If you’ve used TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube, there’s a good chance you’ve seen the fitness influencer Swolenormous. In his famous video series he yells in an angry tone for people to, “Go to the gym.”
Recently while browsing his videos on Instagram, I saw a shopping icon on all of his videos. Intrigued, I clicked on the video, only to realize that he has a shop where his audience can buy his merchandise. You click on “view shop” and it takes you to his storefront:
This mode of influencing relies on creating engaging content to build a network of potential customers. However, doing so requires an understanding of psychology, social human behavior, creativity, and business acumen. Collectively these factors determine social commerce.
The following article provides a guide to social commerce, including its benefits, examples of it in practice, and practical tips for streamlining its implementation.
What is social commerce?
Social commerce occurs when companies use social media platforms to sell products or services. It leverages the social media aspects of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms to educate and entertain users and in the end sell them a product or service. This makes it more interactive, humane, and communal.
Social commerce differs from the traditional way of selling that Amazon and other online/offline retailers do. While these retailers sell directly to users, in social commerce, selling is less direct. A wall of content stands between the user and the business and this content helps the users to decide whether or not they should buy the product.
How to integrate social commerce
The following are some of the most common ways to integrate online shopping with social media applications.
Product discovery through content
When it comes to content-based product discovery, there tends to be two main approaches: organic content and sponsored ads. The first describes the situation most content creators find themselves in. Creators tend to lean towards either long-form content on platforms such as YouTube, or short-form with TikTok and Instagram to make videos and posts that a curated audience of followers interacts with.
On the other side of things, some brands produce sponsored ads where you would pay creators to produce content on behalf of the brand. While this can be effective, you should always weigh the cost of sponsorship against the relative low investment of organic content.
In platform shopping
This kind of integration goes back to the example of Swolenormous that I shared at the start of the document. He creates content linked to a specific product. Users then watch this content and can click to go to the advertised product.
Reviews and recommendations
Another popular way to drive sales through social media involves a network of creators who review and recommend products. Here you leverage the trust customers have in a particular creator to build credibility and expand brand awareness.
Benefits of social commerce
Social commerce tends to perform much better than traditional commerce. The following benefits highlight its value.
Increased trust and brand awareness
Since a lot of content about the product comes from creators, it helps to increase the trust within the brand. This can help to convert customers via impulsive buying and in turn, produce more sales.
Increased sales
With increased trust comes increased sales and conversions. Also, with less friction in the buying decision, it can increase the likelihood of returning customers.
Cost-effective
This form of marketing method is less expensive than traditional marketing methods. Since the content is generated by creators, you only need to pay them a set fee at the end. This leads to fairly lower costs.
Sure, it depends on how much the creators would charge, but smaller creators with a specific following similar to the target audience of the company will still be cheaper than traditional marketing.
Automated personalization
Since most of the big platforms have personalization algorithms already in place, content goes in front of an audience already more likely to buy. This helps with the conversion and sales without explicitly investing in personalization.
Understanding user requirements
Since all of the social media platforms have comments, likes, messages, live streams, etc. as channels to communicate with the users, it helps you understand what customers are looking for and thereby build products/services accordingly. This reduces the time and cost to build something that potentially the users might not like.
Examples of social commerce platforms
The market is filled with big names such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat, and others when it comes to social media platforms. These three platforms though offer the most potential for social commerce:
- Shoppable posts, videos, and stories — Businesses and creators on Instagram can create posts and stories and tag products in them. Users can view this content piece, click on the products, and directly go to the landing page. This could be within Instagram or outside of it
- Instagram shop — Creators and businesses can create a shop on Instagram that becomes a separate tab on their pages. Here they can add products much like a marketplace on Amazon and users can buy these products without leaving Instagram
- Instagram ads — This is the paid version of the content where creators and businesses pay for their content to be shown to more users. These ads are targeted so they specifically are focused on user personas
TikTok
- Shoppable videos — Much like Instagram, businesses and creators on TikTok can create videos and add product links directly to their videos, allowing viewers to tap and purchase products seamlessly
- TikTok shop — Creators and businesses can create a shop on TikTok that allows users to buy products within the app. Businesses can also showcase their product on a dedicated tab making it easier for their followers to discover the products
- TikTok ads — Brands and creators can create targeted videos. These automatically showcase the products to the right audience
YouTube
- Livestream shopping — Brands can do a live stream and explain the products, leading to higher conversion since they can see someone on the other side. They can also see the products in real time, increasing the users’ confidence
- Hyperlinks in video descriptions — Since the hyperlinks in video descriptions are clickable, brands can include URLs of merchandise or affiliate links. If the content piece becomes viral, users are likely to click on those links and buy a product
- Shoppable ads — Brands can create video ads for their products that are targeted to specific users. Video ads have gained popularity with the increased usage of video platforms
Practical tips for implementing social commerce strategies
With social commerce platforms in mind, the following strategies help you better connect with your users and sell more of your product.
Understand you users
Even though YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and others have a lot of social commerce features, at the core, all these social media platforms are different from each other. Hence it’s important to understand who your users are and which platforms these users prefer.
If your target audience is under 20, there’s a high chance these users are on TikTok and Snapchat, while if your audience is more than 30 years of age, there is a high chance these users are on Instagram and YouTube. So knowing your audience will help you to prioritize the platform.
Collaborate with smaller creators/micro-influencers
Small creators narrow their target audience compared to bigger creators. Because of this, it can be more effective to collaborate with smaller creators. These creators also tend to have a more engaged audience that gives you feedback to make your product better.
Exclusive deals and discounts
When you advertise on social media platforms or collaborate with creators to help spread the word, create exclusive deals and discounts that the users can’t find anywhere else. This motivates users to come back to the platform for newer deals and discounts.
Future trends in social commerce
While social commerce offers a lot of benefits, you should keep an eye on future trends within the industry as they can quickly disrupt your strategy. You always want to stay up-to-date on the latest changes. Some of these include.
Influencer-driven social commerce
Influencers will play a big role in social commerce in the coming times. The more trust a user has in the brand, the higher the chance of them to come back to the brand. Brands will also leverage micro/small influencers for growth because of their well-targeted audiences.
I run a series called “101 Things To Do In Berlin” and have 2.5K followers. Since my content focuses on Berlin specifically, smaller pop-up stores reach out to me for collaborations.
Growth of AI
AI content will continue to play a bigger and bigger role within social commerce. This will also force the big social media platforms to develop an AI strategy to prevent AI-generated content from taking over feeds.
Niche communities
Niche and smaller communities will grow alongside small/micro-influencer and provide a specific target audience. This enables you to know where to prioritize spending.
Voice commerce
Voice commerce has a lot of potential going forward with the rise of Alexa and Google Home. It removes friction and makes the social commerce experience much smoother, in turn leading to increased sales and conversion.
Key takeaways
Whether you like it or not, social media is here to stay and will only continue to play a larger role in getting your product in front of your target audience. Social commerce leverages trust to supercharge ROI and personalize the shopping experience. Alongside this, social commerce requires considerably less budget than traditional forms of marketing and advertising, enabling smaller brands to grow and reach a wider audience.
Regardless of your exposure to social, keep this article in mind when crafting your product strategy. As always, feel free to comment any questions you may have. Good luck!
gd2md-html: xyzzy Mon Jul 22 2024
Featured image source: IconScout