Social commerce is certainly a buzzword in 2021 — brands are eager to adopt this new way to drive sales within social platforms where their loyal fans already live. This not only allows for a frictionless checkout experience, but also an opportunity for brands to gain real insight into purchases from social, a difficult channel to monetize.
We’re sharing our top 4 tips for social commerce in 2021 as your brand expands or starts experimenting with this new ecommerce strategy!
Don’t Input Your Whole Catalogue
You don’t need to input your whole product catalogue into your social commerce platform. Choosing your most popular or best selling products is a great place to start and gives you the opportunity to easily test and monitor results. Plus, it’ll save you loads of time!
Additionally, you can choose your selected products based on the demographic you’re trying to reach on social. So, if you’re trying to engage with Gen Z, select products that cater to that audience. You can also monitor how the products sell, getting an idea of how well a new product might launch.
Launch Products Exclusively on Social Commerce
And speaking of launching products… social commerce provides a great place to launch limited run products and build hype around them. You’re likely building excitement through your organic social efforts already, so launching products exclusively on your social channels can benefit your brand in a few ways.
First, it can help you determine the effectiveness of social commerce for your brand. By launching products exclusive to social commerce, you can easily see the effectiveness of a campaign since the product isn’t being sold elsewhere. Social commerce is certainly an emerging tactic that all brands should test, but it might not be right for your brand at this time.
Second, it can encourage your followers to get used to purchasing through a social commerce platform, rather than traditional methods. Social commerce allows for less friction and easier purchases, so it should be a win-win for you and your customers! And by launching products exclusively on social commerce, you’re building those habits to get customers used to purchasing within the platform.
Test with Paid and Organic Social Commerce Strategies
If you’re interested in social commerce, you likely already have robust organic and paid strategies for your social media — and social commerce can of course fit nicely into those strategies! This allows you to easily attribute the results of your social commerce sales to your paid and organic strategies.
Launching products exclusively on Instagram or Facebook gives your audience a sense of community, and advertising that as such on social would be an interesting way to build excitement around a product’s exclusivity.
Tie in with Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is certainly a huge part of many brands’ social media strategies, but it is notoriously hard to quantify. Unless you attach a discount or affiliate code to an influencer, it can be difficult to know the exact impact their promotion is having on your brand. However, integrating influencer posts with this feature would allow brands to gauge success (or failure) more easily.
Some influencers can tag products for brands they’re working with, which is a game-changer for brands who are looking to quantify their influencer marketing. Currently, most influencers usually just tag the brand in the post, but this feature would allow them to actually tag a product that could be purchased in just a few taps.
Note that this feature is still in beta, and only select influencers have access, but it’s certainly one to keep an eye on. We imagine it will only expand in the future, especially as influencer marketing continues to grow on Instagram.
All these updates have you swirling? Reach out to the team at Blue Wheel for help today!
