Social commerce is stepping up the online sales game using social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other online sites. These sites find ways to make an advertising dollar while creating a good online social presence for companies.
Ecommerce is growing in leaps and bounds both in technology and market share. While much of the online marketing talk is about optimizing your website, your focus as an ecommerce manager needs to be on more than that—you need to see the entire picture, including the growing segment of social commerce.
What is Social Commerce?
At its core, social commerce is the promotion of companies as well as their products and services using social networking sites.
This type of marketing takes advantage of social trends and aims to interact with consumers through likes, shares, retweets, and snaps. The more of these you have, the more successful the advertising campaign. Social commerce wants to engage with online shoppers through advertising, offering expert advice on products as well as customer support.
How is Social Commerce Changing the Ecommerce Industry?
Social commerce is changing the ecommerce industry with its mass marketing ability. The various social media platforms engage directly with buyers on mediums where they spend much of their time. By engaging on social media, shopping becomes convenient and simple.
For sellers, it offers another means of advertising to reach large numbers of people and allows for the targeting of demographics. It is a proven way of successful advertising. In 2017, the top 500 online sellers made almost $6.5 billion in social commerce sales alone. That was nearly a whopping 25% increase from 2016 numbers.
How to Get Ahead of the Social Ecommerce Wave
If you are looking to ride the social ecommerce wave then you need to make sure you understand its trends. Social shopping is advantageous for shoppers but what about for the brands themselves? If you understand what is trending and how it works to the mutual benefit of both you and the consumer, you can maximize your social ecommerce presence. Get your team on board with some good software to focus on increasing ecommerce rather than team logistics.
Make Impulse Buying Simple
Social media ecommerce makes impulse buying more accessible. These platforms allow users to share their purchases, see limited-time deals, and learn from other’s experiences. Algorithms show ads that link directly to items the user is interested in. If you are a seller, then this type of marketing can introduce new buyers to your products and services. Buyers on a social media marketplace who are tuned in to certain products and deals are tempted by impulse shopping. Social media offers a direct link from a buyer to a seller with a quick checkout process so customers act without being redirected for payment. This means there are fewer steps in an impulse buy. They see a product through a share or like, click on it, and purchase.
Be Social
People are on social media to interact with others. So, your company needs to be social as well. F-Commerce (Facebook commerce) and all other social media captured under that umbrella should offer customers 24/7 access to customer service through phone or preferably chat. This makes them more comfortable with a potential purchase as they have a salesperson nearby if they have any questions.
Creating a social media customer support strategy for your company is crucial to online sales success. Being social and engaging creates a comfort zone for your buyer.
Include Social Promotions As Part Of Your Marketing Plan
In many cases, the social media team plans their promotions separately from the content, marketing, and sales teams. However, you can get more out of social if you incorporate it with your marketing activities and leverage social media to satisfy your marketing goals.
Social media shopping has to offer the perks of real stores. Offering buyers promotions, sales, loyalty points, coupons, and benefits because they are using social media should drive sales up because the customer is saving money just as they would in a brick and mortar store with a coupon or floor sale.
Create A Cross-Posting Plan
The way social media is set up means you can not only sell on a single platform but also crossover to the brand’s website with similar features to drive purchases. This is one of the benefits of social media you cannot find anywhere else.
Sellers need to offer features that allow zoom and various product views, customer service, and easy checkout on social media apps and platforms as well as the home website. These features make impulse buying easy. Cross-posting helps you maintain branding while making buying a breeze.
Make Sure Buyers Can Find You From Social Channels
Make sure all of your social shopping venues have a location finder that targets your brick and mortar store (if you have one) and your website. Not every shopper is comfortable with buying something only seen on social media. They may want to find your shop in person or visit your webpage.
Social retail shopping is great but that final push to purchase may only happen in person or on a secure website so make sure your potential buyers can find you. Here are 12 Ecommerce CRM Strategies that can help you boost sales in 2021.
How Do You Think Social Ecommerce Will Change?
Marketing on social media will continue to change as emerging social media platforms grow and older ones morph to meet user demand. The growth of social media will only keep expanding at this point. It would be a poor business decision to ignore the sales potential in this area.
The ecommerce trends that intertwine with social media are an area of marketing that needs to be highlighted and used to adapt to the constant technology and platform change. You want to maximize these potential links between sellers and buyers through social media.
Take a step further and look into marketing software: What Is Marketing Software? 15 Types & What They Do
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These ever-changing topics are not just for the newbies of the social ecommerce wave but new for those who are already immersed in it.
Sign up for The Ecomm Manager newsletter and hop on The Ecomm Manager Slack team to discuss things like which is the most promising social commerce platform? Or, how is your ecommerce company using social commerce platforms to drive sales? Both questions are important when it comes to your company and discussing them with your peers may help discern your way forward in the social ecommerce world.