Social media is driving the transformation of marketing. Whether it is marketing subjects, consumer decision-making patterns, marketing strategies, or marketing purposes, they are all changing. Cross-border e-commerce companies that can deeply apply the value of social media will build competitive advantages. In practice, companies need to have three capabilities to maximize the value of social media marketing: audience management, content creativity, and channel portfolio management. Therefore, the basic paradigm of social media marketing is proposed:
Overseas social media marketing = audience x content x channel (platform)
That is, the way of thinking of social media marketing is: starting from the marketing goal, mainly examining the three elements in the basic paradigm, and learning from others to continuously optimize the effectiveness of social media marketing. This is based on a full understanding of the characteristics of social media marketing, using more optimized marketing strategies, more complete descriptions of audience behavior characteristics, more accurate audience segmentation, and more accurate content, and ultimately completing precision marketing. Audience, content, and channels are the key elements behind social media marketing, and are the key to promoting the success of social media marketing and business growth. Starting from these three dimensions, we will go beyond the traditional dimensions of evaluating social media marketing, allowing enterprises to focus on the goals and results that are important to business goals in social media marketing and gain insights into business growth.
Some cross-border e-commerce companies have joined the operation of overseas social media for a long time, but the effect is not as expected. Most of these companies have adopted the traditional circle of friends marketing model, that is, posting product advertisements to inform potential customers in the “circle of friends” what they sell. The efficiency of acquiring customers in this way is very low and it is easy to have a counterproductive effect. Overseas social media marketing is simply to pile up product pictures on social platforms without any design. Not only will it not find potential customers, but it will also cause psychological resistance from potential customers.
Therefore, social media marketing needs to start from the essence and optimize from the three aspects of audience, content, and channel.
(1) Attract audiences with the purpose of conversion.
Overseas social media does not represent official websites and third-party platforms, so to achieve conversion, this cycle will definitely be longer. However, if there is no conversion, then the meaning of operation is lost. Therefore, at the beginning of the operation, what we must do is: fully understand the target market, industry, products and customers, and adjust the published content in real time based on the understanding of customers.
A general direction of cross-border e-commerce B2B data operation should be: precise platform, formulate a marketing direction according to its own industry, and make corresponding copywriting (in line with the culture and needs of the target market). Let B-end customers perceive: there is a great demand for our product market, there are not many competitors, and the profit is relatively considerable.
In addition, in the update of content, it is necessary to maintain a stable release of high-quality content, enhance the sense of presence and bring reading value to fans. It is recommended to focus on originality and ensure quality. Don’t rush. If you repost and swipe the screen more than 10 times a day, you will be blacklisted, reported and blocked, which is not worth the loss.
The posting time should be fixed on a certain day of the week. The specific time period is based on the working hours of our main target market. Once the best posting time node for the brand is found, it is necessary to maintain consistency and insist on posting new posts at this time node, which will greatly increase the stickiness of fans and increase the interaction rate.
(2) Create professional and differentiated content.
Professionalism is the real reason why we have widened the gap with our peers. This includes the ability to analyze overseas target markets, the analysis of product core competitiveness, the control of prices, and the control of supplier supply chain resources. These directly determine how far a company’s foreign trade business can go. Overseas social media marketing is best to establish an independent multilingual marketing website to publicize the company’s profile, product and service quality, and fully demonstrate the company’s professionalism.
The information published on the website can be made more detailed, including various product performance parameters, instructions for use, etc., and the company’s brand image can be promoted using web pages with pictures, texts, audio and video, laying a solid foundation for the company’s products to go global. Multilingual websites can also gain more markets and establish a good impression of multinational companies in the minds of customers. Customers’ trust, desire for cooperation, and actual transaction probability will all increase several times.
The most common problem with overseas social media marketing is not the release of product details, keywords, or paid promotion, but the lack of focus and priorities.
The entire account has no central idea, no theme, and the account profile is written very sloppily. Customers see a cookie-cutter website and feel: What’s the point? Anyone can do this! There are too many suppliers of this kind!
In the era of information explosion, companies need to differentiate themselves, show their brand personality, and leave an impression. Therefore, companies must carefully “package” themselves on SNS platforms, such as adding links to the company’s official website, having a unified brand logo and page design, and producing original and professional articles and videos. Doing the above can quickly increase potential customers’ trust in the company.
(3) Understand the characteristics and rules of the publishing channel.
When doing overseas social media marketing, it is important to make it clear that the essence of social media platforms is a platform for friends to share life, not a professional e-commerce platform. When doing overseas social media marketing, you must be patient. We need to proceed step by step, slowly establish a brand image, gradually increase fans’ trust in the brand, and finally consider letting fans place orders through activities. However, most people just add friends crazily, and then keep posting product pictures and promotional information, then they start to lose fans, and finally get blocked. Therefore, companies must understand the special effects of the publishing channels and understand the platform rules, otherwise it is equivalent to people who blindly participate in the competition without even understanding the rules of the game, and they will only fail miserably.
Companies should consider: What behaviors can maximize the marketing goals within the platform rules? What value can the published content bring to our fans? How can we stay in touch with our fans and increase the sense of familiarity? How to build trust with fans? How can the content reflect professionalism? Only by thinking about these questions and taking action can we arouse purchasing interest through subtle publicity and truly achieve the purpose of overseas social media marketing. Moreover, not all companies can support the huge project of establishing matrix accounts. They must do what they can according to their own company’s human resources in overseas marketing.