While social media is indeed an important (and necessary) tool for increasing audience engagement and boosting traffic, it has another function for your ecommerce enterprise. It can help you express your brand’s personality and provide responsive customer service too. While more people in every demographic are shopping online, Millennials are especially changing the very landscape of online sales.

A recent report from Deloitte found 47 percent of Millennial consumers use social media while shopping and 37 percent of those shoppers will spend more because of their digital use. Building a positive social media image can absolutely improve conversion.

Here’s how to build your social media:

Create and Share Helpful Content

Sustaining an effective social media presence is a delicate balancing act. Bombarding customers with promotional content may grate on them over time, causing them to unfollow your channel. Variety is the spice of life.

Instead, try to stick to an 80/20 rule: 80 percent of your content should be helpful and relevant to your audience and mixed with 20 percent self-promotional material. If you can provide genuine value to your customers and give them a compelling reason to stop scrolling, they’ll be more likely to engage with sales and product links.

The Power of In-App Purchasing

The more hurdles that customers have to clear to make it to the checkout, the more likely they are to bail out before completing a purchase. With seamless social media integration, you can help make it easy for them to get what they need without breaking a sweat. The key? In-app purchasing integration between popular social apps (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest, to name a few) and your cloud ecommerce software.

With the growing adoption of electronic payment systems, it will soon take only a few swipes or taps for customers to start and finish buying an item without the unnecessary interruption of leaving their favorite app. If you meet your customers where they already are, your social media efforts will gain notice and drive conversions. Configuring your sales platform with in-app purchasing is a measurable place to start, not to mention a win-win for your customers and your bottom line.

Be Human, Get Interactive

Claiming user names and setting up the bare bones of accounts on various social media channels is a start. You’ll need the staples: HD images, a logo, your store name, contact information, a tag line and links to your web store. But your page will only meet a fraction of its potential if it’s underutilized or worse, perceived as corporate and inhuman.

Potential customers may head to your social media pages while they’re deciding whether or not to visit your store. In order to drive traffic, your social presence must be on point. If a customer sees an up-to-date, interactive social page, they’ll likely feel much more connected to your brand.

How can you get in the habit of showing your human side on social media? Respond to customer inquiries and posts quickly and enthusiastically. Ask your audience questions. Have some fun with your web presence (while maintaining an appropriate level of professionalism, of course). Make up a hashtag for customers to show off their purchases from your store and share a few every week. The options are endless.

The stronger your social media presence, the stronger your overall web presence will be. And, as we all know, you simply can’t put a price on humanizing your brand in ecommerce when it comes to driving conversions and building your brand.