Each morning at approximately 7a.m., Sally Jean turns on her tablet and logs onto Facebook. First she likes a post from her grandma, then shares a snapshot from last night’s dinner at a new restaurant in town. As she is scrolling through her newsfeed, she sees a post from a new sporting goods retail shop. They’ve shared photos of some of their new products and Sally Jean loves what she sees.

The next thing she knows, Sally Jean has purchased a pair of running shoes and a specialized water bottle for her bicycle from their website. She feels like she’s killed several birds with one stone: catching up with friends, starting conversations AND she even got a kick start on her New Year’s resolution for more physical activity.

Sally Jean isn’t the only one who is letting Facebook help her shop without ever leaving her living room. Online shopping isn’t a new craze, but e-commerce and e-retailers are using a new trend, social media marketing, to up their popularity and ultimately, their bottom line.

What’s causing the huge influx of social media marketing lately? It’s because online retailers, whose entire consumer source is online shoppers know where their shoppers are. They are busy sharing posts on Facebook, favoriting tweets on Twitter and talking shop on LinkedIn, so e-commerce has to rely heavily on social media to reach their target audience.

According to the research publication Internet Retailer 2014 Social Media 500, 40 retailers who were surveyed reported increasing their spending on social media ads by 400 percent from 2012 to 2013.

Not only are online retailers spending more money buying ads and promoting posts, they are also investing in Social Media Management, businesses whose sole responsibility is making businesses relevant on newsfeeds around the world. They are also buying better equipment like cameras and backdrops to capture better images to use in their posts.

All of this work will certainly pay off, especially when considering that researchers are reporting that visitors who shopped online on websites where they were referred to by social media generated approximately $2.69 million for those retailers.

If you own an online retail business and want to tap into the tread on social media marketing, contact the professionals at Susan J. Campbell Copywriting Solutions today and see how we can help.