You’ve probably heard the phrase ‘TikTok made me buy it’ even if it’s not something you have personally succumbed to.
Regardless of the social media platform you’re on, we’re willing to bet you’ve bought something either on impulse or because the darn thing followed you round for weeks until you finally gave in and bought it. It’s like the algorithm knew you wanted it before you did.
This is down to the rise in social commerce – where you buy something you see on a social media platform directly, generally without leaving the platform at all.
There’s a concerted effort by social media sites to push this, because they want to keep you on their platform for as long as possible. They don’t want you coming in to their shop, seeing what you want, then going straight out the door to buy it somewhere else.
They want the extra engagement, the extra data and the extra financial benefits from people setting up shop on their site.
It’s the next natural step in the evolving shopping experience, from physical store, to retailer websites, to ecommerce sites, to social commerce.
While selling products or services (and marketing them), can seem ever more complicated, social commerce actually represents an amazing opportunity for businesses, with lots of advantages for both buyer and seller. And it’s growing rapidly. In fact, the gross merchandise value of social commerce is expected to reach the equivalent of $83bn in the UK alone by 2029, according to ResearchAndMarkets.com.
So how does it work in practice?
How social commerce works
Social commerce goes a step further than social media marketing – where you might see an ad that sends you off to a business’s own website or ecommerce store – by enabling you to buy and checkout directly within the app.
As all the platforms want you to do it, they’re making it as easy as possible to set up shop. Many social sites now have some form of shop feature whether that’s Instagram Shopping, Facebook Shops or Marketplace, Pinterest for Business, TikTok Shop, YouTube’s shoppable ads, Linkedin for B2B e-commerce, or Snap Store.
The benefits of social commerce
Enabling people to buy directly through social media platforms is an excellent tool in your marketing mix, especially if you link it to your ecommerce site or online retail store. And there are loads of benefits to this approach.
The potential to reach millions of people
Millions (in fact, billions) of people use social media and they are now buying through this channel in their masses. That means the potential to get your products in front of new potential customers is huge. Of course we wouldn’t advocate marketing to ‘everyone’ as part of your strategy, but social commerce does enable you to get to those places where your customers most likely are. Different platforms have different demographics and you can also use their built-in analytics to track and target further.
Get to know your customers better
Using those same analytics you can start tracking shoppers’ social and buying habits. You can get to know and understand them on a deeper level, which will help you to cater your products and marketing in an even more targeted and sophisticated way. You can also engage further with your customers through comments, polls and surveys to get more of that valuable feedback.
A more social shopping experience
With social commerce, you have the opportunity to really build a community. Rather than relying on someone finding your website directly or through your other marketing funnel content alone, social commerce enables you to build trust and generate social proof. Create the right content and incentives, and your engaged community will start spreading the word for you in their communities. Followers can share experiences, make recommendations and talk to each other, which all helps build that trust and credibility.
Endless opportunities to make sales
There are so many features across the various social platforms that provide easy opportunities for people to buy. Things like shoppable posts – where people can click directly through to a product from an image – user generated content, livestream sales sessions, using influencers or micro-influencers, targeted social ads, using trending hashtags, ‘how to’ and product review videos – the opportunities are literally endless.
An improved buying experience for your customer
Importantly, all these benefits for your business are also to the benefit of your customer. We want to research a product before we buy and we value information and recommendations. Once we’ve decided to buy, we want that process to be as quick and easy as possible. We don’t always want to go to another website and create a user account with a new password – in fact every additional step is a point at which someone could drop out of your funnel. Social commerce offers all of the above in fewer steps.
Creating your social commerce strategy
The opportunities offered by social commerce are huge, but like with everything in digital marketing, it all relies on your strategy. That means taking time to set your goals, researching which platforms are right for you and what approach is right for your audience. Look at what your competitors are doing, plan your content strategy and make sure you have high quality images or video in place before you start.
If you would like to explore a social commerce strategy for your business, we can help, simply drop us a line for a chat.
Thinking about your marketing strategy for 2025? You can read more about marketing your business here.