Social commerce is an advanced, amplifying strategy for e-commerce sites - and it’s only gaining ground. Social commerce is expected to rapidly develop in the coming years as the industry adapts to new technology and social trends.
The attention span of online users is forever reducing. They are increasingly turning to social media to find solutions to their everyday problems, whether it's determining the best diet to follow or deciding which gifts to buy for their partners.
Social Media presents an incredible opportunity for E-commerce businesses to present their products and services as the ultimate solution for their daily life essentials.
When Social Media meets E-Commerce, Social Commerce is born. This article will educate you about Social Commerce - what is it? What are its benefits?
Let’s get started!
Social Commerce: What Is It?
Social Commerce is all about selling through social media. You incorporate social media as an important element of your E-commerce marketing strategy to augment your overall sales and revenues.
Social Commerce has been growing, and it’s growing fast. In fact, 60% of Instagram users find new products on the platform. Hence, it makes complete sense to sell them over there.
30% of online shoppers readily make purchases from social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, or Snapchat. The smartest option for E-Commerce marketers to utilize this behavioral pattern of online shoppers is to engage users at the point of inspiration and turn their social media engagement into sales for your e-commerce business.
Social Commerce: Why Is It Important?
At its core, Social Commerce is all about easing the overall purchase experience of your users. It helps to prevent confusion, leading to the abandonment of the purchase journey.
It reduces the overall complexity of online shopping by removing the practice of redirecting users from one platform to another. It brings the point of inspiration closer to the point of sale.
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Here are some reasons why Social Commerce is so crucial for the growth of your E-Commerce business.
1. Driver Of Authentic Engagement
Social Media opens a two-way interaction and engagement between the brand and its customers. Your customers can like, add a review, comment, and share your products and services based on their experience.
This also gets shared in their respective social circles, thereby spreading a good word about your brand beyond your target audience. It helps you to connect, and not just sell. Your overall authentic engagement is also enhanced.
Improved engagement also helps in Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). More engagement will drive users to the last point of their purchase journey, thereby increasing your e-commerce conversion rate.
2. Builds Deeper Trust & Loyalty
If you are an authentic brand offering high-quality services, then your social media pages will be filled with positive reviews from happy and satisfied customers. These user-generated reviews are way more trustworthy than any brand content you create for advertising purposes.
Your social media followers are likely to trust and buy your products after interacting with these reviews. On the other hand, your loyal customers are likely to repeat their purchases. Your loyal customers are your best brand advocates. This helps you to build deeper trust and loyalty.
3. Frictionless Customer Experience
If you opt for social selling, you prevent your users from the tedious task of visiting different webpages, signing in, filling in boring forms, etc., killing their interest. You will have to complete their purchase journey till its last step.
By bringing the point of sale closer to the point of inspiration, you provide your users with a frictionless and long-lasting customer experience that encourages them to return for another buying session.
4. Boosts Average Order Value
Integrating your social channels with your E-Commerce platform is a proven and effective way to increase sales and revenue. It also helps to improve the overall average value of each order that users place from your website.
Social media actually encourages users to make more purchases. It is easy, simple, and so visually appealing. With the help of social commerce and the booming use of smartphones, shopping is just a few clicks away. This results in customers buying more than they intended.
5. Expands Your Reach To A Global Audience
Social media has no geographical boundaries. It helps you to bring your business forward to a global audience. If you wish to target an international audience for your E-Commerce business, there is no better platform than social media.
You can easily target your users with customized and tailor-made advertisement campaigns across multiple social media platforms. Social Commerce gives endless growth opportunities, and expanded audience reach is a major one among those opportunities.
6. Higher Search Engine Ranking
The more engagement your social commerce business attracts across multiple social platforms, the higher its search engine ranking. Enhanced engagement directly indicates the presence of highly relevant content on your visual commerce platform.
A higher search engine ranking on the Google console enhances your organic visibility when users search on Google using keywords related to the types of services and products you provide. This means more traffic on your visual commerce platform.
7. Access To Business Metrics From Social
Social Media Platforms recognize their importance in driving a business’s growth. Hence, when you integrate social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram as a marketing platform for growing your e-commerce business, you also get access to your business metrics on the platform.
This more profound insight into the performance of your e-commerce business on social media helps you to improve the shortcomings of your marketing campaign. You can also track your competitors' performance and gain insight into their marketing strategy, allowing you to refine your own marketing strategy and outdo them in the competition.
Grow Your Social Commerce With Shoppable Posts
Having discussed the fantastic benefits of using Social Commerce for growing and flourishing your visual commerce platform, now it’s time to ponder how to grow your social commerce platform.
One fantastic way is by embedding Shoppable Social Media Feeds on your website, thereby converting your E-Commerce platform into a Social Commerce Platform. It helps to enhance your overall Conversion Rate Optimization.
These Shoppable Posts are actually embedded social media feeds aggregated from different social media platforms, which present social proof for the authenticity of your brand. They show the option of buying that particular product on the embedded social media feed itself.
This way, your users can buy the product or book the service at the point of inspiration itself, thereby eliminating any opportunity of confusion or abandonment of the purchase journey.
Lastly…
Social Commerce helps to bridge the gap between big brands and small, budding brands. It provides a level field for every player to prove the authenticity of their E-Commerce business.
So what is still holding you back? Start integrating social commerce marketing strategies for your e-commerce platform and enhance your overall conversion rate optimization.
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