For a long time, social media is an integral part of every online marketing strategy.
The primary goal: promote the awareness of the company and its own image. In recent years, the focus has relocated significantly away from classic followers and likes, towards more consumption.
For example, today around 38 percent of all online shoppers are attentive to new products through their social media channels. And customers order more and for the first time they encounter an article.
Therefore, social networks now offer various options to apply your products directly on the platform – keyword social commerce. That also has a positive effect on your sales figures and sales.
No wonder so that now many online dealers next to their online shop can use various social media platforms as an additional sales channel.
In this blog post, we explain what exactly social commerce is actually and what opportunities you already offer to social networks. In addition, you will learn which features will follow in the future and what social commerce means for your social media strategy.
Overview
- Social Commerce Definition
- Instagram check-out
- Direct product links
- Personalized advertising
- Augmented Reality
- Chatbots
- Next Steps: Now check your Funnel strategy!
What is social commerce?
Social Commerce is the application and the direct sale of products via social media platforms. The users can interact directly with your business – for example about comments, pleasure-me-information, private messages or survey participations.
Therefore, the commitment rate counts in social commerce as one of the most important KPIs (Key Performance Indicators): For example, start a survey in a story or a post for packaging design before your product launch.
With this, your users have the feeling of having participated in the decision-making process of a product design – and you will win them easier than buyers.
About such inclusions about your products as well as regular interactions on your social media channels, your customers build a personal relationship with your brand and tend to order products through social media posts/ads. This promotes sustainable customer loyalty!
Increased conversion rate through direct product links
With the Instagram shop function, you also offer your followers an optimal, mobile shopping experience. The advantage: a reduced absorbance rate.
Because your followers stay in the app while scrolling through your product range. And through the shop linking you can display your prices on normal postings. This leads the user directly to your individual product page. These features support you to offer your customers an optimal user Journey.
In addition, you have the option of uploading your catalog information on Facebook and create Dynamic-Product Ads via Paid Advertising. Because with different cross and upselling campaigns you play shopping cart breakers and existing customers specifically the products that they have interacted before. That’s how your conversion rate turns on again!
Instagram Check-out: Improved closing rate by reduced user Journey
Instagram will soon launch a new feature with the “Instagram Check out” to further expand social commerce. So far, check-out is only available in the US – but in Germany the first companies already test the beta version.
Check-out is intended to offer your potential customer a holistic buying experience on just one platform – from inspiration to purchase in one place. In this way, the User Journey will significantly shorten, improve the closing rate and increase your conversion rate again.
Personalized advertising for more traffic
With a personalized advertisement, you also reach more traffic – with simultaneous declining advertising costs: By the exact advertising tailored to the potential customers, the likelihood that it is actually interacting with the content.
How it works? About pixel-based or server-based tracking you can view the user behavior on your website and use this knowledge directly for the playback of your ads.
So you borders from a wide target group exactly the users who are shortly before a purchase.
Exciting trend for your social commerce strategy: Chatbots
In conversational commerce, there are exciting developments that are interesting for your social commerce strategy.
In general, under Conversational Commerce, any conversation that leads a user with a company – for example via the site, the terminal (Web, Mobile, App) or also in the social networks.
It is particularly great potential in chatbots, which can be used as the first point of contact in the Customer Journey. Through the quick answering of prefabricated questions, chatbots increase customer satisfaction, especially for advisory-intensive purchases or general questions about delivery and shipping.
For example, you can use chatbots to automatically answer many service rates around products, assortments or processes with chatbots directly at the beginning of the User Journey.
This makes it easier and shortens the work for your customer service enormously! Because of the existing information, your employees continue to process individual requests.
In online marketing, you can use the chatbot for discount items or customer loyalty. Especially on Facebook, it is important to use Messenger bots in your Paid Marketing Strategy.
Augmented Reality provides extraordinary customer experience
The boom in online trading has increased sharply through the Corona Pandemic. However, advice on online shopping may not be neglected.
This gap fills Augmented Reality: Thanks to this technology, the customer on your website or in your app, for example, the makeup can already virtually scan on the face view, which look at sneakers in a 360 degree view or place the new pieces of furniture in the virtual living room.
Augmented Reality has long since no future music but already common practice in many online shops. And the trend shows that the augmented reality technology will continue to improve.
In your Marketing Mix you can already rely on this technology: by branded AR filter. Thus, you create your products in the context of your content strategy creatively in scene and offer your customers an extraordinary customer experience.
Next Steps: Now check your Funnel strategy!
As an online retailer, with Social Commerce, you actively distribute your products about social networks – and at the same time strongly strengthen the personal relationship with your customers. Therefore, it is important to complement social commerce in your social media strategy. But before you change your funnel from scratch, you should answer these questions:
Which platforms do you already operate online marketing?
In which phase of your funnel concept does the user be addressed with which message?
These answers help you to complement your funnel with social commerce. Use the Inbound Marketing method for this to ensure your customers at any time the right information and to win through convincing added value to a faithful existing customer.
You want to get out more from your social media strategy than online dealers – for more sales and conversions? Then contact us! Our Digital Marketing experts are happy to advise you without obligation to your Funnel strategy and social commerce.
