Social Commerce- All There Is To Know About It!
The difference between the initial and the modern day form of social commerce is that the focus is now shifting from Facebook to more visual platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat.
Social Commerce
We all already know how giants as individual platforms both social media and e-commerce are. E-commerce was born in 1994 by Jeff Bezos when he started selling things over the internet while Social Media soon followed up with the first social media site, Six Degrees, being created in 1997.
Since then, both platforms have been growing and flourishing individually. Although in recent times, Social Commerce, an integrated version of both Social Media and E-commerce, has become a hot topic. The blur between content and commerce is constantly blurring, giving the brands with a social media presence, an incredible opportunity to convert the image and video surfing time of their users into a frictionless shopping experience.
This is social commerce where your content brings you conversions. This article is all about it. You will get to know what social commerce is and what future does it hold!
What Is Social Commerce?
Simply put, when social media gets involved in making your e-commerce business grow, in any way possible, then that’s social commerce. Broadly, it involves all social media activities to promote an online transaction for your e-commerce business.
It might sound ornate but it simply is equivalent to increasing your online sales with the help of social media content like-
- Product reviews and ratings
- User-Generated Content from social media platforms
- CTA Buttons on Social Sites and Websites
- Buy Buttons On Social Wall
Social Commerce is not a new phenomenon. PayPal and Shopify have enabled online shopping for their users for many years (2004 and 2013 respectively) and have been collaborating for the same with Facebook and Instagram. It has been one of the earliest forms of social commerce.
Talking about the most recent trends, embedded shoppable social media posts on your websites are in vogue when it comes to online shopping. Visual Commerce solutions like TaggShop, helps you to provide a seamless shopping experience to your users by allowing you to embed Shoppable social media feeds on your website and sell products from your website itself.
Social Commerce- The Future
Social Commerce has been constantly evolving. The difference between the initial and the modern-day form of social commerce is that the focus is now shifting from Facebook to more visual platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat. Buy Buttons have come up even for social walls now where you can buy products from the displayed social media feeds on your website itself.
In fact, brands are attempting to monetize the 24-hour disappearing feature, Stories, available on most of the social media platforms. The whole social commerce game revolves around influence. More impactful your social media influence is, the better are your chances of conversion.
Millennials spend a huge chunk of their time on social media platforms, surfing through images and videos. It presents brands with a huge opportunity to leave a great influence on the minds of these potential leads who will most probably convert into customers.
The commencement of social media into E-commerce gave birth to an altogether new wind called Social Commerce. The opportunities are whooping large for B2C businesses, independent boutiques, retail stores, multi-brand stores, etc.
Shoppable posts are the new language of Social Commerce. Embedding shoppable social media posts on your visual commerce website is a great way to inculcate your website visitors to make the final purchase decision. The whole funnel of steps is boiled down to just a few easy clicks while remaining on your very own website. This way you bring the point of inspiration closer to the point of sale.
Over To You…
Social Commerce helps you to serve the twin purpose of improving your e-commerce sales and utilizing your social influence. And if shoppable posts embedded on your website, is your way of executing your social commerce strategy, then you not only increase your e-commerce sales but also your social influence and hence awareness about your brand, thereby expanding your customer base.
