Here are the Best Social Media Channels for Your Store

Marketing is essential in today's highly competitive retail environment. It will help increase awareness, sales, and grow your business. Marketing is a time-consuming activity that average business owners spend 20 hours a week. There are many channels you can invest in. Every hour should be valuable.

You may not find the right social network for you. Therefore, you should evaluate what return you will get by building a presence on each. These are five things to keep in mind when creating a social marketing strategy.

Does the network work well with your shop?

There are many social media platforms at your disposal. It is important that you choose the right one. Do you want to add paid advertising to your daily content? While some networks don't offer advertising options yet, others are very costly. According to industry figures, Instagram advertising can cost thousands of dollars per month. This may not be a good option for smaller brands. Advertising on Facebook and Twitter can be extremely cost-conscious. For Facebook, the ad budget starts at $1 per daily and can be customized based on your budget.

Metrics can and should also play an important role in your decision-making process. Make sure your network is able to share data on the progress of your business and the time you're spending advertising money and time building it. Your goal is not to post links and expect an increase, but to help your community grow.

Ask "Why?" and not "How many" when it comes to audience.

What is the purpose of the network's audience? What do they hope to gain from their time? For example, if you want to establish a retail store presence on Twitter you will need to communicate information in small bites. While you may occasionally need to include a call-to-action (CTA), most importantly, your store's Twitter presence should be a way to increase awareness and create new customers. Twitter is often used to promote thought leadership and not selling.

Similar to the above, when you build an Instagram audience, show them images of beautiful moments and not just trying to sell products. Your curation skills and lifestyle will help you build your audience faster, which will result in more loyalty. This will eventually lead to sales, just like it has done for other companies.

You should also take the time to observe your audience. How are they acting and what are they doing? Watch the user's interactions, listen to their reactions, then launch a pilot tweet, an Instagram post, or engagement on another platform. What works on one network may not work on all networks. You can customize each channel and share information that isn't available anywhere else.

Are your customers using it?

Although it may seem obvious, this question can be overlooked. It can be tempting for business owners to get too caught up in all the new social media options. If your target audience isn't going watch your Periscope stream or read your tweets then it won't be the best use for your business' time. Snapchat and other networks that appeal to millennials are great for this audience. If they are your target, then the network may be the best way to spend your time.

How can you use the network in a unique way?

Information on social media channels is exhausting for the general public. Why is this? Why? Because brands don't bring value to their customers and don't approach social networks in a way that their business can.

You don't have to add noise to your customers' lives, but create something they will love and look forward too. Your strengths are your strength. Are you able to create visual displays in your store? Instagram might be the right place for you. Do you have a store that sparks conversation? You can host Twitter chats and meetups at your shop by creating a Twitter account. Are you a person who likes to share your personality? Snapchat and Vine can help you to do this in bite-sized, digestible pieces.

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Is it right for you?

Do you and your team have the necessary resources to create great content, maintain a presence on a new channel and continue creating great content when it is launched? If you don't know the answer, you can put your resources in another channel. You shouldn't be taking lightly asking for their time to engage with your posts. Each time you ask for their attention, it should be a "wow!" moment. Don't approach your content in the hope of getting a response from your audience.

Once you have determined that a network is right for your business, try different marketing strategies including brand awareness and a soft CTA (i.e. "visit the website," "check our blog"), a soft CTA ("sign up," "download content") and a hard CTA (“ask for a call”) to test different marketing angles. To find out what resonates the best, you can click "purchase," or "download coupon," or "ask for a call." While direct response is important, social media is about building brand awareness and customer loyalty.

Ecommerce Platform Options

Ecommerce business owners have many options when it comes choosing an online platform to sell their products. It can be difficult to choose the right platform for your business, whether it is hosted or open-source.

Budget constraints often make it difficult for small- to medium-sized businesses to afford custom or enterprise solutions. However, this does not necessarily mean that these options will become more affordable as companies grow.

Small to medium-sized businesses often choose to use a hosted or open source solution. This is due to the ease of use, quick setup, minimal resources required, and speed of implementation. The creation of custom solutions requires a significant investment and can be time-consuming. This route is reserved for large corporations with huge budgets.

While functionality and features are important, it is also important to think about how the platform fits in with the company's overall business model. One company's model may not be the best for another.

With this in mind, small- to medium-sized store owners often have two options when starting their business: an open source cart or a hosted solution. Each has its pros and cons, and hosts can explain all the reasons why they are best for you. After working with hundreds upon hundreds of ecommerce shops on various platforms, including hosted, I have found that the most cost-effective route - the ratio of sales to investment - is often the open source option.

Open Source vs. Hosted Solutions vs. Open Source

Hosted cart solutions can be a great option for small- to medium-sized ecommerce stores. Hosting is included in the package, so there are no programming skills required. There are also no setup fees. Templates can be downloaded and installed quickly. This means that you don't need to have web developers or design teams. A store can usually sign up for an account and go live in under an hour. Examples of hosted solutions are Volusion, Yahoo Stores and BigCommerce.

Although the time savings and statistics regarding time to live seem great for most people, it is possible to cut corners at this stage and limit the possibilities of what you can achieve in the future. This will impact both sales and the ability to change the code base.

Open source carts are not for everyone. If there isn't an in-house programer, it is necessary to hire one. This can also increase maintenance costs. The tradeoff in code control is much greater than the one that is offered by a hosted solution, where code is not available.

 When code is locked down (as is the case for hosted solutions), the store can only do so much to satisfy its customers. Many features in the framework are designed for the average ecommerce store. However, many people overlook the fact that not everything works for every business.

To customize the cart in order to target certain demographics and cater to growth, contact the company hosting the cart and ask them to update the code. It is unlikely that the code will be updated because it is a shared solution with other stores. This is because it affects not only one site but often all sites.

Hosted stores that opt for low monthly maintenance and low hosting costs often discover that they have no control over their growth. They realize this when sales and conversion increase to a certain point, but they are unable to grow beyond that level regardless of how much work is done. Working with these business owners, I have found that the main problem is often the inability of customizing code to maximize conversion. Hosted solutions often limit areas such as the checkout process, product pages, or the shopping cart itself. It is important to have online stores ready before the holiday rush.

Open source solutions are easy to move from one server to the next. This is something to keep in mind when choosing between hosted or open source solutions. Hosted solutions can be more difficult to move. Although data can be exported via hosted solutions, moving it to another server may require rebuilding the cart from scratch.

Pure hosted solutions can seem appealing because they provide an ecommerce platform to sell products and also take care of hosting (hence the name 'hosted solutions'). However, if your site becomes slow due to bandwidth issues, there aren't many things you can do.

Do you need more bandwidth to support your company's growth? Are you looking for a dedicated server solution to your problem? Open source can solve both of these issues easily and without much hassle. Hosted solutions allow you to share space with other users.

Let's first dispel a common myth. It is false that an open-source cart can help you build a multimillion dollar online business. Open source carts can be just as useful as a custom-coded cart. The code is available to the store owner and can be modified as they wish. Pre-built open-source carts can be deployed quickly and cost significantly less than custom-ground up solutions.

It is possible to access the code of an open-source application and customize it to suit the business needs.

Open source has no limitations. Anyone who says that a million-dollar business cannot be built using open source platforms is not doing their research. Google is the leader in open source and their market capitalization exceeds a billion dollars. While the company's infrastructure is closely guarded, most of their applications can be downloaded openly.

4 Open Source Solutions

There are many hosted cart options. Here are 5 of the most popular open-source carts. Each cart has its pros and cons.

1 Zen Cart (www.zencart.com

Pros
-Fully customizable, code is on store owners server
-Out-of-the-box features
-Active developer community
-Lots and lots of free plugins and add-on modules
-Requires very little server overhead to be run
Quick 5-minute installation

Cons
Administration isn't the easiest to navigate
PHP knowledge is required for customization
-Upgrading core cart releases to newer versions is time-consuming and difficult.

Some feel Zen Cart's default template is too simple or basic for the store, making it less professional than other options. The default template that comes with Zen Cart looks very 'homegrown'. You don't have to use the default template. There are many professional-looking templates that can be downloaded for free. Zen Cart stores can be designed to look just like the cutting-edge big guys today with the right developer and knowledge.

2) PrestaShop

Pros
-Clean, neat, and easy to navigate admin
-Out-of-the box features
-Nice looking template that is out-of-the box
-Effecient coding means that there are fewer overheads so the server runs faster.
Quick 2-minute installation

Cons
PHP Coding is required for customization
Script is built on Smarty templates and requires knowledge to modify look
-Sometimes it can be difficult to update and are often very slow.
PrestaShop might charge for feature plugins that are available in free carts.

PrestaShop is one of the most widely used online shopping cart engines. It has a strong community and a growing number of plugins. Administration is the easiest of all open-source carts. It is a great choice for programmers and those who have access to programming knowledge. Even the stable releases have bugs that can be fixed with programming knowledge.

3) Magento Community Edition www.magentocommerce.com/download

Pros
-Clean administration that is simple to navigate
Upgrades from one version to another are easy
A good template that is already in your possession is better than others, but customization is always better.
-Built in SEO "friendly pages"
Quick 5-minute installation

Cons
High overhead, so it requires a server that can handle it. Otherwise the site will slow down.
Purchase of decent add-ons or plugins can be expensive.
To match the features of other carts, the Community version is too limited.
To make custom code changes, you must be familiar with the Magento Framework and PHP.

Although the backend of Magento is very user-friendly and clean, it can be difficult to navigate. Although the front end template included in the base package looks like some major players, it is SEO friendly and easy to use. However, Magento's backend is expensive compared to other open-source platforms. It also requires a server with lots of power and a decent server to keep it running quickly. It is not often the best choice for small businesses with a tight budget. If you have the resources and technical staff to support it, this can be an attractive option. Magento is one of the most intuitive and user-friendly open-source carts. It can be easily upgraded at its core.

4) OSCommerce

Pros
-One the original open-source carts, so many plugins are available for it
Install in 5 minutes or less
-Stable code that has been around for a while

Cons
-Community is less active than it was in the past
You must be familiar with PHP in order to update.
-Admin interface difficult to navigate
-Core not regularly updated
-The default template is not professional looking

OSCommerce is an open-source cart that was created in the early days of Open Source. Although the administration section of the cart isn't as intuitive as you would like, it is a good place to start for small shops on a budget.

Zen Cart is a direct fork of early OSCommerce versions. However, the two are very similar. Zen Cart may be the best in terms of security and features, community involvement, and features.

Why Should You Sell in Shopify?

Shopify is one of the most trusted ecommerce platforms. This means that many people have bought products from this site. You will be able to run a more profitable online business from the comfort of your home once you understand how Shopify works. There are many reasons to sell on Shopify.

• High Demand: You will notice a greater demand for your products and services on Shopify if you offer more of them. You will be able manage multiple listings which will allow you to increase traffic and improve your business.
• Promote your Own Products: There are many benefits to promoting your own products.

No big capital required: The last reason to sell on Shopify? Because you can make money without investing too much. Drop shipping and fulfillment center services are available so that you don't need to make or ship your products. You can contract the services of third-party companies to create and ship products your customers order through your Shopify store. Your job is to promote and get paid.

What platform is the best?

There is no one right answer because of all the different needs and options available to stores. Remember that beauty is often in the eye and budget of the company will dictate the best route. One store may have a viable alternative, but another might not.