Reasons To Use Social Commerce In Your Ecommerce Strategy

With more and more shoppers using social media as a method of discovery, both of brands and products, it’s no surprise that social commerce is becoming increasingly popular. With the intersection of mobile commerce and social media use, allowing shoppers to make product purchases within social media apps makes sense. Let’s take a closer look.

What Is Social Commerce?

Social commerce offers users a seamless shopping experience. It gives them the opportunity to both discover and then purchase products from directly within the social media app. This seamless transition reduces the chance for customers changing their mind, or any friction as they navigate leaving the social media site to make the purchase elsewhere.

Certain social media applications offer the potential for social commerce such as:

• Facebook

• Instagram

• TikTok

• Pinterest

• Youtube

Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of this eCommerce strategy.

Wider Audience

Younger generations, such as Gen Z and Millennials spend a lot of time on social media sites. It functions as a messaging platform, social meeting hub, and place to share views and images. From an eCommerce perspective, social media is a great way for shoppers to find new brands and new products.

Since these generations spend so much time on social media already, it makes total sense to meet their needs and create room for them to shop in the way that is easiest for them.

Increased Community

Many of these younger generations already do their research on social media before making purchases with brands. That’s because more people are inclined to spend their money with brands they know share similar ethical values to them.

Since social media will be the first place they go, it’s a great idea to also let them purchase directly from your page. This then means that once they have purchased, they are already engaged with your online community.

Creating a community of shoppers is a great way to create lifetime customers. It means that customer loyalty grows and overall engagement with your brand grows. This will overall lead to word of mouth recommendations meaning business growth.

Richer Data

One of the great benefits of having a strong social media strategy, and a social commerce strategy within that, is the data that it allows you to uncover about your customers. Social media data shows you several important data points such as:

• The age and demographic of your customers

• Which posts/products get more engagement

• Where your customers are coming from

• How much engagement translates into sales

This data is incredibly useful for tailoring your business moving forwards in terms of marketing strategies and product development. It also means that you have an increased potential for targeted advertising. This can be leveraged to target specific interests, demographics and behaviors.

When it comes to personalized email and SMS marketing, the more accurately targeted your outreach is, the more successful the campaign will be. 



Cost Effectivity

Social commerce can offer a cost-effective way of reaching a large audience. Marketing within social media comes naturally; if you make engaging enough content then users will share it themselves. This can involve sharing User Generated Content, creating online ‘like and share’ competitions, or other contests.

Other ways of reaching a large audience is through creating a viral video, or other ‘meme-worthy’ content that will encourage sharing. Other traditional advertising efforts usually involve a much larger investment than this.

Conclusion

Social Commerce has become increasingly popular in recent times, and this is not surprising. The blend of social media with eCommerce sales makes total sense. Especially when it comes to catering to the needs of Gen Z and Millennials. From saving money, to gathering data, to creating community engagement, it’s clear why social commerce is here to stay.