Why is Social Commerce a Must-Have Marketing Strategy?
Online shopping is undergoing a change thanks to social commerce, or the buying and selling of goods on social networking sites. You may now buy that great hoodie you saw in an Instagram post from your favourite company with only a few clicks. It's tempting, no?
It's no surprise that social commerce is the trendiest new trend in ecommerce given how much time social media users spend on social networks.
Businesses follow their customers to increase sales, and it appears that customers enjoy it.
Forbes predicts that the global market for social commerce will be worth $560,51 billion in 2022 and a mind-boggling $916,84 billion by 2026.
This indicates that using social media for your company is a need. We'll go over the ins and outs of social commerce to help you understand this new sales possibility.
What is Social Commerce?
Users can purchase services and goods directly within social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, or Spotify thanks to social commerce. From discovery to purchase, the complete customer experience takes place within the app. This translates into satisfied consumers and a streamlined checkout process.
How does it work?
Social commerce enables users to make purchases without ever leaving their preferred social media platform, in contrast to conventional sales strategies that send clients to another website or app.
Customers can also connect their payment and delivery information to just one social app rather than countless distinct online shops. It makes customers feel secure, guarantees a quick and simple checkout, and causes you to have fewer abandoned carts.
Social commerce comes in a variety of forms, but all of them have the same fundamental tenet: you promote, sell, and engage with customers on the same platform.
Why is it so important?
Simply said, you must be there where your customers are.
People spend a lot of time on social media platforms and frequently shop on their smartphones or tablets as well. Combining the two allows you to simplify the shopping process and eliminate any obstacles between discovering a product and making a buy.
Social commerce is merely another feature that can boost sales, increase brand awareness, and encourage consumer loyalty as the majority of vendors already utilise social media to market their goods.
How does Social Commerce impact the overall customer experience?
Shopping is made simple and quick by social commerce since customers don't need to search for things online, recall brands from advertisements, browse through extensive product catalogues, or enter their information into numerous online sites. The procedure is simplified, which enhances the general client experience.
Types of Social Commerce
Let's go over the various forms of social commerce you may use in your business strategy.
Shoppable Ads
Businesses have the chance to sell goods through sponsored posts thanks to shoppable advertisements. You can include product tags in your advertisement to link customers to the highlighted goods.
Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and other networks all offer shoppable advertisements. You can track the success of your advertisement, which is one of the key advantages of employing this kind of social commerce. You can observe which advertisements result in sales and which do not.
You can utilise a variety of tools and capabilities, depending on the platform, to improve your goals, target the appropriate people, and eventually increase sales.
Plugins, buttons, and chatbots
Additionally, social plugins, buttons, and chatbots provide you extra choices for promoting your products. You must conduct study and choose the solutions that will work best for your store before selecting the ideal types.
With the help of plugins, you can integrate your online store with social media and benefit from the best of both worlds. You can integrate your WooCommerce store with Facebook Marketplace, for instance, using the CedCommerce plugin. You can incorporate shoppable posts into your website using other plugins.
Swipe-up links and CTA (Call-To-Action) buttons allow you to direct customers from social media platforms to your website. Even while it is not as simple as in-app checkouts or shoppable adverts, your customers may still browse your store without leaving the social media platform.
Conversations with clients that are AI-generated by chatbots can help them find what they're looking for on your website, save you time, and increase sales. They can be incorporated into your website to help clients navigate your online store and provide answers to frequently asked queries.
Social media checkout
Social media checkout is another popular form of social commerce. It allows customers to select and purchase a product directly from a social networking app like Instagram or Facebook.
Customers can click on a product they like in a brand's post, pick the appropriate size and colour, and then continue to the checkout process all while remaining on the same platform.
On a platform, users must first enter their name, email, billing information, and delivery address before using the in-app checkout. However, if the data has already been added to the platform once, making the purchase only requires a few clicks.
Within the same app, it’s also possible to receive shipping confirmation, track your packages, and contact the seller. That makes the whole process simple and convenient.
Social Commerce VS. ECommerce?
A subset of e-commerce known as "social commerce" exclusively contains the services offered on the various social media platforms. All online shopping, including that done through online shops, marketplaces, applications, and other platforms, is referred to as ecommerce.
Recently, a lot of internet users have started shopping and browsing social media on their mobile devices. Social commerce platforms allow you to merge both activities into one, making the purchasing process quick and simple.
However, this does not imply that social commerce is superior to ecommerce. Both have advantages and disadvantages. You can select the sales strategy and digital marketing channel that best fits your brand based on your target demographic.
Social commerce is an excellent option if your target audience uses social media platforms since it allows you to remove steps from the sales funnel and speed the checkout process. However, it could be wise to keep your online business open if your target market does not utilise any of these platforms.
Most popular Social Commerce platforms
Some of the most common Social Commerce platforms are -
Instagram
Facebook
TikTok
Pinterest
Spotify
You can select from a number of platforms that give merchants a variety of alternatives, as well as use various forms of social commerce like plugins, social checkout, and shoppable ads.
Choose a social commerce approach that is most effective for your company after completing extensive research on all the choices and observing what other companies are doing.
The time is now to take advantage of this trend and start marketing your products on social media. I believe you are now prepared to begin your social commerce adventure after reading this information.