Every day, shoppers are exposed to hundreds of brands on social media, all available at their fingertips. In fact, MikMak’s Shopping Index found that 53 percent of all eCommerce traffic on the platform last year came from social channels. This means more than ever, social commerce strategy has become vital to eCommerce marketing.
Fortunately, with the myriad of social channels available, all with their own conversion capabilities, brands have options on what to leverage for their marketing initiatives. With that in mind, here’s an overview of the top players.
Facebook and Instagram are still must-haves for social commerce strategies
As one of the first social channels to activate commerce capabilities, Facebook and Instagram remain an integral part of a solid social commerce strategy for most brands. With over 2.895 billion monthly active users (MAU) on Facebook and over 1 billion MAU on Instagram, this is one of the channels with high shopping traffic and is great for reach and conversion.
The difference between a good social commerce strategy on Facebook and Instagram and a great one is in audience understanding, particularly how this channel fits into their multi-stop, multichannel shopping journey. How do your shoppers engage with you on Facebook and Instagram? What do they do next after engaging with you there? Where else are they active?
YouTube is strong in product education and has grown in conversion capabilities
A constant challenger to Facebook and Instagram when it comes to shopping traffic and conversion capabilities is YouTube. During COVID-19, MikMak found that traffic driven from YouTube saw the highest growth in purchase intent rate (by over 200 percent). From reviews of your product to educational pieces that might increase awareness, this platform is important when adding another level of engagement to your social commerce strategy.
YouTube is the premier platform to host long form video content when educating your consumer on your product. Where shoppers might scroll past content they see elsewhere, YouTube requires audience attention for a more sustained period of time. After all, YouTube is where many people go for active “edutainment”. Your consumers are often on YouTube looking for activities and solutions that could include your product, and it only makes sense for your content on YouTube to be the entry point to a shopping journey.
Pinterest is ideal for product discovery and building shopping lists
When it comes to inspiring purchase and list building, there is no better channel to turn to than Pinterest. Popular content on Pinterest includes recipes, party planning, DIY instructions, and decorating organization. As with all shopping lists, products from Pinterest are highly likely to be purchased, even though it may take a little longer. This is a highly visual platform, so use aesthetically pleasing branding representative of your product. Your product value should be clearly depicted in the creative, and lifestyle images yield on average a 32 percent higher CTR than only displaying product images.
Pinterest may also be a key location for brands to look into product associations and adjacencies. During a time in which brands are finding their products crossing shopping occasions and joining new shopping lists, this is a good place (in addition to the cart) to get a forward looking indicator of how the perceived value of your product is changing to your consumers.
TikTok is the dark horse of social commerce with high shopper engagement capabilities
In 2022, TikTok is a social channel that all brands should test and learn in. Although newer to social commerce than the other platforms, TikTok has already made a name for itself for eCommerce shoppers, crossing over 2 billion downloads in February of 2021. The short-form video app has become a social channel providing humor, information, and rapid-fire content of all sorts. According to MikMak’s Shopping Index, TikTok has gone from driving less than 1 percent of all eCommerce traffic in 2020 to over 10 percent in 2021.
TikTok is particularly known for connecting users to videos they are interested in through first party data. A major key to reaching your intended audience through TikTok is creating content that is authentic and highly attention grabbing. As such, TikTok can be a great place to detect demand spikes, work with influencers, and for your consumers to discover your product.
Snapchat has immersive experiences, particularly with Gen Z’s and Millennials
A key part of social commerce is the recommendation and socialization of products by trusted connections. As such, Snapchat is a highly engaging and visually immersive way to do so. We see this through the use of unique advertising formats like non-skippable Video Ads and Collections Ads (which can swipe up into a MikMak shopping experience). Snapchat can also provide advertisements in the form of filters and Augmented Reality experiences for the customer to use and share. Utilizing this channel for engagement can be very effective depending on how well you know your audience and how effectively you can leverage the platform’s strength to cater to them. When used well, especially for personal care and beauty, you can achieve higher awareness for your brand and get added more frequently to cart.
A multichannel shopping journey
While some shoppers might best be persuaded to purchase your product from a simple ad on Instagram, others might need longer engagement content and multiple touchpoints. What’s more, brand websites, and Connected TV all play a role in driving purchase intent and add to carts in a multichannel shopping journey.
Using data to strategize your online presence can build stronger eCommerce marketing initiatives, and that starts with gathering first-party data to understand and segment your consumers. With this information, you can launch targeted campaigns and improve your chances of success while leveraging one or more of these social channels. Further, omni-channel retail analytics tools can provide you with these insights across platforms, and tell you how each channel plays a part of an overall buying journey for your brand.
Want to learn more about social commerce and the metrics that make up your brand’s eCommerce strategy? Check out The Modern Digital Marketer’s Guide to eCommerce Performance Metrics!
