Having the best available e-commerce software doesn't do much good if you aren't getting enough traffic to your online store. The recent Academy Awards were a perfect example of social media marketing, as Ellen DeGeneres's staged celebrity selfie broke records on Twitter and certainly caught the attention of the masses – the whole stunt was sponsored by Samsung, and everyone knew it.

While not every retailer has the ability to pull off such a massive stunt, Samsung highlighted the far-reaching power of social media. A MarketForce study from 2012 revealed that 80 percent of shoppers relied on social media to research items prior to making a purchase, according to The Huffington Post.

Business2Community recently spoke with a number of social media experts, and they suggested that content marketing is the leading strategy, as it is projected to account for 40 percent of social media marketing in 2014. Posting relevant news and advice articles to your business's social media sites can help drum up interest in your brand and help you foster a reputation as a thought leader in your niche, whether you sell clothing, video games or any other products. Micro videos, which you could use to highlight sales or new products, accounted for 20 percent of social media trends for the year.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Friday, March 14th, 2014 at 6:59 am .