App of the Month: Social Marketing with Kit January 19, 2016 20:00

Social media presence for businesses is a must these days. But, if social media isn’t an area that you understand well, or if you’re spending too much time creating posts without getting much engagement, then it can be discouraging as a marketing strategy. Shopify store owners may face the dilemma of hiring expensive social media experts, or investing their own time in learning social marketing. Or just give up on social media as a strategy.

For Shopify, there is an easier and lower cost solution to revamping your social marketing. In this post, we showcase how the Kit app can help you run your social marketing from your phone via text messages any time you want.

Social Marketing: Kit

The Kit app for Shopify makes your life easier by creating marketing campaigns quickly, and while you’re on the go. The Kit platform allows you to market on Facebook and Instagram, and also create email campaigns. Once connected to your social profiles and your store, Kit also creates analytics and suggestions for targeted marketing.

The feature that stands in Kit from other CRMs is that you can take actions via text messages on Kit. You can prompt Kit to take actions without being at your desk or on your computer. Certain events also trigger Kit to message you to select actions based on those events. For example, if a customer posts a review through Yotpo, Kit will prompt you to see if you want to share that with your fans or create an ad featuring the review.

For Shopify, store owners can start using Kit with a 14-day free trial. Then, you can choose the standard Kit package for $10 per month, or the Pro version for $25 per month. The main difference between the standard and the Pro version is that the standard version does not allow you to create ads on Instagram.

To set up Kit, you’ll have to connect it to your accounts before it activates:

  • Facebook – grant permission to post on Facebook pages and manage ads
  • Stores – connect your Shopify store to give Kit information about your products, target audience, and generate reports
  • Mobile – set up text messages to control and take actions via Kit
  • Social – allow Kit to get insights about your fans and followers
  • Activation – start using Kit

Social Marketing: Actions via text messages

Once Kit is activated, you can run marketing campaigns over text messages by selecting the appropriate options. The standard options from Kit include:

  1. Market Products
  2. Run Business Report
  3. Update Fans
  4. Adjust Kit

You can either reply with full text of the option or the option number – for example, either replying “Market Products” or “1”.

facebook social marketing

Market products to Facebook (Source)

If you choose to market your products, you can choose three platforms to do so:

  1. Facebook
  2. Email campaign
  3. Instagram

For both Facebook and Instagram, Kit allows you to select the product you want to advertise. Kit imports data from these platforms and automatically uses it to target audiences that can become potential customers. The Pro version of Kit allows you to post images, videos, and carousel ads on Instagram.

instagram social marketing

Market products on Instagram (Source)

Before you run the campaign, Kit also sends you a preview of the campaign before it gets posted. For email campaigns, you can select the template that will be used for your emails. The Pro version of Kit includes additional templates that you can customize.

email social marketing

Email campaign via Kit (Source)

Here’s a video of the type of interaction you can have with Kit via text messages:

Social Marketing: Share Yotpo reviews

Kit also connects with the Yotpo Reviews app to post user-created content, like reviews for your products on Yotpo, a customer content management platform.

Kit can repost reviews on Facebook to share with fans, which can build more trust in your products. You can also take it a step further by creating a Facebook or Instagram ad that features the review.

Social Marketing: Summary

Kit is a powerful aide to help you manage your Facebook, Instagram, and email marketing. Kit not only integrates with these platforms, but can also be set up to your phone so that you can control actions via text messages. This means you can continue marketing even when you are not at your workstation.

Based on certain events, Kit automatically prompts you about next steps. For example, if you create a new product, Kit will prompt you to see if you want to create a post, an ad, or an email campaign for the product. It will then execute your selection using templates and after sending you a preview.

Are there other ways you use to market products more efficiently? Tell us in the comments below.

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