What is social commerce?
To put it simply, social commerce is the act of selling and promoting products and services through social media.
To keep up with the latest trends is mandatory for almost all sectors, and over the years, there has been a massive shift in trends in the eCommerce industry.
Social Commerce is booming and has proven beneficial for innumerable businesses. However, there is a change in trends that we can notice and can change your marketing game.
Continue reading the blog until the end, as we have mentioned the best social commerce trends you need to leverage immediately if you haven’t yet!
Let’s get started!
Trending Social Commerce Trends That You Can Utilize Right Now
Increased Product Discovery Through Visuals
Social Commerce is highly used by brands on visually dominated platforms like Instagram and Pinterest.
The visual stores on the platform help users discover the products seamlessly and easily. Since users connect more with stunning visuals than other means, social commerce helps users relate and connect with the brand and the products better.
Furthermore, the product tagging feature acts as a cherry on top of the cake. The feature enables the user to delve deeper and know details about the product, and it further influences their buying decision.
Moreover, the users can shop anytime and irrespective of where they are on the platform simply by leveraging photos and videos.
More Collaboration With Influencers
More than 80% of people on social media get influenced to buy the products recommended by influencers.
If you are an e-commerce brand and have not yet collaborated with famous faces to promote your products, then it’s high time you adopt this marketing strategy. Influencers are famous social media users who collaborate with brands and publish content in favor of their products or, in some cases, give an honest review of the product.
Of course, they charge a particular amount for the promotion that depends on their reach, the number of followers, and popularity, but it will all be worth every penny once you see positive results.
Due to the mentioned benefits, this trend is already quite popular since collaborating with an influencer surely increases the reach of a brand irrespective of its niche.
However, before collaborating with an influencer make sure that the influence has a decent follower base and falls in your brand category.
Use Of Interactive Chatbots
Interaction with customers on social media is extremely mandatory. Without communication, your relation with your customers can get hampered. This makes it important for brands to converse with their followers.
Social media users are always active. Hence, brands must answer their queries at all times. Resulting in which, brands started using interactive and smart chatbots to keep the potential customers engaged.
These chatbots help users answer their queries, recommend the best-selling products and assist in the decision-making process.
Increased Live Streaming
It is quite difficult for the users to switch to a new brand especially when they are already liking the products and are used to a particular brand.
To create a better equation with the potential customers and for gaining their trust, live streaming is slowly making its place in the social media world, and more brands are using this concept to engage and sell more.
Live streaming is the process of going live on the platform and directly communicating with the audience. It is extremely helpful for brands, especially while launching a new product, giving real-time product tutorials, or taking feedback from the product users.
Multiple e-Commerce brands are already leveraging the concept of live streaming to make the users aware of the products and for building a better relationship with the users.
Such interactions make the users more connected to the brand and change their perceptions about its products.
Displaying Low-Cost Products
The main motto of social media users is to create connections, get in touch with their pals, take shopping inspiration, or just for entertainment. Therefore, they probably are never completely in the mindset to purchase products.
In such situations, displaying low-cost products will catch their attention. In addition, displaying a well-performing product that is priced lesser than other products gives a high chance that users end up buying the product.
More Use Of User-Generated Content
More than 85% of people rely on User-Generated Content before making purchases. Surveys suggest that potential customers generally look for reviews and what other customers have experienced with a brand before purchasing a product.
This is the power of User-Generated Content, and it is indeed the future of marketing. Due to its authentic, genuine, and trustworthy nature, User-Generated content is the most powerful form of content marketing leveraged by brands.
For instance – the famous luxury shoe brand Louboutin motivated their followers to create a post wearing Louboutin heels and post in on their social media handle using the hashtag #SomethingRouge
The campaign was well-received by the users and the brand saw a 26% increase in their engagement levels and more than 20,000 likes and comments on the user-generated content posts as compared to the brand’s published content.
This is an amazing example of how brands can tremendously see amazing results once they utilize the power of User-Generated Content in their business.
Increased Use Of Video In Ads
Often scrolling through our social media feeds, we tend to pause for a minute or two when we come across a well-put-together video. Isn’t it?
It is a known fact that videos are far more engaging, descriptive and entertaining than other alternative forms of interaction.
The usage of videos has tremendously increased by brands after they too understood how impactful visuals and videos can be.
Presently, and even in the coming times, users shall witness more videos on social media in the form of ads. Moreover, videos can tap into the emotional quotient of users, which would make the ad far more relatable and engaging.
Use Of Augmented Reality
A common concern for shoppers when they are in the decision-making process is they often think to themselves – ‘How will it look on me?’ or ‘Will it suit me or not?’
Such questions kept bothering shoppers and became a hindrance until the inception of augmented reality.
Another interesting ongoing social commerce trend is the use of augmented reality. Users can use augmented reality technology to see how the product would look on them before they make the final decision.
Multiple cosmetics and accessories brands are using augmented reality to give better clarity to the users. Moreover, they would be completely satisfied once they receive the product.
Targeted Advertising To Potential Audience
If we speak in general, ads are mostly generic and not exactly catered as per the needs and requirements of a specific user. Moreover, getting leads from ads is not much likely to happen since users often tend to scroll through the ad.
Sure, we would see more ads as social commerce gets more popular, but brands shall also be targeting potential customers as per their likes and preferences.
Targeting customers by displaying their preferred ads on their social media feed is a great way to grab their attention and to convince them to click and have a look at the product.
This can be done easily once the brand starts understanding the behavior of a customer on the platform which can be done with the help of advanced analytics.
Moreover, the users’ search result reflects a lot about the products they like, their preferred style, etc., and brands are taking advantage and targeting users as per their expectations.
Improved Analysis
Brands generally never paid much attention to the analytics as much as required. They mostly concentrate on the basic analysis but do not get much into details.
However, the inception of social commerce has surely changed the game. Brands have become more alert and conscious especially about the channels and sources that drive more traffic and sales.
Since the above information will help them get more detailed information about the customers, the brands would be able to better analyze their users’ behavior.
They will understand the demographics, time spent by users on the platform, their location, gender, the amount they like to spend, etc.
Moreover, using such analysis will help brands take their campaigns to another level since they would have a better understanding of the needs of their potential customers and analytics would also help them stay updated with the trends.
Final Thoughts
The concept of social commerce has emerged to stay. It has completely changed the way shoppers shop and brands sell.
Every brand has a certain target when it comes to conversions and sales and social media is undoubtedly an amazing platform to achieve the desired results but it needs proper planning, execution, and the need to stay up to date with the trends that your competitors may be utilizing.
The trends above can help you tremendously increase your user engagement, improve interactions between you and your users and generate more sales and revenues.
Leverage these social commerce trends right away and reap incredible benefits in the future!
