How to make your social media followers into a live shopping audience
While there are many benefits of hosting live shopping on your website, it doesn’t mean you should opt out of social media. These kinds of platforms are probably the best tools for succeeding in marketing a live shopping event.
Many companies use social media platforms as their primary channel for marketing and building community. And after many years and a lot of resources, some till end up with more social media followers than website visitors. Using social media is therefore a great way to attract a live shopping audience to your website.
LNDA by Linda Johansen using Instagram to market a former live shopping event to watch on-demand on their website.
Use social media to attract live shopping viewers
There are several ways you can use your social media to get more viewers to attend live shopping on your website. Keep reading to find out what to do before and after the event.
Before the event
Use your social media channels to gather questions before the live shopping. For example, ask followers what topics they want to know more about.
Create events on LinkedIn or Facebook, where your followers can show their interest and get a reminder prior to the event.
A week before the live shopping event is the best time to start marketing it on social media channels. If applicable, allow people to sign up for an email reminder or to add the event to their calendars.
Competitions are always greatly appreciated by audiences. Why not have your followers tag two of their friends they would like to share a special prize? This is an opportunity to tease the audience that you’ll draw the winners in real-time during the live shopping event.
On the day of the event, publish about three posts or stories where you remind your followers about the upcoming event. During this day, you shouldn’t post any other big announcements or happenings.
Go live on Instagram five minutes before the actual shopping event, and let your followers know why they should join. This will give your followers a well-timed notification and heads-up.
After the event
Just because the live shopping event is completed doesn’t mean people shouldn’t watch it. By building a converting content gallery, you have a place to attract new viewers.
Use the vast amounts of recyclable content created from the live shopping and create a multitude of posts and stories to continue driving traffic to your site. Maybe a blooper from the last event on TikTok, highlighting participating influencers on Instagram and a compilation of viewers’ questions for paid social on LinkedIn?
Do these advice sound demanding? Make it easy on yourself by creating a structure for your live shopping marketing. Make a clear agenda on what to post, in what channel, on what day, and what kind of content to re-use. Then follow this structure for the live shopping events to come.
Should you broadcast on both your website and social media?
Some brands choose to broadcast live shopping on several different platforms simultaneously. It could for example be Instagram, Facebook and their own website. But there are challenges connected to this:
Keeping track of and answering different chats at once. This could be both stressful and create misunderstandings during the broadcast.
Guaranteeing that everyone watching has the same experience. For example, you shouldn’t make a statement such as: “Add this item to the cart now and get 15% off”, since viewers on social media won’t be able to do so.
The overall shopping experience and buyer’s journey can’t be as qualitative on social media as it would be on your website. In particular, you can’t brand the player on which the broadcast takes place.
Many people who broadcast on several platforms find themselves having to hold up notes or put directions to the cart in the chat. This to make sure everyone finds their way and gets the same information. This will ruin your flow and part of the entertaining element.
You don’t own the live shopping data in the same way across platforms and will have to pull data from different sources.
To summarise, broadcasting on both social media platforms and your website can be challenging and impact the overall shopping experience. However, social media is an excellent way to market your live shopping event and attract audiences and target groups to your site.
Questions? Inquiries? Want help from live shopping experts? Book a meeting with: Alexander Rönnlund.
