The divide between ecommerce and social commerce is quickly disappearing.
But the one thing brands know for sure is that they need to be selling online.
Accelerated by the pandemic, global retail ecommerce sales are forecast to reach $6.388 trillion by 2024:
To amplify things even more, social media companies have entered the space and are developing more in-app features to make the online buying process frictionless.
Why jump to a separate checkout when you can handle everything seamlessly in one place?
In this guide, you’ll discover the subtle difference between ecommerce and social commerce, get a glimpse of the latest social commerce features on each platform, and learn how your brand can use social media strategy for ecommerce.
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Social commerce refers to the process of buying and selling products directly on social media platforms.
The entire shopping experience – from product discovery to the checkout – takes place on a social media platform, so customers don’t have to pass through to a separate ecommerce store like Shopify. For example, there’s:
(We’ll look at more examples below).
Ecommerce, also known as electronic commerce or internet commerce, is buying and selling products or services online.
Customers select the goods through photos or product descriptions provided by the seller, either on social media or its online store. After that, the goods are delivered to the customer either physically or digitally, depending on the type of product or service.
Simply put: traditional commerce takes place in a physical store, ecommerce takes place on a website, and social commerce takes place on social media platforms.
Asia already has a massive social commerce industry, particularly in China, where it’s worth $300 billion. And it’s also on the rise elsewhere.
Social commerce sales in the US are expected to reach $36.62 billion this year, a rise of 34% from $26.97 billion in 2020:
Furthermore, social commerce revenue in the US is projected to reach $79.64 billion in 2025 and account for 5.2 percent of its retail ecommerce sales.
It’s a known fact that young people determine what is trending and what drives consumer growth.
For instance, 11% of the 18-34 age group regularly use social media to purchase products, 37% have used it before but don’t use it regularly, with a further 27% either somewhat or very interested in trying it:
Social media also plays a crucial role in helping consumers find information for future purchases. In a recent survey of US social media users, 55% said they made a purchase after discovering a product through this channel. (11% said they purchased immediately, and 44% reported doing so later on.)
Increased sales is not the only reason why your brand should care about selling on social media. You can also benefit from:
In short: by selling on social media, you can expect more visibility, more engagement, more revenue, and more satisfied customers.
Let’s take a look at the current and planned social commerce features your brand can harness on each platform.
Snapchat has announced its intention to enter social commerce.
Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest are leading the way with social commerce features. But the other platforms are not far behind in terms of development and pilot testing.
Soon, brands will be able to choose which platforms they want to use based on the features and their target audience.
Here is a selection of brands selling on various social media platforms.
Pink Tag Boutique is an online boutique in Louisville, Kentucky, founded by Britney Renbarger. The brand was already using Facebook to boost brand awareness and showcase its products, but customers had to buy on the store’s website.
Its goal was to streamline online ordering through Facebook and increase customer engagement to boost sales.
First, they created a Facebook Shop so that consumers could purchase directly in-app.
They also used photo ads in the collection format to categorize products and make it easier for shoppers to browse and discover new items. Plus, they tagged products in posts and Stories so that people could easily click for more details.
Finally, they started using Live Shopping so that viewers could purchase featured items from the broadcast in the brand’s Shop.
Pink Tag Boutique revealed the following results after five months:
Facebook products used:
Missoma is a UK-based jewelry brand offering contemporary, delicate, and personalized pieces. Most customers have discovered the brand through its social media channels and growing network of influencers.
Missoma wanted to increase sales during the busy and competitive Christmas holiday shopping period, while also raising brand awareness.
It decided to add an Instagram Shop and organized items into special product categories, such as Best Sellers, Gifts, and its popular Lucy Williams Collection to help shoppers browse and discover products — and help the brand selling online.
Missoma also used Messenger and Instagram Direct to answer customer questions seamlessly as they browsed.
Missoma revealed the following results between November 16 and December 14, 2020:
Instagram products used:
Sukoshi Mart is a small, Canadian-based business selling Japanese and Korean beauty skincare and makeup essentials, yummy Japanese snacks, cute stationery, and accessories for cozy everyday living.
Using the Pinterest integration with Shopify, it could access a new set of audiences, including one of its key demographics, Gen Z.
The brand uploaded its product catalog to Pinterest and created Product Pins so that customers could check the pricing and availability information.
They also turned the Product Pins into shopping ads to target consumers interested in Japanese and Korean beauty products.
Using Pinterest, Sukoshi Mart saw a 3.5X higher return on ad spend than the industry average in Canada.
By now, you’ll have a good understanding of social commerce features for each platform and some ideas of what works.
Next, it’s time to build your social media strategy for ecommerce, following this 5-step framework:
Let’s start!
As with any social media strategy, the first step is to define your business goals so that you know where you’re heading and can measure your success.
Your goals for ecommerce might be:
And you’ll also want to tailor your goals to each social network. For example, you might want to use Pinterest to drive more traffic to your Shopify store but use Facebook to simplify the buying process inside one platform.
Based on your goals, you’ll have an idea of the type of content you want to create to support ecommerce. But the key to success comes in planning ahead and posting consistently.
There are four things to consider at this stage:
Let’s look at each one in detail.
It’s imperative to know who you’re targeting with your products or services. Otherwise, you’ll waste your budget and attract low-quality leads. For instance, make sure you understand the following:
When you know your audience and market, you can also define your brand voice and community guidelines. For example, if your shop sells tech equipment to businesses, you’d want to sound more professional than if your store sells makeup and beauty products to teenagers, where you’d want to sound more playful and funny.
You don’t have to use every social media channel, only those that best serve your target audience and facilitate your goals. For example, if your goal is to drive traffic to your existing online store and your target audience is predominantly female, then Pinterest would be a good choice.
Once you’ve decided on your channels, make sure you optimize your social profiles for ecommerce. For example, if you’re running a Facebook Shop, make sure the link is clearly visible on your Facebook Page:
An editorial calendar helps you plan, organize, and schedule the content you want to share across each social media channel. You can keep track of crucial elements, such as:
You can create various types of social media content for ecommerce. And remember, not all content has to be focused on selling your products. You could create informational content to help pre- and post-purchase.
And then there are different content formats. You’ll definitely want to consider:
No matter which social media channels you choose, you can use a combination of organic and paid content. As we saw in the examples above, social media ads played an essential part in each success story.
An editorial calendar also facilitates more efficient workflows, as we’ll see in the next step.
An approval workflow ensures your content is reviewed before it’s published, so it’s posted at the right time, in the right place, by the right person.
For example, a robust approval workflow should prevent a Facebook post from being published with a typo in the copy and the wrong image attached.
Depending on your organization, there could be one or many different people involved in the approval workflow.
For example, if you’re a single-person startup, you could use a simple checklist to remind yourself to check your content for spelling and grammar typos, broken links, and incorrect visuals.
On the other hand, if you’re a large organization, you might require a more comprehensive, team-wide sign-off process to collect approval from your legal, marketing, and editorial teams before publishing.
In the long run, a workflow helps your brand consistently:
As well as publishing high-quality content, you’ll need to make sure that you’re engaging with your shoppers.
For example:
Whatever platform you’re selling on, Messenger is a versatile tool to engage with your audience. Plus, you can add a chatbot to provide instant support, simulate conversations, ask questions, and gather feedback 24/7.
An important part of your social media strategy for selling online is to review and measure your performance. Here you can refer to your goals in Step #1 and check your metrics and social media KPIs.
Using native and advanced social media analytics tools, you can track ecommerce-related data, including:
Remember to check both quantitative and qualitative metrics:
After you’ve measured your performance, you can evaluate what worked and what needs adjusting in the next iteration/cycle. our social media strategy for ecommerce will constantly be evolving as you improve continuously.
Selling online is a given. The younger generations are pushing the trend, and brands are moving to satisfy that demand.
Whether you choose the ecommerce route or the social commerce path, you can rest assured that social media will play an important role in your online selling strategy.