You might be tempted to sign up for every social media site under the sun, but don’t assume that just because a site has a large user base it’s the right place for you. Think about your target audience and research where your potential customers actually are.

Perhaps you run a hardware business and have found your buyers spend a lot of time on Facebook, but don’t necessarily use Pinterest. Or, imagine your site specializes in trendy clothes for teens; you’re likely to find much more of your audience on Twitter or Instagram than on LinkedIn. Identify what services your potential customers are really using, and focus your efforts there.

Obviously you want people to come to your site and buy products or services from you–that’s the point of having an ecommerce site–but not everything you do or say needs to be a sales pitch. Fun, timely posts can be a good way to build your brand by showing you have personality. 

You could do something completely unrelated to your company, like wishing your followers a happy holiday, or you can tie the post back to your brand without actively selling a product. For example, look at Starbucks’ holiday cup campaign:

This post clearly features the Starbucks brand, as it focuses on the the company’s seasonal red cups which it traditionally rolls out around the December holidays, but it doesn’t actively tell anyone to go to its website to buy a product or to a store to buy a drink. Instead, it depicts people having an enjoyable time by drawing on their cups and sharing them with others. The red paper cups aren’t even a product Starbucks sells, they’re merely a vessel that carries the company’s real products of coffee and tea. 

Throughout the clip, viewers are shown messages including “Best Friends,” “Celebrate Who Fills Your Heart,” and “Joy,” all written on the heart of the red cup. Each is a general, positive sentiment that doesn’t necessarily have much to do with coffee, but in displaying the messages on their cups Starbucks puts out a positive image while associating its brand with the feelings of friendliness and joy the clip is intended to evoke. This post doesn’t pitch any single product, but it still effectively promotes the brand.

When you are pushing a product, give your followers a reason to buy sooner rather than later. Is there limited inventory? Are you running a sale? Either would be a great reason for shoppers to pull the trigger and buy that product now.

When Amazon wanted to push its Fire TV Stick media streaming device around Black Friday it tweeted out an image clearly showing the item as heavily discounted, and made sure to let readers know the sale wouldn’t last long. Doing so not only highlighted the product the ecommerce giant wanted to push, it also gave followers a reason to buy immediately, before the price jumped back up by over 35%.

Social media provides many great marketing opportunities; just remember to balance your sales pitches with a healthy dose of social, shareable content. Your followers probably already like your brand and want to hear from you, but that doesn’t mean they want every post they see to be an advertisement.

Want help striking the right chord with your audience? Dotlogics can design an effective social media campaign to help you make conversions.