Social media platforms have seized a massive portion of our daily routine regardless of different age groups. Even though it was initially started as a connectivity platform, social media has evolved much with a broader horizon. Lately, it has transitioned into a vibrant marketplace under the roof of social commerce. Simply put, social commerce intersects social media and online shopping.
Many brands have identified the vast potential of using social commerce platforms to boost their sales and are making the most of this new dimension. If your brand still needs to leverage social commerce to your advantage, you may not be at the right pace in the ecommerce race. This blog highlights why ecommerce businesses should prioritize social media commerce to create meaningful and seamless consumer shopping experiences.
Five surprising ways social commerce can benefit your business in 2024
If you are interested in ecommerce, you must be familiar with social commerce and its benefits. However, here are five unpopular ways social commerce can develop your business long-term.
1) Develop customer loyalty
A study suggests that 71% of customers purchase from brands that align with their beliefs. Brands have started to consider this perspective and are creating social media content that aligns with the beliefs of their target audience. Therefore, brands that ensure a consistent and authentic brand voice foster a sense of loyalty among customers, and social media might be the best place for it.
2) Simplify customer purchase journey
Cart abandonment seriously threatens online retailers, as 80% of customers leave their carts without completing their purchases. Reasons for incomplete purchases include complicated checkout procedures, issues related to trusting the website with their payment cards, website errors, increased website loading time, etc. Social commerce reduces the friction in online shopping by allowing customers to finish the purchase journey within social commerce platforms instead of circling back and forth between the product pages and payment gateway.
3) Gain rich customer insights
Using social media, businesses can obtain rich consumer information aligning essential KPIs such as audience impressions, engagement, reach, unique visitors, etc. Using such information, brands can track the success of their campaigns, products, or services and then make changes accordingly. In other words, social commerce platforms are an effective analytical tool for understanding whether a brand lives up to customer expectations or matches its claims.
4) Optimize search engine ranking
Creating content on social media can attract more visitors to your website while reaching a more comprehensive range of audience. Engaging in social commerce can quickly close sales and increase website traffic. Increased website traffic can slowly increase SEO ranking organically, making it a handy tool in ecommerce SEO.
5) Improve customer engagement
Practicing social commerce has challenged traditional one-way communication from brands and bridged the gap between the brand and the consumer by promoting two-way communication. Encouraging this kind of communication has made consumers raise their concerns, provide feedback, and get involved with the brand more effectively.
Businesses are also partnering with influencers to promote their brands, as it is a great way to enhance their connection with customers. Consumers exhibit great trust when a product is endorsed by their trustworthy influencers rather than brand promotions. With all these new integrations, social commerce has become one of the easiest ways by which a consumer can reach out to a brand, which helps a brand to develop long-term customer relationships.
Top 10 strategies to succeed in social commerce
Though social commerce may seem simple, it is a hard nut to crack. Here are the top 10 tweaks to succeed in social commerce.
1) Choosing the right channel for your brand
The first step in establishing social commerce is choosing the proper brand channels. Even great content may not yield the desired results when used in unsuitable channels. Therefore, brands need to understand their target audience better to be able to track them across platforms. The age of users might be one of the crucial factors in deciding the proper channels, as different age groups prefer different social media channels, but it might not be the only one. Multiple aspects must be considered when choosing suitable channels, which vary based on the business model. Some critical factors brands can consider are user age, user demographics, interests of users, etc.
2) Creating a consistent brand identity
Once a brand has decided upon the channels, creating a solid brand essence is the priority. If your brand is not appropriately positioned, recalling your brand among the millions of brands might be a challenge for consumers. To increase brand recall value, businesses must maintain a unified theme in terms of color, logo, typography, tone, etc., across different social commerce platforms. Having your brand at the top of consumers’ minds is crucial in establishing social commerce.
3) Adding a human touch
The one factor that differentiates social commerce from ecommerce is the human touch. Brands must actively interact with consumers to maintain a good affinity with them. Brands must work to make customers feel they are just one tap away from their favorite brands. This commitment to customer engagement will greatly influence brand reputation. Brands must always be ready to go the extra mile to stay closer to the consumer.
4) Strategies to boost conversions
Besides having great products, brands must craft strategies to boost sales indirectly. Activities like introducing limited-edition products, hosting giveaways, conducting events to increase maximum participation, etc., will encourage consumers to show increased involvement with the brand. Conducting Q&A and polls can keep consumers informed about the brand’s new launches and offers. Such activities will help consumers develop a feeling of ownership regarding the brand.
5) Keeping up with the trends
Staying current in social commerce means keeping up with emerging trends, which can help brands connect with consumers on another level. Creating buzz can be a key to succeeding in the social commerce race. Stay relevant to trending hashtags and viral challenges to stay ahead in the social commerce industry.
6) Utilize user-generated stories as social proofs
In the era of increased commercialism, consumers are well aware of the different options available in the market for each product category. They want to keep all product information that is abundantly available on the web, and they want to be fully equipped with their research, even for essential products. As digitally sound consumers, we all research before considering buying a product.
However, most of us make that purchase decision based on suggestions from a trustworthy friend rather than a product brilliantly positioned by a brand because the former is more unbiased. Businesses nowadays are starting to understand the role of the trust factor in influencing buying decisions in the consumer purchase journey. Brands can utilize user-generated content as proof to hit the bull’s eye.
7) Your end goal is not purchase; it is about creating a community
The end goal of social commerce is to increase conversions by creating a trustworthy community around the brand. Nowadays, businesses prioritize long-term relationships with customers over short-term purchase-oriented actions. Brands are focused on engagement-related CTAs to create happy, satisfied customers. If your company is looking for sustainable solutions regarding customer retention, then social commerce might be the one for you.
8) Use chatbots for an immersive customer experience
In the era of online shopping, consumers miss one aspect of traditional shopping: interacting with salespeople. The involvement of sales representatives made the purchasing process easy, as customer queries were solved instantly. Businesses solved this issue and made it even better by implementing chatbot services 24/7, giving customers a taste of an offline shopping experience.
Ecommerce businesses use intelligent chatbots to generate highly relevant conversational prompts that keep customers engaged and help them move forward in the customer purchase journey. Using conversational bots can prevent customers from getting distracted and significantly reduce cart abandonment issues, ultimately increasing sales.
9) Use social listening
Social listening is one organic way to win your customers. Following up with your target audience can help identify competitor products and product gaps. This valuable information can be used as a research base for your brand to develop products closer to consumer expectations. Simply by active listening, candid information on social commerce platforms can help brands create new and improved versions of products, strategies, and even better customer support.
10) Make sure to use analytics
Most social platforms provide analytics, and this data must help optimize social commerce storefronts. Use analytics to gain insights regarding post-performance, user engagement, consumer buying patterns, etc. These metrics can be beneficial in measuring the impact and reach of campaigns, which brands can use as benchmarks to achieve the desired revenue goals. Based on the insights from various social commerce platforms, they can change strategies accordingly to reap the fruitful benefits of social commerce.
Conclusion
Social commerce is not just another trend but an inevitable innovation that will reshape the retail industry. It has redefined brand relationships with customers by challenging the traditional ways brands interact with them. As social commerce presents unprecedented opportunities to promote sales, it is high time brands started using it to leverage their brand identity. Not just with social commerce, any brand trying to capture this competitive market must stay relevant and agile in embracing new trends that revolutionize the industry.
Conquer the digital marketplace with Mobius. We provide end-to-end ecommerce solutions; contact our experts to take your ecommerce business to the next level.
