1. The document provides tips and strategies for businesses to sell their products on various social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and others.
2. It discusses how to create a Facebook store and sell products on Facebook by setting up a business page and enabling shopping features.
3. Tips are provided on how to optimize Instagram for business like using link in bio tools and showcasing products through stories and live videos.
2. 4
Chapter 1:
Why your business should use
social media right now
8
Chapter 2:
How to sell on the
Facebook Store
13
Chapter 3:
Tips to sell on Instagram +
effective tools
18 Chapter 4:
How to Sell on YouTube
27
Chapter 5:
TikTok, Pinterest - Emerging
social media
31
Chapter 6:
Top 5 social media analytics tools
for small businesses
TABLE
OF
CONTENTS
3. Did you know you can sell your products 3X faster on social media
than through a website?
Selling on social media seems simple enough but there are a few tricks and tips
that will help you sell faster than your competitors. In this ebook, we will cover -
Before we begin, let us quickly cover a few tips we need to keep in mind
before we sell our products on social media:
Lend an Attentive Ear:
Listen attentively to what your end-user is trying to tell you. Social listening not
only means reading posts from some users but also finding meaningful
conversations, awareness, and understanding from your mentions on the
various social media platforms. You can ask questions to your customers, run
contests and offer discounts for constructive feedback.
Give a Prompt Response:
At Instamojo, we respond to customer complaints/queries/feedbacks mentions
on social media within seconds. Be it a comment on our LIVE webinars or a
twitter mention, the content team promptly responds/handles the message.
As soon as customers tweet comments or send an email about the products or
services you provide, they will be eager to get a response. So an immediate
response always gives out a good impression.
According to an article by TalkWalkers over 75% of India's
population are active social media users. On average, Indian
users spend 2.4 hours daily on social media.
INTRODUCTION
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| The Essential Guide to Selling on Social Media
Why your business needs to prioritise social media in 2020
Different tools you need to up your social media game
How you can leverage 2 most popular selling platforms - Instagram
& Facebook to sell your product and improve your brand
1.
2.
3.
4. Connect With Your Audience:
From within the humongous world of social media which hold millions of users
reaching out to someone specific could really mean a lot. When someone
communicates with you be gracious enough to acknowledge and respond.
Call Out Loud:
Social media is all about likes, shares, retweets, mentions, favourites and more…
call them out loud. Address them by their names, ask them for feedback, thank
them for any appreciation you get and keep the communication channels on.
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Did you know India has about 350 million+ social media users?
Imagine the number of potential customers you can reach via an effective
social media selling plan.
Starting off a business is only the first step to the multitudes that follow.
Engaging your customers with the latest you have to offer can go miles in
promoting your business organically.
With a major population of Indian users now active on social media, it is
now easier to attract more customers to your business.
Image credits: https://www.statista.com
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Here are 5 reasons why you should be prioritizing social media:
Wider global reach:
Social media is an amazing tool to help reach potential customers
and past customers coming back to you. Selling on social media
involves marketing on the platform too. Happy customers are also
likely to talk about you, making it an ideal way to grow organically.
Cost-effective:
Social media platforms come with the added benefit of engaging
audiences globally at prices lower than traditional means.
Additionally, your content can be accessed long after it’s published,
thereby increasing its reach and shelf life.
Encourages two-way communication:
You can even collect inputs and feedback from customers easily on
social media. These inputs can prove useful for product development
and the overall growth of your business. Besides, it is always easier to
respond immediately.
Let customers know about your business:
Help your customers understand your product offerings by regularly
updating your information online. Talking about updates on social
media allow users to read about you on their news feed.
Connect with customers instantly and share links to your newsletters,
blogs, and social media posts on your accounts. You can also use the
platforms to let customers know about events, promotions, webinars
and more that you have planned for your customers.
1.
2.
3.
4.
8. While Facebook and Twitter ensure
engagement and traffic, platforms like
Quora help you demonstrate your expertise.
“ ”
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| The Essential Guide to Selling on Social Media
Giving advice, providing relevant information, answering customer
queries about your product or its offerings, help you become a person of
authority for the business or sector you are in.
Effective Tools:
Instagram shop and Facebook Marketplace are two of the most commonly
used platforms for businesses to sell their products or services. You don’t
need to set up a website immediately.
We will explore this section in further detail in the next chapters.
Boost traffic and your SEO:
With an effective social media marketing strategy, you can boost
inbound traffic and your search ranking. Ensure you put out high
quality, shareable content which is a value-add to your customers.
It is essential to also optimize your page, to allow for the most
through social media marketing.
5.
54%
of Social Browsers use social media
to research products. (GlobalWebIndex, 2018)
A good social media marketing and selling strategy allows customers to
find their way to your website and also shop with you. Providing seamless
and secure transactions covers the last mile with easy transactions.
10. Image credits: https://www.statista.com
Despite Instagram being the more preferred choice of social media
platform for users in India, Facebook is still the most popular platform for
businesses to sell their products. The Facebook Store now allows you to
sell your products and services online, reaching a potential 241 million
customers in India.
With social media becoming a leading way to sell, here’s all you need to
know about how to sell using Facebook as a medium.
Recently, Facebook crossed the 2 billion mark, in terms of the number of
active monthly users in the first quarter of 2018.
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Can you imagine the number of customers you can now reach out to, via
the Facebook Store? Here, is a comprehensive guide to creating a
business page and understanding the nuances of how to use the
Facebook Store for your business.
Need more reason to sell on Facebook? We scouted through a few
numbers from Hootsuite, and these are some findings:
How to sell on Facebook:
India ranks #1 as the country with the most
number of Facebook users, surpassing
countries like America, Brazil, and Indonesia.
“ ”
The average price for an ad on Facebook decreased by 4% in the
second half of 2019.
Facebook users spend 38 minutes on an average just browsing
through the platform.
Over 300 million users view Facebook stories daily
Over 90 million small businesses use Facebook!
Create a Facebook store – list products, set up an online shopping
cart to collect payments.
Use an e-commerce platform to create an online store and
automatically link your products to your Facebook store page.
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How to Create Facebook Store:
To open a Facebook Store, you need to have a Facebook Business page.
What is it? It is an ideal place to market your products or services and reach
out to customers. It is highly recommended for businesses looking to
venture into the digital domain.
Log into your personal account
Click on ‘Settings’ (Tab on the top-left side of the page)
Click on ‘Create Page’
Choose the on ‘Business or Brand’ option, click on ‘Get Started’
Select the relevant ‘Page Name’ and ‘Category’ under which it falls.
Upload a ‘Profile Picture’ and ‘Cover Picture’, which best describes
your business
Your Business Page is now LIVE on Facebook.
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Note: Make sure your profile and cover images are uploaded and are
explanatory to the type of business you run.
Step 3:
You will now see an option to either redirect your customers to an online
store or external website or allow them to shop on your Facebook page.
You can either redirect them to your Instamojo free online store or share
an Instamojo payment link for the products on your Facebook shop.
How to Sell Products on Facebook?
Step 1:
Now that your Facebook Business Page is ready, create a ‘Shop Now‘
button, which will enable customers to directly shop using Facebook.
Hover over the right side of the cover picture which has a Call to Action
(CTA) button.
Step 2:
Click on the CTA button and select the ‘Edit’ option.
Under ‘Which button do you want people to see?” select “Shop with
you or make a donation”
Select “Shop Now”
15. Home-based businesses are thriving on Instagram, especially right now.
Instagram business tools – free or paid are modified to help businesses sell
and scale without a website.
So, it becomes a necessity to know how to optimize your Instagram
marketing algorithm and get your brand beyond noticed by customers.
You need to get them to buy from you too.
Marketers today work smart - when the internet gives you free tools, use it.
Also, customers want to feel engaged, valued and important. How can we
make that happen on Instagram, without getting swallowed in the void of
a million other businesses?
Instagram business hacks to boost your brand
Optimize your Instagram Link in Bio:
If you have a business account on Instagram, you know that the only place
Instagram allows you to add a link is in your bio. As a business, you will tire
of constantly telling customers to check ‘link in bio’, for every product or
update.
We recommend using Linktree, a tool that allows you to add multiple
links in one parent link. You get a shortened URL that you can share on
your bio without cluttering your profile header.
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| The Essential Guide to Selling on Social Media
16. Pahartah - a brand that primarily sells on Instagram, keeps a clean, simple
bio with linktree
Once you click on the link tree in the bio, this appears:
The CTA buttons are all clickable and will lead to individual links. This is
very useful for businesses that do not have a website.
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| The Essential Guide to Selling on Social Media
17. Show off Using Instagram Stories:
Yes, just like an account, everyone posts Instagram stories. But how do you
get your brand noticed? We have a few tips:
If your customer has tagged your brand, repost the story with a thank you
message. Testimonials are the key to a nervous customer’s heart, it builds
trust and guarantees a purchase.
Add to Highlights. Keep separate categories for your Instagram stories, so
that customers can come back to your page and go through your stories.
You can also make use of design tools like Canva to add an attractive cover
image for your story highlights. This helps customers to flip through your
story highlights like a brochure.
Vilvah - An eco-friendly cosmetics brand,
shares all the Instagram stories their
customers tag them in.
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| The Essential Guide to Selling on Social Media
18. 500
Daily active Instagram Stories users
increased from 150 million in January
2017 to 500 million daily active Stories
worldwide in January 2019.
(Statista, 2019)
Million
Instagram Tools Your Business Needs
to Stand out And Sell Faster
Sell on Instagram LIVE:
Instagram LIVE has jumped by 70% since the year commenced. Confined
to their homes, everyone has taken to talking to people/customers on
Instagram LIVE. As a business, it’s important to use Instagram LIVE to
answer customer’s queries, conduct interviews with experts and maybe
have a takeover with a customer.
If you sell products, conduct an Instagram LIVE to test your product out
yourself. For example, if it is a cosmetic brand, show how it works. This can
work as a follow-up to an Instagram poll. Ask a few questions to your
customers, work your answers into your LIVE.
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| The Essential Guide to Selling on Social Media
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| The Essential Guide to Selling on Social Media
YouTube is the second most-visited
website on the entire web.
“ ”
People watch over 5 billion YouTube videos daily. Is using Youtube
for small businesses effective marketing strategy - how do you stay
relevant on a platform that has 30 million daily users?
The video giant is more than just a platform for makeup vloggers and
funny cat fails. Over 1.9 billion logged-in users visit Youtube on a monthly
basis. That is more than half the internet, and they watch over billions of
Youtube videos.
How will this help your business? According to Hootsuite, since 2016,
twice as many SMEs are now advertising on youTube.
If you have a business that incorporates a video marketing strategy to get
customers and generate leads, chances are you have chosen youtube as
an effective marketing tool for it. Since youtube is a free platform,
everyone uses it.
Why and How Does YouTube Marketing Work for small
businesses?
YouTube was formed in early 2005 and has grown rapidly since. Every
minute, people around the world upload more than 300 hours worth of
video footage to YouTube.
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The first-ever Youtube video was published in 2005! According to an
article by Impact, it is estimated that by the end of this year, 80% of all web
traffic will be claimed by video. Video is still one of the best forms of
content marketing strategy with regard to engagement.
YouTube and Small businesses in India:
YouTube has completed over 10 years in India. Over its time, the video
marketing platform has penetrated to over 80% of India’s internet
universe. India has over 30 million small businesses, and YouTube has
over 225 million monthly active users on the platform, from mobile
devices alone.
65% of Indian viewers are subscribed to YouTube channels. Therefore,
uploading Youtube videos is a good way for your business to collect leads
and interact with your customers.
Image credits: https://www.scatter.co.in
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Read more: How you can create an effective
YouTube channel in under 5 minutes!
How to use YouTube for small business:
Creating a business account:
You must have a Google account, in order to engage with videos by either
liking, sharing, subscribing or commenting on them. Your Google account
could be your Gmail account.
What kind of videos should you share?
The length of the average YouTube video is 4 minutes and 20 seconds. But
video length can range from short to long videos over 20 minutes in
length. Based on your business, create videos that form a part of your
audience.
Split your videos into playlists, like ‘How to’ videos or customer stories etc.
Indian Entrepreneurs Shaping the Future of Business -
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| The Essential Guide to Selling on Social Media
Define your marketing strategy.
Write down specific targets you wish to achieve using youtube to grow
your business:
Once you get started:
Clicks/traffic
Engagement
Reach/subscriber numbers
Talk to customers in the comments of your videos to gain their trust.
Invite customers to subscribe to your channel for updates.
Slowly, collaborate with top YouTubers to publish sponsored video
content about your products on their channels.
Tips to use YouTube for Small Business:
YouTube for your small business is more than just a video-sharing
platform. It is an elaborate glossary that carries everything your company
wishes to market and inform your audience. Besides this, you can adopt
these short, sure-fire tips to up your Youtube game:
Take your YouTube mobile:
A mobile ad on YouTube attracts your customers’ attention 83% of the
time. According to a study by over 50% of YouTube’s video views occur
on mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones. Video consumption
on mobile devices doubles every year, based on numbers from
YouTube.
24. Use Subtitles in your videos:
India has over 100 languages. however, a third of the country speaks basic
English, therefore, it is important to enable subtitles in your videos. Simply
turn on auto-captioning and edit the output for accuracy. Over millions
of hearing-impaired users appreciate captions, and they are optional, so
those who do not need it can disable it.
Leverage your content:
Avoid over-promoting. Integrate visuals and mentions of products
discreetly and naturally. The video shouldn’t come across as one big sales
pitch. So, steer clear of hammed-up dialogue. It can alienate viewers.
Besides this, optimise your content. Enter relevant and useful titles,
descriptions and keywords that are clear from the beginning and helps
your audience find your videos through search engines.
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The most popular YouTube channels are
those that have a good volume of consistent
and frequently updated content.
“ ”
If your business conducts webinars, break it up and post them as a series
of videos. For infographics, you can re-purpose them into explainer videos,
or create short tutorials or product demos. Tell your audience more about
your brand story, your staff and your goals.
Invest in the right equipment:
This might sound expensive, but it is an investment too. Buy quality
filming equipment to record your videos. Your camera should produce
crisp and clear images. Set aside a budget for your video marketing, invest
in a good camera, mic and tripod.
Trim your video content down to the essential bits. Keep your videos
short, as much as possible.
26. Talk to your customers:
Use the ‘Community’ tab (located in your channel’s main page) to post
images, GIFs, and video previews, as well as to poll your subscribers.
Reply regularly to comments and feel free to feature your customers on
your channel.
Do not forget to monitor channel analytics using the free Youtube
Keyword Research Tool. Businesses on YouTube have access to analytics
about views, subscribers, demographics and more. This helps you keep
out a watchful eye and see where you can improve with regard to your
content.
How Instamojo facilitates payments through YouTube:
We use the video-sharing platform too! You can find a plethora of ‘How-to’
videos on Instamojo YouTube channel, along with snippets of our
company culture and customer stories.
Also, we allow our sellers to collect payments from YouTube! How? Simply
copy/paste your payment link onto your YouTube video description page
and your customers will be redirected to the payment gateway page.
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Instamojo Smart Links: Do more with payment links -
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While Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are top social media channels
for most businesses, it’s always best to be an early adopter on a new
platform.
Being an early social media channel adopter allows you to:
Therefore, we took a look at some emerging channels that the world has
been thringing to during the lockdown.
Explore a new channel
Become a potential influencer on the channel
Set trends and gather massive following on the social media channel
TikTok:
Tiktok, the short video-sharing platform has over 1.5 billion
downloads. Most of India’s generation Z is on the platform and its
popularity has been shooting through the roof. You might ask
how would you use this channel to amplify your business?
TikTok is a great tool to market your brand. Here are some tips
you can use to start marketing your business on the platform:
Create your own, interesting story-like videos on the platform
with topical trends or just share-worthy material
Curate videos that resonate with your product / service on TikTok,
use hashtags to discover similar content and start curating them
Use influencers to talk about your product or services in their
videos.
For a complete guide to using TikTok
for your business, read this blog.
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Think of Pinterest as a user-friendly
version of Google search engine.
- Kyle Francis, Social Media Strategist,
via Business2Community.com
“
”
Pinterest:
For the longest time, Pinterest has been used by businesses to
show off product catalogs, visual content like infographics and
more. This channel is not just a collector’s board anymore.
India is the second largest market for Pinterest with 67 million
users and about 80% of the users are female. The platform’s user
base also grew 26% last year! If you’re in the arts, crafts, food,
lifestyle, and content industry, Pinterest can play a crucial role in
helping boost your marketing efforts.
A little known fact about Pinterest is that it is a massive SEO
booster. The platform can become a huge contributor to referral
traffic for your website or blog with just some efforts.
Here are a few tips to get your Pinterest game right:
Start your pinterest account and keep adding fresh visual content
to your account - create boards and organise them product or
theme-wise
Use guided search for the title and description of your pins to
help search engines and customers find your content
Repin as much as you can to stay relevant and appear in feeds
31. Pinterest is also adding quite a few commerce options - the shop option is
already available in the US and may soon make its way into India. It could
become a thriving marketplace for business when it does happen.
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32. CHAPTER 6
Top 5 social media
analytics tools for
small businesses
33. As a small business marketer, where do you turn to for meaningful social
media analytics?
Small businesses know the importance of social media marketing - to
boost sales and get more customers. But how do you go about tracking
social media analytics for your campaigns?
In this blog, we will explore some of the top social media analytics tools -
both free and paid, that your business can use to track metrics set in your
social media marketing plan.
Let’s begin with:
What is social media analytics?
Small businesses should view social media analytics as - gathering data
from social media to inform marketers and guide their marketing
strategy to achieve goals.
When you pay close attention to your social media analytics, it becomes
easier for you to see what is working for your social media goals.
To make this happen, you have social media analytics tools.
Social media analytics tools are used to measure performance and analyze
your strategy. Do not confuse it with social media management tools -
these exist to help you plan and schedule your social media content.
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| The Essential Guide to Selling on Social Media
Social Media Analytics Tools for Small Business Marketers to
know:
The most popular social media analytics tool for small businesses. Google
Analytics is ideal to analyse website traffic. You can also track social media.
How can you do this?
Google Analytics allows you to track social media as a marketing channel
and source of traffic. Click Acquisition > Overview > Social, and you can
check many visits your site receives from each of the major social
networks.
You can use the numbers and statistics provided here to tie it to your
conversion goals for social media.
Google analytics -
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Google Analytics is not purely meant for social media analytics, but you
can use the below-mentioned features for free:
You can also use Google analytics with your Instamojo account. Check it
out here.
Social referral traffic
Traffic flow – organic
Social conversions
3 reasons to use Google analytics:
Track which platform users are interacting with you most.
Analyze social media’s value as a channel using conversions.
Check how your customers landing on your site using UTM parameters
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Quintly -
If Facebook is your primary social media tool, this analytics tool is perfect
for you. Quintly helps you track analytics for your Facebook Page and
allows you to access analytics for up to three Facebook pages.
It provides you detailed insights on prominent engagement metrics such
as likes, comments, shares, and followers.
Quintly quantifies the strength of your social media pages and profiles on
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. It illustrates data through maps, graphs
and charts as you select accounts to monitor.
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What Quintly measures for your social media:
Shares, replies and retweets for your posts
User growth base - how are you gaining/losing followers
The response rate - how fast a user shares/checks your social media
posts and answers questions.
Buffer -
Unlike Google analytics, Quintly is not free, although there is a trial period.
Each price tier gives you unlimited data, plus features such as data
exportation to Excel and PowerPoint. The plans are mainly divided by how
many profiles you can track.
Why should small businesses use this tool? Your business can benefit from
using Quintly mainly to track other businesses social media activities.
38. Buffer works as both a scheduling and social media analytical tool. The
tool comes as both Free and paid, depending on what plan you opt for.
Buffer suggests the best time for marketers to schedule or publish their
social media posts.
The tool also highlights the best performing post when a particular post
exceeds average performance. It also allows the user to track and analyse
performance across Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.
What Buffer Measures for your social media:
Instagram Stories analytics
Posting strategy recommendations
Create professional reports in as few as two clicks
Hootsuite -
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| The Essential Guide to Selling on Social Media
39. Hootsuite is one of the most popular social media management and
analytical tool used by marketers today. The tool shows you what type of
content is working best for your plan. Besides this, it also helps to improve
and to increase the reach of your posts through ads.
What Hootsuite does for your social media:
With Hootsuite, you can enjoy all their features for 30 days for free!
Simplify360 -
Small businesses want to quickly identify trends and measure their brand
power against competitors. For this, Simplify 360 is definitely the tool you
need.
Customizable reports with data taken from 200 metrics with a PDF,
Excel/PowerPoint export format feature.
Measure your customer care team’s response and resolution time
on Facebook and Twitter.
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| The Essential Guide to Selling on Social Media
40. The tool allows you to analyse what your customers are saying about you
and allows you to work on a response.
With Simplify 360, you are aware of your brand’s social image on major
social networks. Audience intelligence
What Simplify 360 measures for your social media:
Speaking of analytics, small businesses can get in-depth insights into their
customers’ traits using the Instamojo pro analytics feature.
With this app, you can boost your analytics section to get more detailed
reports about your paying customers, visitors to your links/store/products
and a list of users (with their email and phone number) who dropped-off
before completing their payment.
Industry trend monitoring
Demographics
Engagement and influence scores
Performance comparison of different social media accounts
Real-time performance tracking of posted content
Traffic volume from various sources
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41. CONCLUSION:
Start, Manage, and Grow Your Business with Instamojo.
Do not ignore Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora or any other social media platform
when it comes to rebranding your business. The power of social media lies
in how well you use it to build and sell your products and services. Invest
in these free tools to market your brand and it becomes easier to sell your
products.
Social media platforms today are becoming more business-friendly.
It’s your news platform, your gallery, your testimonials page, your store
and you can also collect your payments using social media.
You can do all that and more with Instamojo.
Collect payments on social media with a shareable URL
100+ payment modes available
Build your own online store with 20+ customisable, DIY themes
Buy domains and mailboxes for your business
Get deeper customer insights and CRM tools
Discover a host of growth and marketing business tools
Shipping and logistics services with doorstep pickup to over 24000
PIN Codes
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| The Essential Guide to Selling on Social Media
42. 3
| 10 Digital Marketing Trends for 2020
Grow your business with Instamojo
www.instamojo.com/blog
www.instamojo.com
Powering over 1,000,000+
businesses like yours
in India
More than just a payment gateway, Instamojo offers you marketing
analytics tools and apps to help grow your business.
Check them out in your Instamojo App Store.