Social commerce is the next generation of electronic commerce. It is the amalgamation of shopping and social media. The process of buying and selling products and services using any form of social media platform contributes to social commerce or s-commerce. It enables brands to streamline the procurement process with the effectiveness of social media advertising.
Social commerce engages online shoppers by offering product feedback and various other activities. Popular social networking platforms such as Instagram and Facebook let vendors display their products so that buyers can make the purchases and also communicate with the businesses.
Social commerce also has provisions to measure and evaluate your performance. There are built-in metrics for impressions, engagements, and reach on social media platforms. Website click counter determines the traffic to your website and the overall emotion of customers towards your product. The number of retweets, likes and shares determine the success of social commerce campaigns.
Here is a list of some of the features of social commerce in terms of using social media to increase your level of sales.
Buy Button with the advertisement
Most of the popular social media platforms allow you to incorporate the “Buy” button along with your ad or the post so that buyers can make a purchase directly by clicking on the advertisement.
Using graphics and videos
Viewers are attracted to click on your post when they see striking videos and graphic content on it. Make your users feel special by asking them for their feedback or make them vote for their favourite styles or choices. Shoot professional videos showcasing your product to attract more and more buyers.
Shoppable post and stories
Each month, over a 130million users on social media platforms, click on a shopping post to learn more about products. Optimize social media accounts for shopping and tag the products on the posts and stories. It will redirect the buyer’s direct to the seller’s website.
One can easily recognize such posts from the “shopping bag” icon on the post. A click on this icon will open a new window that would display the product along with other relevant products from the same vendor. This feature enhances the discoverability of the searched product.
Plugins and Apps
The popularity of social commerce has increased but still social networks are figuring out ways to implement social commerce. There are third parties who are working together with these platforms to launch their own apps and plugins to promote social commerce. One great example of such an app is Soleside that works with Facebook and Instagram. They allow the customers to make a purchase just by commenting “sold” on the post. Once the customers comment on your post, the third-party app will take care of the rest. They take confirmation, email the invoice, and conduct the payment process.
Social commerce if done right and utilized well can reap good results for a business. Understand the sentiments of the market, formulate a plan, and invest a reasonable amount of time and money and you would see that all your efforts will be worth it.
