All You Need to Know About Social Commerce — Redwood Creative, Inc.

Redwood Creative
4 min readOct 14, 2022

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Gone are the days when one had to physically visit markets to purchase goods that they wished for. One can easily purchase anything they like, from apparel to food online. Such is the power of social commerce.

Nowadays, people can place orders for anything they desire in just a few seconds. Social commerce is all about providing shopping opportunities on digital platforms on which people spend a lot of time anyway, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the like.

The growing popularity of Social Commerce

One of the main reasons why social commerce is gaining popularity is the popularity of social media platforms. Almost everyone today is well-versed with popular social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and the like. Adding a shopping option on these very platforms is nothing short of a cherry on the cake.

Research suggests that 30% of online shoppers are more likely to shop from social media networks.

One of the hottest trends in social media right now appears to be social commerce. In this article, we shall discuss everything you need to know about social commerce. However, before that, let us understand what exactly is social commerce.

What is Social Commerce?

Direct product sales and purchases through social media are known as social commerce. To put it simply, this integrates e-commerce capabilities into social media networks. This indicates that the complete shopping process, from product discovery to product research to checkout, takes place within the built-in social media platform.

The term “social commerce” was first introduced by Yahoo in 2005. However, social commerce shot up in popularity in recent times owing to the ongoing pandemic.

At this stage, it might look like it is similar to e-commerce. However, the two processes are quite different. Let’s see how.

How is social commerce different from e-commerce?

The customer can buy something through social commerce while still using social media. E-commerce, on the other hand, describes a buying experience through a specialized branded app or an e-commerce website.

Now that you know the difference between social commerce and e-commerce, let’s look at the main advantages of social commerce for your business.

Advantages of using Social Commerce for businesses

As a business owner, social commerce can be of great importance to you. Following are some of the main benefits of resorting to social commerce as a business owner.

More people are exposed to your brand and products

With thousands of people joining social media every day, using social commerce can introduce your products and your brand to a larger audience. Using social commerce can promote your brand on an unprecedented scale owing to the large number of people who use different social media platforms regularly.

Business owners can optimize the entire buying process

With social commerce, the buyer never needs to leave the social media site to complete a purchase. It’s a simple, quick way to offer your products and services that is also tailored for higher conversion rates. Customers also appreciate it.

Better search engine rankings for your brand

Social commerce does more than increase your brand’s engagement rate. The best strategy to get people to visit your website from social media users is to share links to information that directs people there.

Therefore, the more traffic you draw to your website, the more social interaction and direct transactions you have. It will eventually have an impact on a lower bounce rate for your website and improve your search engine ranking.

It is a great branding opportunity

Once your brand shows up on people’s feeds every day, it becomes an excellent branding strategy. People are encouraged to not only purchase from your brand but also use social media platforms for efficient customer service. It can improve your brand’s relationship with your customers.

Better customer retention and customer loyalty

You are cultivating positive relationships with people as well as trying to sell and advertise your goods and services in order to gain their trust and loyalty. This results in satisfied customers who are more likely to make subsequent purchases.

Most popular apps for social commerce

Now that you know the benefits of social commerce, here’s a list of the most popular social media platforms to promote your brand.

Social commerce has emerged as the undeniable market breakout trend for e-commerce due to the amount of time individuals, particularly younger generations, spend on social media sites. Meet your customers where they prefer to ride this wave and see an increase in conversions.

Originally published at https://www.redwoodcreative.com on October 14, 2022.

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