Social commerce brings the entire shopping experience — from browsing to checkout — to social media. Customers can discover products as they scroll through their social feeds, browse your brand’s social posts for products that match their needs, then make a purchase directly on a social platform. For customers, social commerce is a convenient, easy way to find and purchase products. For businesses, it’s a great way to quickly expand your reach and your customer base.
Social commerce empowers brands to:
- Use social media as an effective revenue stream
- Diversify their marketing channels
- Take advantage of influencer marketing and brand partnerships
- Reduce the sales cycle, creating a faster click-to-close experience
- Personalize shoppable content with the help of social data
- Get the most out of major shopping events like holidays, seasonal sales, and consumer trends
- Drive loyalty and maintain customer retention
These are just a few of the benefits of incorporating social ecommerce into your omni-channel strategy. Ready to learn how platforms enable social commerce today? Keep reading.
TikTok:
- TikTok has become even more shoppable with the inclusion of new ad formats, its Shop feature, and commerce partnerships that elevate the customer experience. And, the #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt hashtag has stood out as a popular social commerce strategy, which continues to generate billions of views.
Instagram:
- Highly visual and interactive platform makes it the perfect place for social shopping.
- With the Swipe Up feature on Instagram Stories, shoppers simply swipe up to see brands and influencers promoting the latest products to be taken directly to the product page. Fewer clicks = higher conversion.
- Instagram Shopping account. This allows you to upload your product catalog directly into Instagram so you can tag products in your posts for faster purchasing.
Snapchat:
- Snapchat is perfect for the younger, highly engaged demographic.
- In more than 20 countries, Snapchat reaches 90% of the Gen Z population.
- Customers are more likely to share their shopping experiences and favorite purchases on Snapchat more than any other platform.
Facebook:
- Facebook is a staple in social shopping and has continuously ramped up its shoppable content capabilities.
- F-Comm, helps brands reach customers with targeted Facebook ad campaigns, enables businesses to create Shop Now stores to drive sales, and provides a support channel with automated Messenger bots.
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Twitter (X):
- Twitter gives brands and influencers a platform for building partnerships and for publishing #sponsored posts and tagging other brands to expand their reach.
- It’s also a great platform for riding the latest trends, launching flash sales, and offering speedy customer support.
- Highly interactive platform and offers that quick, short-form content today’s consumers love.
With the emergence of social commerce, to win mindshare and stay relevant, brands need to create compelling content for the micro moments people spend social shopping. These micro moments are critical for conversion. Micro moments happen at every stage the entire customer journey, including:
- Discovery: Finding a new brand or product on social media
- Engagement: Liking, sharing, and commenting on social media posts
- Decision: Reading through social media reviews and comments about brands and products that ultimately influences a shopper’s purchase
- Support: Accessing customer service through social media, either by messenger apps, chatbots, or the comments section of social posts
- Loyalty: Following brands on social media, sharing branded content, and continuing the shopping cycle
To ensure a consistent, seamless experience throughout micro moments, consider these questions when developing your omni-channel strategy:
- Service: Is your support and service consistent across all channels?
- Marketing: Does your business have a throughline of branding and messaging across all channels?
- Sales: How are you engaging with customers at multiple touchpoints?
To answer those questions, and more power your business with Salesforce Service, Marketing, Sales, and Commerce Clouds. These tools ensure that your brand messaging is consistent across platforms through integrations, they provide insight into your social listening strategy (don’t have one? Learn how we can help you with social listening HERE), and ensure that your content is relevant and resonates with your target audience. Ready to get your social commerce strategy off the ground? Let’s chat.