What is Social Commerce? & Why is it Important for Your Business?

1. Consistent or Steady Audience Growth

 Every day a new user becomes a part of the social media family. Millions are already active on the platform. According to Statista, Facebook has more than a billion active users each month, and a new user joins the platform every year. Hence, it’s important for a business to reach and sell to its target customers. If you are using social commerce, your followings will grow exponentially.

2. Builds Trust and Loyalty

 Two pillars of success for businesses operating online are trust and loyalty. Customers at present trust people, or we can say influencers, more than marketing ads. If customers leave positive reviews for your products or popular Instagram marketing influencers, promote your brand, the more beneficial it will be for your business. 

Influencers and reviews help in increasing trust and at the same help in increasing loyalty amongst existing customers. Don’t just include a shop feature in your social media platform, but allow customers to share their reviews and rate your products.

3. Decrease the sales cycle

At the final stage of the buyer journey, customers evaluate and then purchase the product. This is where customers compare your product with the competitor. 

By using social commerce, you can reduce the timeline between lead nurture to purchase. With the help of social commerce, buyers can purchase products directly from the app, thus increasing the ROI for the company faster. 

However, there is also a risk involved, which may lead to a bad image. To avoid this, provide accurate product information and great customer service support.

4. Higher Search Engine Ranking

By building on your social media audience, you can increase your conversion rate. Social media commerce increases the traffic of the website, which will eventually increase the ranking of the website. 

You can also share links to content on your website through social media to drive traffic. By doing so, users can engage with a comment, like or share, thus reaching a larger audience base. One of the major benefits of social commerce is the reach and engagement that it provides to brands when they share their content. 

For a powerful branding concept, you can show up in the follower’s update feed. Using social commerce effectively has a positive influence on your business. Adopt a well-defined social strategy, take the risk, and invest your money, time and effort to get the desired results.

5. Measure Results through Business Metrics

Like in any other form of marketing, in social commerce, you should measure results as well as track performance. Starting a campaign where you can’t measure or evaluate is a waste of tangible effort. 

Your campaign objective should be in line with the key performance indicators to measure results directly. Through social commerce , you can easily measure and evaluate performance. For instance, Facebook pages, Instagram business accounts have in-built metrics to measure impressions, engagement and reach. 

Also, social media posts help in measuring traffic to your website using website click accounts. Other metrics to measure a positive ROI include a total number of followers, likes, and interactions’ overall sentiment.

6. Get Repeated Purchases

 With social commerce, you are not selling products; you are actually building relationships. Social commerce helps you to build new relationships and maintain existing ones. 

You can inform customers about special promotions, new products, deep discounts, and much more through social media. If customers are happy with your product and customer service, they will return to your store and likely buy products from you again.

Effective Ways to Improve Your Social Commerce Game

• First and foremost, identify which social media channel works best for you based on your target audience.
• Build a solid plan for your FB, Twitter, and other social media platforms. If you don’t have a solid plan, all your efforts will go in vain.
• Make use of social media management tools.
• Leverage social proof to increase brand visibility, build trust and make customers feel comfortable when buying products.
• Collaborate with famous Instagram marketing Team up with relevant influencers in your niche to increase your reach and generate more sales. When identifying influencers, don’t go by numbers and blue tick. Instead, make sure they are popular amongst your target audience and share the same views as your brand.
• Personalize as much as possible. Customers want to feel special, and if you are able to do so, your brand value and positive word of communication will increase.

After reading the above points, are you all set to sell products on Instagram or Facebook? Need help with your Instagram marketing campaign? Social Sensei will help you out!