Reaching a social media audience is more powerful than reaching a general audience because a social media audience chooses to receive your messages, much the same way email subscribers choose to receive your messages.

They’re already interested in hearing from you, so you have a head start on getting their attention and ultimately creating conversions.

Wrong: When a social media follower stops following, you lose your head start. So don’t squander your advantage with fatiguing message frequency or overwhelming selling tactics. Regular people use social media to be entertained, engaged and informed -- not to be bludgeoned by branding.

Right: Keep in mind it’s a social network, not a selling network. Give your followers what they want: entertainment, engagement and information. That creates positive branding in and of itself, and that way followers won’t mind as much if you sprinkle in harder sells.

The takeaway: Social media gives you a receptive audience. But remember that the audience can opt out as easily as they opt in, so you need to deliver what they came for.

Something novel: Let customers help your marketing. Shoppers are excited when they buy a big new TV or cute new purse. And there’s a good chance they want to let their friends know about it on social media. Your ecommerce website can include social media buttons for shoppers to share snapshots of products they bought or want so that it’s easy for shoppers to show your products to even more potential shoppers on social media.

How it works with Essent: Use the Social Media Bookmark Widget in the Essent SiteBuilder ecommerce platform to place social media buttons on your ecommerce website. After you place the buttons, shoppers need just a few clicks to show their social media friends what they browsed or bought on your website -- promoting your ecommerce store in the process.

Catch the next installment: This is one installment in a periodic series on ecommerce marketing strategies. See the series overview to read previous installments. Or subscribe to the series to get future installments emailed right to you.