The Care and Feeding of Your Social Media
The best thing that effective social media can do for your ecommerce site is to get people to trust you and keep them coming back. To achieve this outcome you want to provide fresh, topical content, update regularly and consistently, and have a healthy back and forth with your followers.
Blog
Your blog in your main broadcast point to your customer base when it comes to well thought out, topical ideas. Pick one or two days per week that you can establish as "content days" and make sure to put something new out on those days. Avoid Mondays and the days following a holiday, as posts on these days can get lost in the rush. Brainstorm a list of five to 10 possible content topics that will not grow stale. In the writing industry this is called "evergreen" -- meaning that it will not matter when you write the post, it will still be worth reading. You can fall back on this list when your topical writing well runs dry.
Otherwise, keep it fresh and current: market/business-related activities that you've undertaken lately (e.g. if you sell running shoes, write about a recent trail run you went on with some friends, or about a new hydration system that you've been using). If there's something in the news related to your ecommerce business, write about it. Most blogging systems have a function that will allow you to schedule a post for some time in the future. Plan out your week to allow you to write the article well in advance of when you want to post it.
Linking your blog to Facebook and Twitter will keep your Facebook page fresh with updates. Be sure to take time each day to reply to Wall posts and keep up conversations with important players within your social network. Other businesses and community partners or institutions related to your business should be your main focus.
If you are an outdoor activity supply site, then keep up with local and state parks, outdoor groups, and important figures within these communities. Use Facebook to coordinate with these people and participate in events that will draw attention to your e-store.
Again, connecting your blog with Twitter will let you use Twitter to remind your followers about your other activities. Try to tweet once per day about something you care about that is related to your ecommerce business. Retweet posts that appeal to you and relate to the message of your business.
Keep track of how many followers the people in your network have and focus on leveraging those numbers to increase your own appeal. Most of all, keep your posts related to your business sector about 80 percent of the time (leave yourself a little wiggle room for tasteful asides).
YouTube
If you are going to use YouTube, use it consistently. There's nothing more discouraging to a potential customer than a YouTube channel with three videos on it, with the most recent one dating from two years ago. No matter how good the content is, if it is any good (particularly if it is very good), then your followers are going to want more of it.
Like everything else on this list, keep it consistent and keep the quality high. No one goes to a restaurant knowing that the wait for a meal could be five minutes or fifty, and that the quality could be one star or five stars. Consistency keeps people coming back, and that's what you want.