Alistair Leathwood, Head of Analytics, Insights, and Media, APAC, Circana, shares insights into the growing world of social commerce.
Social commerce is fast connecting retail opportunities with social media users and is one of the most powerful examples of community e-commerce, which is all about entertaining, creator-driven content featuring brands. By bringing the store to your consumer in their social worlds, social commerce is inspiring more than 70 per cent of consumers to shop, even when they aren’t looking to, with deals and discounts (39 per cent), ease of purchase (33 per cent) and exclusive offers (28 per cent) driving more social commerce purchases globally.
Social commerce allows you to engage with people during the micro-moments when they’re scrolling on their devices and potentially reduce the sales cycle and use social media platforms as an effective revenue stream. It provides a personalised, one-to-one shopping experience at scale 24/7, building authentic connections between consumers and brands – and their ambassadors.
Accelerating consumer decision journeys
Social commerce can accelerate consumer decision journeys from awareness to purchase almost instantly through in-app or live shopping – the latter reaching highly engaged audiences such as gamers. Live commerce involves highly interactive experiences which combine instant purchasing of a featured product and audience participation through a chat function or reaction buttons.
The shoppable media channels of the future such as streaming video on-demand, gaming and the evolution of the Metaverse provide endless opportunities to engage and understand your consumer as technology continues to develop. This is an area brands will need to continue to invest in and learn about to ensure they remain competitive in the market.
It’s all about trust
With trust key to enhancing shopper confidence, a recent study found social media influencers (16 per cent) are in fact not the top drivers of purchase on social platforms, falling behind the influence of family members (20 per cent) and friends (17 per cent). It is critical to look at who your target shoppers trust – are they content creators, influencers or celebrities? Or are they real everyday users?
Shoppers seek out reviews and insights from their online communities meaning your brand presence is critical. They also need to be able to easily contact you via their platform of choice e.g. private message on social media, email, and/or phone call.
Buyer dissatisfaction often comes from a bad website user experience, too many emails, complex returns processes, fulfilment and delivery delays, and difficulty contacting customer service.
Buyer confidence and satisfaction is key to repeat purchases, brand advocacy and building trusted communities that people turn to for genuine experiences of products and services.
Get social with your audience
Simply being present on social media isn’t enough; you need to engage in two-way conversations to build consumer relationships. Respond to comments, ask questions and engage with their content, especially if they’re tagging you.
These interactions not only generate buzz and increase visibility of your brand but can also drive sales as people feel more of a personal connection to your brand.
It’s important to identify the right platform to reach your audience and deliver a seamless experience authentically. You don’t need to be present on every social media platform if your audience isn’t there and especially if you don’t have the appropriate content to be shared on that platform.
Social commerce brings your physical shop to the consumer, make sure you consider how social commerce is part of your overarching omni-channel strategy to achieve greater success.
This article was written by Alistair Leathwood, Head of Analytics, Insights, and Media, APAC, Circana and originally appeared in the October issue of National Liquor News.