Over the years, the pull of social media on its users has drastically evolved. From being a simple way of communicating with your friends and family to becoming a marketing tool, the purpose of these social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and the likes have truly advanced.

As social media has become a significant part of everyone's life, many shoppers have also become digital consumers. This makes social media marketing one of the effective ways to tap into many buyers' shopping journeys and drive traffic to your eBay items. In addition to this, these platforms are also beneficial in improving brand recognition, customer loyalty, and conversion rate.

While many popular marketing influencers contribute to bringing in and affecting shoppers' purchase decisions, small businesses and sellers like you can also have the opportunity to grow your business. You can do this by posting interesting content to generate engagement to your listings and increase sales. To get you started, you must be well-informed about the essential things that will help you better understand how promoting your eBay listings to social media platforms works.

Organic and Paid Social Media Posts

It can be challenging to venture out on something you're unfamiliar with, especially when it involves your eBay business. If this is your first time promoting on social media, you may feel lost on where to start and what to do. But that should not hinder you from testing the waters and trying it.

Before you start promoting your listings, there are two kinds of posts that you should know about if you are planning on promoting your eBay items on any social media platform – organic and paid social media posts.

• Organic Social Media Post

  This type of social media post refers to the free use of social media tools where you can share posts (i.e., link to your eBay store or listings) without paying anything. Your primary audience for this kind of post is your 'organic reach' or your followers, your followers' followers should they share your post, and those who follow or search for the hashtags you include.

  It is the simplest and most commonly used post by many brands and businesses, big or small, to establish their presence, engage, and build relationships with potential customers. This does not require any particular step to take. All you have to do is promote your business like a regular social media post, and it is ready for your followers to see — a free method to drive traffic to your listings.

• Paid Social Media Post

  This type of social media post is exactly as its name states — you pay a certain fee to amplify your post, which will reach a broader audience beyond your followers, friends, and those who follow any hashtags you use. It is simply another term for advertising. To put it simply, this is a sponsored post that displays your content to audiences beyond your 'organic reach.'

  Most of those who use this type of post are businesses and organizations willing to shed money to help them promote, generate leads, drive conversions, and reach new targeted audiences. Typically, you can set a budget, choose your target audience, and monitor the post's performance metrics with this.

Both types can be helpful, but you must be wise in deciding which one works best for you. If you don't mind paying a certain fee to boost all of your posts, then trying the paid social media post is fine, but if not, an organic post will also be acceptable.

Some sellers use a mix of organic and paid posts to promote their eBay Store. For example, if they post a general promotional message, an organic post will suffice. This way, they can take advantage of promoting their business to an untargeted audience at no cost. But if they want to direct the post to a specific targeted audience who has shown interest in their items, then a paid social media post is beneficial.

Note that each of these social media posts has its pros and cons, and it is best to strategize your approach before diving right in. Remember that finding the proper balance if you wish to use both is key, as the goal of promoting your listings across social media platforms is just one way of tapping into a higher chance of coming across the right buyer for your item.

Tips on using Social media to drive traffic to your eBay listings

When using social media platforms to promote your listings on eBay, you have plenty of options. You can post on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

Depending on the post or campaign that you want your followers and targeted audience to see, you may post using various styles. You can publish a compelling narrative about your item, a photo of your listing with a caption that will get the interest of your audience, or a short story showing the uniqueness of your item.

Before you proceed with creating your content, here are some tips to follow that you can use to create a compelling social media post that will help you drive traffic to your eBay listings:

• Know your goals. Knowing what you want to achieve will help you formulate a strategy for creating your social media post. It is important that you know whether you would like to boost awareness, increase traffic to your listings, or call the attention of your loyal buyers.
• Know what platform suits you best. Decide which platform you think is best to use for your content. For example, suppose you want to show a photo of your item and tell an encouraging caption that will make potential buyers check your eBay listing; Facebook and Instagram are the best venues for this post.
• Use the same account name as your business. While there are sellers who use their personal accounts to promote their eBay listings or stores, it would be beneficial to have a social media account that has a similar name to your eBay account. This helps avoid confusion for potential buyers, and it will also help you establish a name in the business. You can tweak your social media handle by adding an underscore or a word like 'The' if it is not available to use.
• Arm yourself with posting best practices. Each individual has their own style of promoting, but it is essential that you know the best practices when posting to social media sites about your eBay listings. You can keep it short and use hashtags or trend-relevant content.
• Grow your followers. The more followers you have in the social media world, the more engagement you get. You should work towards growing your connections as organic as you can and steer clear of buying fans/follows. You can start with your friends, family, competitors, their followers, and those you see following the hashtags you use.
• Determine what works best. Check your previous posts and see if a certain content style works for you and your audience. If the way you publish a post does not generate as much engagement as you expect, you may want to change your style. For example, if providing a link to your eBay listing without a photo does not drive traffic to your eBay listing, then you should consider showing photos of the item to encourage your potential buyer to visit your eBay store.
• Don't skip the link. Remember that the main objective of your post is to drive traffic to your eBay store and listings. Always include a link to your eBay bio or listings, as it is the most important element of your social media post. If you find a link too long, you may opt for a URL shortening service like Bitly.

Reach more audiences with OneShop

It is undeniably true that social media helps increase your listing exposure which is beneficial to your sales growth. But aside from promoting your listings through these platforms, cross-listing to multiple marketplaces can also be of great help to reel in more buyers. And while it can sound like a laborious and time-consuming task to venture into different marketplaces, you don't have to worry about manually drafting each of your listings if you have a reliable automation service like OneShop.

OneShop can help you further your success in your online business by cross-listing from one platform to another, which increases your items' exposure getting more conversions from shoppers outside eBay. In addition to this, OneShop can protect you from accidentally selling a single item on multiple sites with its automatic delisting feature across marketplaces once the item has been sold.

OneShop understands the struggles of resellers like you. So, besides cross-listing and delisting across marketplaces such as Poshmark, Mercari, Depop, and Tradesy (more soon!), additional in-app features that guarantee benefits to all its subscribers are also available. It includes seller performance, sales tracker, goal setting, ordering shipping supplies, scheduling USPS pick up, and helping you look up an item's registered ID to see what brand the item is.

If you're looking for the perfect automation system to help you succeed in online reselling, OneShop is here. Visit OneShop to learn more, or directly sign-up here to start your 7-day free trial.