How to Win at Social Commerce

Social commerce is a whole suite of actions that a brand can take to engage with their customers on a social platform. This could be in a variety of formats – posts, Instagram stories, TikTok videos, or livestream shopping. Beyond content, though, how do you put the commerce in social commerce? Essentially, by using the content as a jump-off point, enabling someone to buy a product easily.

Social commerce is becoming increasingly important for retailers or any brand that’s selling directly to customers. Social commerce sales are forecasted to explode to $1.2 trillion by 2025, according to a 2022 Accenture study ‘Why Shopping’s Set for a Social Revolution’.

Brands like Shopify are enabling brands to easily leverage social commerce in their business. Here’s an interesting statistic that came out towards the end of 2022: Shopify research shows that 49% of brands planned to increase their investment in social commerce. The opportunity is ripe and enormous and brands are jumping on board to increase their investment in this burgeoning channel.

Common Mistakes

Great social commerce strategy is centered around knowing your customers well. Think about a simple Who-Where-Why–What framework. Who are your customers, really? Which platforms are they most engaged in? Why are they engaging? What type of content are they engaging with? Most businesses that stumble with social commerce likely haven’t answered one or few of these questions with clarity. Let me give you an example.

A lot of times, brands think more is better. So they’ll take a creative and post it across every platform out there – Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and so on. The issue with this is that the demographic on each of those platforms is very different. They might even be engaging with your brand for different reasons on each of these platforms. This approach may yield high reach, but with social commerce, conversion is what you’re aiming for. The content blast may have got the brand in front of lots of people, but since not everyone will resonate, conversion rate suffers.

With social commerce, reach is never as knowing which platforms to focus on, why your audiences are engaging with you, and what type of content is resonating with them. Anchor your strategy on engagement. Engagement eventually will lead to conversion.

Social media analytics company Sprout Social’s study ‘Creating Connection: What Consumers Want From Brands in a Divided Society’ found that 57% of respondents would increase their spending with a brand they felt connected to. People want to buy from brands they can trust. Social media can help bring your brand’s story to people, allowing you to create a deeper sense of connection with them. With social media, brands have the opportunity to meaningfully showcase how and why their products are being made. The most successful brands on TikTok today aren’t simply hawking products – they’re telling stories, and building meaning around why they exist.

The Power of Stories, Beyond the Sale

Let me give you a couple of examples of how storytelling has helped brands attract customers and drive sales. Fly By Jing is a brand that makes chilli oil and chilli crisp. Founder and CEO Jing Gao has built her story into her brand – talking about how chilli oil connects her to her family. She also talks about the ingredients that go into making it unique and premium. She offers suggestions on how to enjoy her product in sweet and savory dishes alike. In that way, she’s built a deeply meaningful narrative around her brand – one that marries purpose and heritage, while also encouraging people to try something new.

Another brand that has successfully navigated social commerce is Allbirds. They’ve done a brilliant job at bringing the joys of merino shoes to the world. Their social content centers around what makes them different: they’re an environmentally friendly, durable, green product. With every new drop, their social media channels tell the story of why this particular product needs to exist. Why Allbirds runner, you may ask? Because you can throw them in the washing machine and they come out sparkly clean, good as new! They tell you how you can use the product – they don’t just make it about pushing a sale. Customers are watching, and they care.

These examples highlight the value of a solid content strategy that mixes up education, storytelling, use cases, and the occasional lead in to buy something. You have to strike the right balance in order to win your audience’s trust. A brand that constantly pushes a sale isn’t going to do that.

And obviously, with brand storytelling, it’s important to be authentic and honest about your claims. On social media, audiences are highly discerning and will dissect every detail. How many brands have been called out online lately for greenwashing, for instance? If your story isn’t rooted in reality, you’ll do your brand more harm than good.

With large FMCGs or multinationals, social commerce serves a different purpose. For the most part, the purpose of social commerce becomes to drive repeat purchases and re-engage existing customers. To get to the front of brand recall and facilitate re-engagement, these larger brands may use special product drops, collaborations – think Tiffany & Co.’s collaboration with Nike for instance, or work with influencers. With the right partnerships, brands can leverage on mutual trust and amplify their impact, allowing them to stay top of mind for customers.

Identifying the Right Platforms

If you’re excited to get started with social commerce, the first step is to identify the right platforms for your brand. Think about two questions: Who is your customer? Where are they engaged? Why are they engaging?

When thinking about who your customer is, create a specific persona you’re targeting. For example, 35 year olds who have young children, but still go out with their friends, take vacations, and have an income of X.

Then, think about where this demographic is active in the region you’re in. In the US, Facebook is used primarily by an older demographic. Millennials and GenX are likely to be on Instagram, and GenZ on TikTok. However, in some parts of the world where TikTok has been banned, Instagram is the leading platform. In some markets, Facebook is the main social platform. Match your customer with the platform they’re resonating with.

Lastly, ask yourself whether you’re creating the right content for the platforms you want to connect with customers on. Don’t just be on a platform because it’s trendy and hot. Sometimes, a platform will perform extremely well for a certain type of content. For example, Pinterest boasts superior session times to Instagram for food-related commerce. So think about whether you’re putting the right content on the platform you’ve chosen, and experiment until you’ve found what works.

Engagement is the Name of the Game

Start by understanding the community you have. It’s not just about the number of followers you have – you may have gained those over 1-2 viral posts – but about how engaged they are. If you have a large community with low engagement, it is cause for concern. Tackle that problem before investing in social commerce.

A true test of your potential is to look at engagement metrics: number of comments, shares, reshares. Pull together an aggregate of engagement metrics on individual pieces of content. Figure out what percentage of your follower base is actually engaged. Paying customers will be a subset of that number. Once you’ve implemented social commerce off of a highly engaged base, you can track metrics such as conversion, whether an item was added to cart, and so on.

A word of caution: don’t use price as the only leverage to convert people. On livestreams, for instance, you have brands that give out coupons. As a result, customers are conditioned to look for a coupon before making a purchase. Your brand will now be on the hamster wheel, where people expect coupons instead of valuing your product for the things that make it special.

1. Know Your Customers

Most brands fail because they don’t invest enough time answering the Who-Where-Why–What. Make sure you’re doing a deep dive, crafting clear personas for your target demographic, and choose content and platforms that they’re already resonating with.

2. Tell Your Story

Social commerce isn’t just about selling a product. Your content strategy should bring delight and value to your customers, with an occasional lead in to purchase. This is how you’ll build trust with them in the long term.

3. Don’t Sell Before Building an Engaged Community

You won’t succeed at social commerce if you have a follower base that is largely unengaged. Focus on building up engagement before investing in any social commerce initiatives.