Social Media allows you to tap social marketing channels such as Twitter and Facebook, and provide the means for your customers to share products or web pages of interest with their friends, family and colleagues. Maintaining an active presence on at least one of these channels is highly recommended because the potential traffic coming to your website can be substantial. With an active presence on either Twitter and/or Facebook you also demonstrate to your customers that you take an interest in engagement and that you're an active online participant. A vacant, non-active social media account sends the wrong message to your customers, so maintain as much activity as possible.

Once you have created an account for any one of these social media tools, you can then specify that each relevant social media icon appears throughout your shop category and/or product pages. For more information see the pages contained under the Design navigation menu.

Entering account information for Twitter & Facebook

If you haven't already done so, create an account for each of the two social tools you wish to offer in your shop. You can create a new Twitter account here and a new Facebook business or product page here. If your website design features Twitter and/or Facebook icons that link directly to your pages for each respective account, these icons will link to those pages automatically once your account information has been entered.

With your Twitter and Facebook username/account information handy, enter into the respective text input fields your account information:

1. Go to Dashboard > Preferences > Social Media
2. Facebook Address: enter your Facebook page name. There is no need to enter the full Facebook URL.
3. Twitter Name: enter your Twitter username (without the @ symbol)
4. Press Save Changes for the changes to take effect.
5. Go to Dashboard > Publish and press the Publish button to send the changes live to the Internet.

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Activating social media functionality in your shop

After providing your account information for Twitter and/or Facebook, you will need to activate the functionality within your shop's category views and product pages.

• Refer to the Design page section here to activate social media in your shop category views.
• Refer to the Design page section here to activate social media in your shop product pages.

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The customer user-flow process for Social Media

Once you have enabled and activated social media functionality in your shop it's good to understand how the process actually works in your shop, and what happens when the product information is shared on the customer's social media account. With this knowledge you should be able to respond to user activity appropriately and become adept at engaging with your customers within either social media channel or via other means such as email, phone and so on.

The Twitter 'Tweet' button

The following user-flow occurs when a customer clicks the 'Tweet' button from a product page:

• Customer clicks 'Tweet' >
• Pop-up window appears, customer signs-in to their Twitter account >
• Customer writes an accompanying message; your product URL is included within the Tweet >
• Customer clicks 'send' >
• Tweet appears in customer's timeline

The Facebook 'Like' button

The following user-flow occurs when a customer clicks the 'Tweet' button from a product page:

• Customer clicks 'Like' >
• Pop-up window appears, customer signs-in to their Facebook account >
• Customer writes an accompanying message; your product URL is included within the message >
• Customer clicks 'send' >
• Message and product URL appears in customer's Facebook timeline, together with your product's META description.
  

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Can I add other social media icons/functionality to my product pages?

Although not possible in the same automated capacity as twitter and Facebook, it is possible to add other social media icons to your pages. Most social media websites provide icons that you can download, with some icons also including short snippets of HTML code for you to place on the appropriate pages. Alternatively you can upload the relevant icon/s and link them to the necessary website/s.

• From within your product or page editor, position a cursor within the content region at the location you want the icon to appear.
• Click the Insert/Edit Image icon on the Toolbar and upload the icon. Press ok when done.
• Select the icon and click the Add Hyperlink icon on the Toolbar and type in the link to the social media website. Press ok when done.
• Save the page.
• Publish your website for the changes to take effect.

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