Developing a Plan for Social Media Advertising as an Amazon Seller

Amazon has already made moves to bring the strengths of social media onto its own platform with Amazon Posts, but what if you as a Seller want to actually go to the source and develop a social media strategy? 

In the wider market, any brand serious about maximizing sales will certainly have a presence on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or some other platform, so why should it be different just because you sell on Amazon’s platform? 

The first thing you need to do is establish goals. What is it you’re trying to accomplish with a social media campaign? The answer to that question is going to have a huge impact on what kind of advertising you run. 

It means getting a solid idea of who your audience is, how far along the conversion tunnel you want to pursue each given segment, and above all, you need to know your brand inside and out - your themes, your voice, your style.

The next big question is what platform you want to be on. In reality, you’re going to have a mix - not putting all your eggs in one basket - but you should establish what you want to do on each one given their relative strengths - this will also inform the kind of content you want to run.

Keep in mind here that attention and conversion are two different things. If you’re running ads on Amazon, people will see them already quite far down the conversion funnel - they are only on Amazon if they are considering buying something - and you are competing with rival sellers, many times with somewhat similar products. On social media, however, you are competing with completely unrelated content and you need to turn any attention you get into meaningful exposure and subsequent sales.

Direct or indirect?

The kind of campaign you deploy will depend on your aims. Often this means a choice between trying to maximize short term sales through a direct approach, and developing customers over a longer term. 

• Driving Traffic (direct): Of course, all roads will eventually lead here anyways, but if your aim is simply to get people onto your product listing or brand landing page, then you can do what a number of sellers do and use a Super URL, which has the advantage of driving traffic and also improving your visibility on the keyword you choose to link to it. 

          A potential danger here, though, is that unless you are targeting an audience that you have a high confidence would likely buy - returning customers, for example -           then you could end up with higher traffic to your listing but low sales, pushing down your conversion rate and, as a consequence, your ranking. It’s good practice,           therefore, to add sweeteners when going this route, using discounts and other promotions to get people over the finish line.

• Expand the net (indirect): One of the advantages of social media is that it gives you the tools to focus across multiple levels on the conversion funnel in a way that you can’t on Amazon alone. Rather than directly link people to a listing, you can try out invites to mailing lists, tags, or using advertising pixels if the platform supports it. This lets you weed out bad prospects and people less likely to convert before they even reach the actual listing, thereby protecting your A9 ranking while still gaining exposure.

         Additionally, getting people onto channels like mailing lists from social media gives you more room to tell your brand story and is particularly helpful in remarketing           efforts to target existing customers. Focusing on the wider funnel can, however, end up being more expensive and makes the purchase process more complicated           for the buyer, adding an additional step in the process, which can be made even more difficult as many are reluctant to enter email addresses. 

Certain platforms, like Facebook, have functionality to let you engage with customers actively - or at least semi-actively - through tools like automated chatbots that answer customer questions and let them know about promotions and product features. 

No matter what your route, keep in mind that brand identity is king. Pick your tone and your style and be consistent with it, especially if your goal is to create a lasting connection to your customers.

Making the most of it

So we know that attention is not the same as conversion, but how can we best go about translating one into the other?

• Make it look good: Probably an obvious one and not too different from what you would do on Amazon itself. Make everything look nice and professionally done (unless, for whatever reason, part of your brand image would require a more casual vibe), and choose a mix of lifestyle and functional imagery. Never forget that consumers will correlate the quality of your imagery and marketing with the quality of your product. This is especially true if you choose a platform like Instagram that is completely image driven.
• Keep it honest: As mentioned above, stick to your brand identity and be genuine about it. If your social media strategy includes the use of influencers, pick people who are consistent with your brand image and values.
• Tailor for the platform: Platforms are similar, but not the same. Facebook is not Instagram (ownership notwithstanding), Instagram is not Twitter, and Twitter is not LinkedIn. Keep their strengths and weaknesses in mind when deciding what content to push. Instagram is not the best place for surveys, Twitter is not the best place for long text, and Facebook is not necessarily the best for images. 
• Keep it social and engage: It’s called social media for a reason, it’s not unilateral like TV.  Customers will ask questions, make comments and post images - respond! Nothing makes a brand look more involved with its customer base than if you can actually see it interacting directly, especially when it has to do with some kind of customer service problem or concern. Look like you care. 

           You can also effectively grow your follower base by sharing interesting third-party content and mentions, tagging and networking as you go. 

           Make sure you keep posting regular and relevant content - keeping a content calendar where you schedule posts far enough in advance goes a long way here.

• Measure, Measure, Measure: The whole point of doing this is to create business, so make sure you’re keeping track of how good it is at doing that. Test your methods, play around with timing, frequency of posts and types of content across multiple platforms to find that right balance, and don’t take your eye off the marketing spend.

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