Continue reading to find out the latest on what social commerce is, what it looks like, and how you can make the most of this buzzworthy new channel to further your brand and your business. <\/p>\n
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<\/span><\/p>\n Social commerce is selling products directly within social media platforms. <\/p>\n This is different than social media marketing, where you might try to drive referral traffic from social media to a website or online store. With social commerce, the store \u2014 the entire shopping experience \u2014 happens without the customer ever leaving the social media site.<\/p>\n There are a ton of benefits to this, as you might imagine. It\u2019s a far more streamlined process, especially when you can enjoy things like chatbot checkouts, and autofill payments and delivery details. There are fewer clicks and taps with social commerce than with traditional e-commerce through a web store.<\/p>\n The efficiency of the social commerce purchase journey far outdoes the typical e-commerce purchase. There\u2019s a really great blog post on BigCommerce about this.<\/a> Basically, the math goes like this:<\/p>\n That\u2019s a grand total of 1 purchase, after starting with 10,000 visitors.<\/p>\n Now, compare that to a hypothetical social commerce journey. Let\u2019s take a messenger chatbot for instance. <\/p>\n That\u2019s a total of 35 purchases, compared to the one (1) purchase in the website example. <\/p>\n Now, it obviously goes without saying that your mileage may vary here. <\/p>\n These are just example numbers. But hopefully they highlight some of the advantages of the ease and efficiency of social commerce. <\/p>\n There\u2019s also a strong case to be made on the qualitative side of things. Andrew Waber of Teikametrics<\/a>, writing on Marketing Land<\/a>, points out that there are really four separate stages of shopping experience. These are: <\/p>\n Today\u2019s e-commerce channels mainly fulfill items 1 and 2, while 3 and 4 are more future-looking trends to build towards. Social commerce delivers on both of them much more readily than traditional e-commerce channels because it is a much more natural extension of existing consumer behavior.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Speaking of existing consumer behavior, it\u2019s become widely known just how much consumers are shifting to social and mobile as primary means of content consumption and product discovery. <\/p>\n Now, let\u2019s talk about the state of social commerce today. <\/strong><\/p>\n The primary players in social commerce are Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook. We\u2019ll touch on each of them quickly, starting with Instagram. <\/strong><\/p>\n Facebook data says that 70% of shoppers look to Instagram for product discovery. <\/a>Perhaps because of this, Instagram\u2019s roadmap has been taking on a decidedly strong shopping feel. The biggest development is Instagram Checkout, which is a fully contained shopping experience within the Instagram app. It\u2019s currently only available to select brands like Nike and Kylie Cosmetics. With Instagram Checkout, you can see a product that you like in the Instagram feed and then complete the entire purchase without ever leaving Instagram. <\/p>\n This goes one step further than Instagram Shopping, another new feature that Instagram has come out with recently. Unlike Checkout, Instagram Shopping is available to businesses in over 70 countries so long as you sell physical goods and have an Instagram business account. For Facebook, <\/strong>they\u2019ve already taken some really huge strides toward social commerce with Facebook Page Shops and Messenger. First, let\u2019s talk about Facebook Page Shops. <\/p>\n Businesses can create an entire store within Facebook, quite easily and smoothly. To get started, make sure your Facebook page has the Shopping template selected, then click the Shop tab on your Page, then click Go to Commerce Manager. Here is where you complete a few sign up steps and then upload your product catalog to your Facebook shop.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a ton you can do from here, like:<\/p>\n The website ConversionXL has a neat case study<\/a> on a brand that has experimented with a Facebook Shop. The watch seller, MVMT, added a selection of products from its catalog to Facebook. <\/p>\n Pinterest also <\/strong>has some really powerful social commerce features for businesses, with new features coming out all the time. Buyable pins were released four years ago now, in 2015, and had over 60 million buyable pins in its first six months<\/a>. We\u2019ve seen more and more commerce features since. Most recently, <\/p>\n It makes sense that lowest-cost products might sell best on social media. You\u2019re capturing people at a certain place in their buyer journey where they\u2019re eager to buy, not eager to weigh the pros and cons of a major purchase. <\/p>\n That\u2019s why we recommend using a strategic approach to what you list for sale on social media. If you start with your best products, you\u2019re selling the items that appeal to the widest audience and have been proven to resonate with your fans. If you sell your least expensive ones, then you\u2019re reducing friction for shoppers even more. <\/p>\n Along with this, it\u2019s useful to know the larger themes with social commerce, too. According to an eMarketer report, the most relevant verticals for social commerce are categories like apparel, luxury goods, beauty, and home decor. <\/a><\/p>\n If you\u2019re in doubt about what to sell, then start with an experiment mindset. You don\u2019t need to put your entire catalog on social right away. Especially since social commerce is still gaining traction, not all your audience may be primed to purchase. A GlobalWebIndex study found that 21% of shoppers use social to make a purchase \u2014 a number that we\u2019d expect to rise quite a bit in 2020.<\/a><\/p>\n There are a ton of great options out there, but we want to highlight just a couple to give you a taste of what\u2019s possible. First, there\u2019s a messaging tool called ManyChat<\/a>, which allows you to combine Facebook Messenger and SMS campaigns. ManyChat, and other chat tools like it, can be great for collecting leads and converting them into buyers. <\/p>\n Similarly, another great social commerce tool is jumper.ai<\/a>. This tool comes with pre-built automated checkout chatbots, which integrate with all sorts of different tools and platforms. You can integrate it straight into Instagram to create a social commerce experience.<\/p>\n And along with third-party tools, there are new social commerce features coming to social networks all the time. We think it\u2019s really smart to continually try out these new features, both for their commerce potential and for the engagement boost you get from trying out new content on your accounts. <\/p>\n These two groups \u2014 influencers and community \u2014 can be very powerful for your commerce efforts thanks to the way that networks like Instagram and Pinterest are set up. Many of their new features allow people to share your products on your behalf and still tie into the frictionless buying experience of a buyable Pin or Instagram shopping.<\/p>\n The ultimate goal with social commerce is to guide customers to checkout. And you can do this in any number of ways, through great content, two-way communication, and more. Ultimately, though, the best measurement of a social commerce strategy is in dollars and cents. How many sales did you make. <\/p>\n And at the same time, as we talked about above, not all your audience may be ready to shop just yet. Social commerce is still a trend in the making. Not everyone is on board. <\/p>\n So this opens up a variety of alternative measures for success. For instance, <\/p>\n We would all love to say hello to you on social media \u2013 especially Twitter!<\/p>\n Thanks for listening! Feel free to connect with our team at Buffer on Twitter<\/a>, Buffer on Facebook<\/a>, our Podcast homepage<\/a>, or with the hashtag #bufferpodcast.<\/p>\n The Science of Social Media<\/a> is your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and inspiration. Every Monday (and sometimes more) we share the most cutting-edge social media marketing tactics from brands and influencers in every industry. If you\u2019re a social media team of one, business owner, marketer, or someone simply interested in social media marketing, you\u2019re sure to find something useful in each and every episode. It\u2019s our hope that you\u2019ll join our 27,000+ weekly iTunes listeners<\/a> and rock your social media channels as a result!<\/p>\n The Science of Social Media is proudly made by the Buffer team<\/a>. Feel free to get in touch with us<\/a> for any thoughts, ideas, or feedback.<\/p>\nWhat is social commerce? <\/strong><\/h2>\n
How does social commerce work?
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What does social commerce look like on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest? <\/h2>\n
With Instagram Shopping, you can tag your images and stories with the products that are featured in your posts. Then your audience can tap to go straight to your store to make the purchase. <\/p>\n\n
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\nHow to get started with social commerce in 2020<\/h2>\n
1. Focus on your best, lowest-cost products<\/h3>\n
2. Get the right tools at your disposal. <\/strong><\/h3>\n
3. Partner with influencers and encourage your community to share your products. <\/h3>\n
4. Measure your strategy<\/h3>\n
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\nHow to say hello to us<\/h2>\n
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Enjoy the show? It\u2019d mean the world to us if you\u2019d be up for giving us a rating and review on iTunes<\/a>!<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\nAbout The Science of Social Media podcast<\/strong><\/h2>\n