questions:
- How popular are your social network profiles?
- How frequently are people sharing your content?
- Does your content influence people?
- Are people inspired to become advocates of your brand?
- Is your social marketing campaign successfully building brand identity with the desired recognition and status?
- Have you noticed positive indications such as high traffic, lead generation, and more conversion after you started marketing your brand on social media?
A thorough evaluation of your goals and current standing in social media popularity will let you know how much value your social currency has.
How to increase Social Currency?
In a nutshell, social currency is all about building strong and long lasting relationship between a brand and its target consumers. It takes long-term and consistent efforts to build a strong foundation of social currency. Here are a few tips that will help you increase social currency:
- Identify your target audience: This is perhaps the most important step that you cannot afford to ignore, and it needs to be done before you strategise your social media marketing campaign. The social media sites offer a great platform where you can connect with your target audience. Narrow down a selected group of users who may be interested in the products or services you offer. The content you share on social media will resonate with their needs.
- Create and share relevant, interesting and informative content: Your posts will never generate public interest if they are boring and not relevant. You need to create and share visually appealing and engaging content that will not only captivate the audience, but will also share with them your brand message. You can also increase the value of your posts by sharing informative content such as links to blogs and articles. Users will view these posts as valuable resources, and they will be compelled to share the same with their peers.
- Trigger the emotions of the audience: Being able to arouse a great emotional response through content is possibly a marketer’s biggest achievement. Users are more likely to remember content that they can relate to. Digital marketer Neil Patel says that “Your content has to have an emotional effect on your readers if you want them to share it”. Do not just focus on spreading awareness. Try and create emotional ties with your target audience.
- Engage with your audience: Interact with your audience and respond to their comments and questions on social media. By acknowledging a consumer’s concerns and replying to their messages in a timely manner, you let them know that you care. This holds more importance that you may think.
The more you work towards building your brand identity, the better your chances get at earning high social currency.
How to use Social Currency for the benefit of your eCommerce business?
As mentioned before, brands with high social currency have a great chance of being successful in a short period of time. This especially applies to eCommerce businesses. However, considering the growing number of eCommerce businesses, it would be safe to say that not all businesses will be as successful as some of the industry giants. You can however improve your chances by influencing your audience on social media. And you cannot do that without social credibility or social currency.
Make your brand stand out
If you are just starting out, chances are you will have to start competing with some of the industry dominators. So, how do you expect to get ahead of them and take away their share of business? The only way to make it happen is by creating a unique identity for your brand. Make your company stand out from your competitors. In order to do that, you would first have to carry out a thorough analysis of the market and your competitors.
Offer your audience what they want
Once you have decided on your product range, you would need to identify the right audience who would be interested in those items. Identifying your target audience is therefore extremely important. Once you figure out who your target customers are, you can connect with them on social media and try to determine what they expect from you. Once you have a clear picture of what the potential buyers want, you would be able to offer exactly that.
Build a strong network of consumers
With social currency, the job of building connections becomes much easier. A strong network of consumers will be a great asset for your business. Social media networks offer you the opportunity to reach out to a large audience. A large number of followers and supporters also generates public interest and creates buzz.
Now you know the importance of social currency for eCommerce businesses around the world. If you want to climb the ladder of success, start your journey by building social currency.
