Why is Social Commerce Important?
What is Social Commerce?
Social commerce involves the showcasing and sale of products or services directly through one or more social media platforms.
While social media marketing has long been used to spread brand awareness and attract new customers, social commerce focuses on converting customers through the apps they’re using. In this way, social commerce offers businesses a new way to integrate social media engagement with ecommerce. Allowing customers to purchase products the moment they discover them.
Why is social commerce important?
In many ways, social commerce is what represents the next logical evolution of the ecommerce marketplace.
By using platforms that support social commerce, brands can streamline the purchasing process for customers while simultaneously gaining broader exposure globally.
Considering that millions of people already use social media for news, entertainment, and communication with friends, it makes sense for brands to focus on selling products through the apps that potential customers are already comfortable using.
Best Social Commerce Platforms
Aside from Marketplace that allows all users to list local products, Facebook also has Facebook Shops that businesses can use to showcase their products and services. This feature is completely customizable and enables brands to import catalogs from their websites. It also gives them the capability of offering several options to their customers, including in-app checkouts, direct messaging, and redirection to their website.
Instagram Shops are where business owners can customize a storefront that features their products. They can promote their offerings through posts, the explore tab, and even through stories. Users can then buy marketing products in-app and make transactions via Facebook Pay.
Snapchat
Snapchat launched feature called Brand Profiles that lets users scroll through marketing products and buy them in-app. It’s powered by Shopify and provides a native shopping experience.
Pinterest Shop
While not technically social commerce, Pinterest allows users to display products for sale on the Pinterest Shop. They can create Product Pins to display prices, but buyers are taken to their website to complete the transaction.
TikTok
A newer player to the social commerce game, TikTok is becoming far more than just a short-form video-sharing app. Now with shoppable posts, livestream shopping capabilities and opportunities for influencer marketing, TikTok is a social commerce platform worth noting.
Benefits of Social Commerce
There are huge numbers of potential customers on social media.
Considering the high level of impulse buying, particularly among millennials and gen Xers, social shopping holds huge potential for attracting customers and increasing sales. The key is to leverage this purchase behavior by making it as seamless as possible for customers to checkout directly through their social media platforms, with little to no disruption.
Enhanced social media presence and brand awareness.
Instead of keeping your social media and ecommerce site siloed, social commerce gives merchants the power to merge the two. This is a huge branding opportunity, allowing you to create brand awareness. And stay top-of-mind to your customers through daily content.
One key way to build brand awareness is through influencer marketing.
You can reach your target audience.
Social commerce is all about meeting your customers where they are. And likely, most of your customers are already on social media. This gives you the perfect opportunity to engage with existing customers in a new, more authentic way by sharing your brand voice through creative digital content.
Convenient, frictionless buying.
With features on many platforms such as the buy button and in-app checkout, social commerce helps remove unnecessary steps in the buying process. With every additional step in the sales funnel, there is a greater risk that the customer will lose interest and leave your page.
However, by creating a seamless buying process that keeps users in the app all the way through their purchase, you can minimize this risk and increase sales.