The pandemic has brought about many interesting changes. Whether it’s the rise of user-generated content (UGC) — TikTok mostly — as the prime source of marketing material, or how multi-sensory events are now in demand, we’ve seen some rapid changes in the way people consume information and share it. Which leads us to another trend that fits the bill — social commerce. Social commerce is the combination of e-commerce and social media, using the social platforms to directly sell products and services.
If you’re on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest, chances are you’ve seen this in action. It’s likely some of your favorite brands have already sold their products right from their Instagram account.
Compare that with finding their link in their bio, or clicking an external link. It’s so much easier. In retrospect, social commerce should’ve been implemented a long time ago. There’s no need to redirect to another site, there are fewer abandoned shopping carts — it just makes sense.
So as the Omicron variant continues to prolong this nightmarish portion of the decade, social commerce is parallelly on the rise. And here’s why you should consider implementing it.
Social commerce numbers are impressive
Part of the reason why social commerce is booming is because almost everyone around the world is spending more time at home. More time at home equals more time on social media, and more social shopping.
eMarketer predicts social commerce will be an $80 billion industry by 2025, up from $26.97 billion in 2020. It makes sense, given that 81% of shoppers were using social media to discover new brands and research products before the pandemic.
Given how easy social shopping is and its lavishly projected $80 billion industry (which is nothing to scoff at), it looks like social shopping is here to stay. And it’s growing rapidly as the pandemic huddles people onto these social platforms.
What you should do about social shopping
Start before it’s too late. It’s a rising trend, and the sooner you do it, the sooner customers will appreciate their shopping experience with your business.
Create product Pins for Pinterest, and open your shops on Facebook and Instagram. These shops already have integrated features, like building product collections, ad services, business insights, and customer service (via social channels).
Social commerce has yet to completely take over e-commerce, so don’t just abandon your online storefront. But spend some time thinking about how you can make your customers’ shopping experience seamless. After all, that’s what social shopping is riding on.
And don’t sneeze at shoppable posts and ads. There’s something exciting about seeing the products in action, and then being able to buy them in the same app. You can even arrange collections and style the presentation. It’s fresh, lively, and catered to the customer.
Final thoughts
Is it just us, or are marketing trends evolving at a rapid rate?
The pandemic put us all on the same page. We’re all stuck at home, yet somehow we’re more connected than ever. We experience the same ad fatigue, the same fatigue from affiliate marketing, heck — even stay-at-home fatigue.
But that explains why these trends are popping out left and right, and growing at exponential rates. We tend to want the same things now. What a peculiar time!
In any case, with social selling on the rise, it’s best to get familiar with it because it looks like it’s one of those few nice things to come out of the pandemic. It serves to make the shopping experience easy, and that’s something that’s always going to be valuable to the customer.
We wish you the best of luck and smooth sailing creating your social commerce experience! And never forget that a voice – like those belonging to the sublime professional voice actors you’ll find on Voice123 – will always be an ace up your sleeve when it comes to selling your product or service!
