Over the past several years, e-commerce has become the major driver behind business success. A more recent retail tool is social commerce, which refers to the combination of e-commerce and social media. Rather than selling through their own websites, brands utilizing social commerce sell through social platforms. Facebook remains the leading social commerce selling platform but Instagram, Tik Tok, Snapchat, and even Pinterest are starting to catch up. The most powerful retailers are using social commerce to drive their growth as the number of social commerce buyers is expected to reach 100 million this year.
Anvil Media has experience selling on all social platforms and we have defined these top strategies to help your brand’s social selling efforts succeed :
Identify the Right Platform to Reach Your Audience
Retailers need to understand on which platform they can find their target audience. Different social media outlets can attract very different age groups and demographics. For example, Facebook’s demographic tends to skew older, while TikTok is popular among Gen Z. Do some research upfront to help you select the platform or platforms that fit your customer profile as this is critical to a successful sales campaign. Neglecting this step would at the very least lead to a huge waste of budget.
Determine if You Should Integrate E-commerce Efforts
This question is most relevant to retailers that are already operating in the e-commerce space. If you are selling your products on a well-built, established e-commerce platform, integrating social commerce into the existing platform makes sense. Integration allows you to streamline operations and consolidate technology in one place.
Winning at social commerce relies on creating a seamless customer experience. Retailers looking to integrate their social commerce activity into existing sales platforms need to remember that. With every additional click between seeing the initial advertisement and closing the sale, conversion rates suffer.
A clunky transition from the chosen social media platform to the e-commerce platform is often all it takes to lose a sale. This is one reason why some retailers choose to keep social commerce separate from other e-commerce platforms. Another option that is especially attractive to smaller retailers is to rely on social commerce alone.
Encourage Engagement
With the entire focus on your sales strategy, it would be easy to overlook the social component of social commerce. However, that would mean missing out on one of the biggest advantages of this type of e-commerce.
Social media platforms are designed to encourage users to interact. Retailers can take advantage of that by asking their customers to share their opinions, experiences, and images. This helps build a community around your product. Plus, user-generated content has become increasingly powerful as a sales tool.
Naturally, there may be some critical voices, but engaging honestly and openly with those customers is crucial. Listening to negative feedback and working with the customer to resolve the situation helps build trust in your brand.
Social commerce is a new and powerful tool for retailers looking to enter or expand their efforts in the e-commerce space. Anvil Media has experience on all social media platforms and can help your business select the correct social platforms, create seamless customer experiences, and manage engagements to drive outstanding retail results.