Marketing in the traditional model is mainly based on sales, with the goal of making the target consumer group understand their products or services and ultimately motivating them to consume. Modern marketing focuses more on communication and interaction with consumers. Relying solely on traditional media (such as newspapers, television, etc.) to promote products, there is no way to know user feedback information, and using search engines and emails to spread information cannot achieve this goal.
In order to interact directly with consumers, some businesses try to hold offline events for product marketing. However, this method requires a lot of capital investment and has limited coverage. Today, social platforms are well known and widely used by users. Businesses begin to interact with users through social networks and innovate marketing models.
Below, let’s analyze several social platforms that cross-border e-commerce can apply:
Facebook is the world’s largest social networking site. According to data released by the company in 2014, it has approximately 1.3 billion active users per month. At the same time, 30 million small businesses use Facebook as an application tool, and 5% of them use paid advertising promotion through the platform. Nowadays, B2C cross-border e-commerce companies that have established official Facebook pages include DX and LightInTheBox. In addition, many e-commerce operators have begun to use Facebook to promote products in overseas markets.
However, if e-commerce operations are aimed at Russian consumers, VK should be used instead of Facebook, because most Russian users and consumers in many Eastern European countries use VK.
Twitter is the world’s largest microblogging platform, with more than 500 million users. Although the platform limits the number of characters per message sent by users to less than 140 characters, many companies still use Twitter to publish product information and expand brand coverage.
Tumblr
As the world’s largest microblogging website, the number of blog posts on Tumblr has reached hundreds of millions. The so-called microblogging is a product between blogs and microblogging, and is a new type of network service. Tumblr is more inclined to expression than microblogging, and is more inclined to provide users with social functions than blogs.
Therefore, when promoting corporate brands through Tumblr, we should focus on choosing the right expression. For example, instead of directly posting corporate or product information on Tumblr, it is better to implant brand information in it by telling stories and impress users through vivid storytelling. If the blog post itself can attract the attention of users, using Tumblr can achieve a better communication effect and increase the popularity of corporate brands.
The products on cross-border e-commerce platforms are not only numerous, but also very rich in variety. If product marketing is carried out in a storytelling way, it can also promote the establishment of brands and increase product sales through brand marketing.
YouTube
YouTube is the world’s largest video platform and is widely popular among users. Many users post, watch and share video information through this video website. Video content disseminated through YouTube can achieve a wider range of diffusion in a shorter time.
Enterprises can post interesting videos on YouTube to gain user attention, or integrate product promotion information into novel video expressions, or invite social influencers to evaluate their video ads, etc., to enhance their appeal to users.