Looking for ways to connect with your customers? Social media sites Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, along with the rise of photo-sharing social sites like Instagram, offer unique opportunities to home furnishings retailers. These sites allow merchants to quickly and easily share images of new and popular products with their customer base, helping them increase their web traffic and win new business.
Here is a closer look at how home furnishings retailers can use the various popular social media websites to support different aspects of their businesses:
- Facebook. On Facebook, you can build a business page, which you can use to post information, promote sales, display your products and maintain an ongoing dialog with your customers. Given the sheer number of users on Facebook, it offers an excellent opportunity to reach a broad range of potential customers.
- Twitter. Social media marketing experts suggest that you should minimize marketing on Twitter, and focus on using it to communicate important information. Rather than sending out purely promotional messages, offer shopping tips, links to helpful pages on your website, and info about upcoming sales or special offers.
- LinkedIn. This site affords you the chance to build up your network to stay in closer contact with your suppliers and distributors. Establishing a strong presence on LinkedIn also helps you connect with potential employees, if you ever need to expand your staff or replace a team member.
- Instagram. As one of the newer hot social media platforms, Instagram is a photo-based website that offers outstanding opportunities for you to display products to potential customers. Use it to show off new additions to your home furnishings collection, post behind-the-scenes photos, promote specific products and increase user awareness of your business.
- Pinterest. This increasingly popular website offers opportunities similar to Instagram, with the added capability of video sharing. On Pinterest, you can "pin" pictures, video clips and other digital formats to a page known as a "pinboard" to provide viewers with an easily digestible cross-section of your business.
- YouTube. As the world's most popular video sharing platform, YouTube offers outstanding supplemental marketing opportunities. Post videos with full sound to offer helpful information to viewers and showcase the latest furnishing trends. It's like TV advertising you don't have to pay for.
For payment tips and information, and some fun, too, we invite you to visit our social sites. We post news on our company and the payment industry and include photos of the conferences and events we attend.