What is social commerce?
With Millennial shoppers leading the charge and people of all ages spending hours each day on social platforms, brands that don’t have a social commerce strategy are missing out on on engaged, high-intent traffic.
Although social platforms began as a place for content consumption, over the last couple of years, they’ve morphed into the ideal space for product discovery. Users see their friends and influencers who they follow posting aspirational photos on Instagram featuring products they love; or they read about experiences at restaurants or vacation spots from friends on Facebook.
Since consumers are hyper-connected through social, posts like these serve as an intensified, incredibly fast, and overwhelmingly powerful form of social commerce. The consumers who come to your site from social have already gained familiarity with your brand on their own terms, making them primed for purchase. The trick is having content that is engaging enough to attract them in the first place.
How Social Commerce Works
Too many eCommerce stores misunderstand how to harness the power of social. Changing algorithms and a reduction of organic reach has led many to assume social isn’t selling. But this just isn’t true.
Social commerce does contribute to conversions, just maybe not in the way you think of. In other words, it’s not always direct, but that definitely does not mean that social doesn’t matter.
Social media is your number one way to reach new potential customers. No other marketing channel allows you to reach so many people.
In addition to boosting conversions, adding reviews helps multiply the power of social commerce by adding social proof to your marketing efforts.
- Referrals are one of the fastest growing sources of traffic for eCommerce stores.
- Social referrals drive word-of-mouth to attract valuable customers with higher lifetime value and less churn.
- Authentic and verified reviews shared on social significantly increase brand trust.
- Reviews shared as social referrals naturally target to reach customers in similar target audiences and demographics as current customers.