People are increasingly getting their daily fix of news and entertainment from the internet. And what’s more, nearly half of all American adults now get their news from social media, according to a survey from Pew Research Center.

If you’re not on social media or if your posts aren’t particularly engaging, your business could be missing out on a major audience. It might seem obvious to get in front of these audiences and engage with them, however, a lot of businesses don’t necessarily know how to go about doing that.

Luckily, you can use social media to effectively market your business and gain attention. And to help get you started, we’ve compiled a list of strategies that come with proven results.

Keep reading for more information on how to make social media marketing and ecommerce work for your business.

Create Regular Posts

A major factor in social media marketing is creating content that people want to read and share. To do this, you need to be posting regularly, but not too frequently. As a general rule of thumb, you should post at least once every two weeks to get solid engagement and content distribution.

If you’re just getting started, try posting every week and remember to check your analytics to determine the content that’s performing the best. As you get more experienced, you can gradually raise the frequency of your posts while still maintaining consistency.

Use Hashtags

When you hashtag a tweet, Instagram post, or Facebook status, you’re making it more visible to people who follow those channels. If someone is searching for a hashtag related to your niche, you can bet they’ll find your content.

When you hashtag a post, you’re also encouraging people to comment on it. These comments aren’t just occasional, fun-loving, or spammy comments either. They can be extremely helpful to your business, as long as you’re prepared for the extra attention. Make sure that you’re engaging with your audience through these comments, as opposed to simply replying to each comment with a simple “thank you”.

If you don’t own the hashtag, don’t hesitate to create one related to your content. If you do own the hashtag, make sure that your posts feature it prominently. Doing this will not only garner you more attention, but it could also lead to more customers.

Use Images

For designers, photographers, and other creative types, images are an important part of any post. They add that little extra something to an article that would just be a list of words strung together. Without images, any article would just be dull reading.

To make your articles more interesting, add images that complement the information you’re presenting. For example, you might want to include an image of a product that’s relevant to the article, or you could choose a scene that’s relevant to the topic. Ideally, your images should contribute to the overall message you’re trying to send.

Link To Other Relevant Blogs

Now, this isn’t always possible, but when it is, it’s a perfect way to add more value to your article. When someone finds value in your article, they’re more likely to be persuaded to visit your website or purchase your product. By including a link to another blog that’s relevant to your niche, you can show that you’re a well-educated blogger who’s likely to have more valuable information for your audience.

This is especially effective if the other blog posts are about the same subject matter as your own. For example, if you have a blog post on fashion trends and you link to another fashion blog, your readers will quickly see that you’re familiar with the subject and that you know what’s trendy and what’s not. Of course, this is just one example. You could always choose an obscure subject matter that’s totally unrelated to fashion, but it’s relevant to your niche.

Include An Abstract

Most people scan a blog post on their phone while they’re on the go. To ensure that they actually read your post and don’t simply look at the pretty words, you should include a short abstract at the top of the article. An abstract is simply a summary of the article’s content, usually no more than a few paragraphs. If you’re new to writing, starting with a short abstract will help you figure out what kind of article you’re writing and where you should place the emphasis of the article – on the most valuable information first, and so on.

Summarize Key Points

If you’re writing an e-book, review or rewrite parts of it to make it more accessible to a wider audience. The same concept applies to blog posts. If you’ve written an in-depth guide on designing a website, for example, summarizing key points about the strategy in an article can help make it more memorable and approachable to potential new customers.

You can also choose to rewrite existing content or curate a collection of short blog posts around a single topic. Doing this will potentially bring more traffic to your site as well. Rewriting existing content means you won’t have to find a topic that hasn’t been covered before and will give you more opportunities to spread the word about your business.

Avoid Plagiarism

Even though you’re likely to come up with an idea for an article yourself, you shouldn’t copy and paste anything from other sources without proper attribution. If you’re citing sources, don’t just include a website or a tweet with no explanation as to where you found the information.

Giving credit to the person or organization who originally came up with the information will also help establish yourself as an expert in your industry. If you write an article about fashion trends, don’t just throw in a quick “as seen on so-and-so’s blog” without providing proper attribution to the source. If you choose to do this, you’ll probably end up getting your facts wrong or oversimplifying a much more complicated matter.

Use A/B Testing

As you get more experienced, you’ll learn that oftentimes the results of different versions of a blog post can vary. When you do an A/B test, you’re randomly assigning a portion of your audience to receive one version of an article or another, usually with a different theme or layout.

With A/B testing, you can also measure how various marketing and sales tactics perform against one another, so that you can choose the most effective ones for your business. When you do A/B testing, you’ll usually find that people respond better to longer articles with a lot of detailed information. Keep things simple and to the point when writing your blog post, but also make sure to add enough information for your audience. A good rule of thumb is to write two versions of an article, one short and one long. Using an A/B testing tool like Google Optimizer or Tailwind will help you find the right balance between being informative and entertaining.

Now, these tips don’t guarantee that your social media marketing will bring in the leads and customers you want. No strategy will do that. But by following these tips, you’ll at least be able to make social media marketing and ecommerce work for your business. And if you can do that, you’ve got a much better chance of achieving your goals