Social Shopping and What It Means for Your Brand
In the ever-evolving digital marketplace, shoppers more and more are leveraging technology to quick and easily make purchases. In particular, social media is having a significant impact on how consumers shop online.
Social shopping is changing the way brands interact with their customers by providing an efficient and interactive platform for them to connect. As a shopper marketer, understanding how this new form of eCommerce works can help you develop an effective strategy that will engage your target audience and execute successful campaigns designed to expand your customer base.
In this blog post, we’ll explore what social shopping is all about, its distinct advantages, as well as ways it can be used to drive results for your brand.
How social shopping is benefitting brands
There are enormous numbers of potential customers across social media platforms. Facebook, for example, has a global user base of over 2 billion people and is available in 101 languages. As Gen Z comes of age, more of these social media users are starting to shop through their respective platforms, meaning there is a growing opportunity to get your brand and products in front of countless new consumers every day.
Social shopping allows consumers to checkout directly from social media channels or link them directly to a retailer’s products page where customers can complete their purchase. These are typically through product tags on social media posts and adverts.
By allowing consumers to complete their purchases without leaving their respective social media platforms, you remove unnecessary steps and streamline the buying process, creating a frictionless journey from browsing (awareness) to checkout (decision).
Modern social media platforms allow brands to bridge the gap between business and consumer, transforming an outdated sales-centric model into personable, two-way communication. Brands can now respond to consumers in real-time with chat features and publish real-time, engaging content such as live videos, polls and social competitions. Brands are combining these methods to make their social following an engaged community, rather than just a pool of potential prospects.
Social shopping also provides businesses with a platform for testing new products and services at a fraction of the cost of traditional market research, allowing them to quickly update products and adjust strategies according to consumer feedback. Social shopping is not only an excellent way for brands to increase user engagement for their brand – but it also offers a cost-effective way of listening to consumers to maintain lasting relationships.
Generating social proof
Ever gone shopping with your friends and solicited their feedback before making a purchase? If they approve of your purchase, it would probably feel better and less stressful than if you came to the decision yourself, right? Gen Z audiences place a huge weight on reviews and recommendations of people they trust. An issue brands can experience with e-commerce is that many shoppers may not trust your brand straight away. Gen Z in particular wants to feel informed, educated and inspired to make decisions when completing a purchase. Many may not be fully convinced until they read customer reviews, compare products, or seek the opinions of other customers who can testify for your product or brand.
As social media provides a one-stop shop for interacting with friends, reading testimonials, and comparing different brands, consumers are generally more aware of what to expect from a product when they go to purchase it through social media. Due to this level of transparency, consumers are less likely to regret purchases, thus leading to better consumer satisfaction and brand loyalty.
Linking brand activation to social selling
As mentioned above, social shopping comes with built-in social proof, primarily through user-generated content, comments, likes, follows and shares, as well as clear, genuine reviews. The more consumers who interact with and promote your brand or products, the more likely that other customers will trust your brand.
This is where live brand experience activations can play a huge role in social selling. If you can create live moments that consumers want to be a part of and share on social media, you can increase your social proof and build a frictionless omnichannel eCommerce journey, from real-life experience to online purchase of your product.
You can also help your brand to gain traction with social proof by providing customers with incentives such as discounts or giveaways if they share your content or leave reviews on your social media. Elevate your consumer events, brand activations and in-store activity by encouraging customers to share their images or videos of your products by creating a fun and unique hashtag, allowing you to develop a community for your brand.
Brands can utilise social shopping in three key ways:
Through content: Unique content created by brands, influencers and individuals helps to drive discovery, engagement and action. People will expand their shopping experience to include shoppable posts and in-app stores on major social platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Pinterest.
Through experiences: Social media live-stream events are prime for virtual shopping (it’s predicted that by 2028 live streaming will generate over $200 billion) where influencers and brands can showcase their products in real-time and speak directly with consumers en masse. This can also be done through the use of VR, AR and Web 3 tech.
Through networks: People harness their virtual networks to buy and sell. This could be through group buying (where a number of people buy in bulk to gain a lower price), social shopkeeping and shoppable posts, referrals and second-hand markets.
Ultimately the most successful brands are those with a robust omnichannel strategy which incorporates your online and offline channels in a consistent way to create a seamless customer experience and subsequent path to purchase. If you’re looking for someone to help you with your omnichannel brand strategy, get in touch with an expert today.
