How to Leverage Social Commerce to Build a Steady Revenue Stream
Social commerce, which reflects the act of shopping on social media, is transforming the online shopping experience for customers.
It enhances the customer experience by enabling browsing and purchasing provisions within the app. A study stated that social platforms inspired 77% of people to discover products and brands.
On the other hand, social commerce provides an excellent opportunity for businesses to maximize their reach and boost sales.
No wonder, the social commerce industry will cross 1.2 trillion by 2025.
In this post, we will discuss how you can leverage social commerce to build a steady revenue stream.
First, let’s explore the concept of social commerce and how it differs from eCommerce.
What Is Social Commerce?
Social commerce signifies leveraging social media platforms to sell products to customers and build a steady stream of revenue.
Since social commerce directly impacts revenue it is a key aspect of a firm’s revenue marketing efforts. Through a well-planned strategy, they can leverage a pre-established user base and ensure high engagement levels on leading social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and more.
Here’s how-
Brands can showcase their products on distinct social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and others by building product catalogs. These applications have provisions where the customers can choose and buy products directly without leaving the platform via safe payment options.
This allows customers to discover and buy products of their choice without hassles. Besides, it speeds up the entire online shopping experience, helping businesses generate revenue without hassles.
Observe how Patagonia, an American retailer of outdoor recreation clothing, leverages social commerce.
Their product board looks similar to their website.
This creates a sense of uniformity among its audience. Besides, potential customers can also enjoy consistent experiences across social and their website.
What’s more?
According to eMarketer, 73% of brands are capitalizing on social commerce. This figure will rise to 79% in the upcoming three years.
This seamless online shopping experience offers an added advantage to businesses, specifically small-scale brands. It can help them improve their reach and boost conversions within no time.
Did you know? Over 50% of social buyers affirm they are more likely to shop from small businesses through social platforms versus online.
In short, social commerce is a boon for all businesses – small, medium, and large.
Key Benefits of Social Commerce for Businesses
Here are the top benefits of social commerce for businesses.
1. Expand Your Customer Base
Over 4.59 billion people use social media and this number is growing consistently.
Besides, 77% of customers are leveraging it to explore new brands and products. These statistics strongly affirm the potential of social commerce to help you reach a massive audience and expand your customer base.
2. Streamline Your Customer Journey
Since customers can directly purchase products from social platforms, switching to another app is not required. This frictionless provision streamlines your customer journey, shortening the sales cycle.
3. Build Brand Credibility and Trust
Posting positive reviews and testimonials on social platforms encourages prospective customers to make an informed purchasing decision. This further helps spread positive word-of-mouth, thus helping you establish brand credibility and trust.
Besides, this also boosts social engagement, which hints at social media algorithms to highlight your content to more people.
4. Drive High Revenue
Social commerce makes online shopping seamless by building a captivating narrative. When leveraged efficiently, this practice can help you drive high revenue.
In fact, McKinsey states that social commerce sales in the US crossed $45.7 billion in revenue in 2022. According to experts, it will cross $80 billion by 2025.
ECommerce versus Social Commerce
Social commerce and eCommerce fall under similar categories but are distinct entities.
Let’s understand how –
ECommerce depicts online shopping via a brand’s website or apps like Amazon, Shopify, etc. Customers can access the apps and website via desktop or mobile devices.
Social media ads, posts, and other marketing strategies serve as top-of-the-funnel tactics to attract customers and increase the chances of sales.
The customer needs to leave the platform and visit the app or website to complete the purchase.
On the other hand, social commerce doesn’t redirect customers to websites or apps. Instead, they can directly pay and checkout within the social media platform. This streamlines the buying process while removing unnecessary steps.
Besides, businesses don’t have to start from scratch. They can share products with their existing social media user base. This further increases the chances of viral product sharing and sales.
Leverage These Social Commerce Networks for Revenue Growth
Let’s understand how to leverage the most popular social commerce networks to build a steady revenue stream.
1. Facebook
This 19-year-old platform has around 3 billion monthly active users. Needless to say, it holds massive potential to take your social commerce to new heights.
Launched during the pandemic in 2020, it offers a free-of-cost, mobile-friendly provision called Facebook Shops.
The Shops were primarily built to help small businesses, but brands of any size can leverage it.
Did you know? There are over 250 million Facebook Shops in the digital ecosystem.
Here’s how it works –
Facebook Shops allows you to import product catalogs or build them from scratch. The feature is entirely customizable, allowing you to use it creatively.
For instance, incorporate detailed product descriptions, shipping information, and more. This accelerates the chances of sales.
What Do You Require? All you need is a Facebook Business Page to build a shop.
When your target audience visits your page, the platform showcases suitable products according to their search history and preferences. This helps provide a personalized customer experience.
What’s more? You can directly connect with prospective customers via Facebook Messenger to offer personalized assistance.
Pro Tip: Tag products from your Shop to create a library of shoppable posts on Facebook. This can help customers select the tagged products, review product info, and purchase.
Observe how Madewell, a clothing and footwear brand, takes advantage of Facebook Shops.
The brand promotes exclusive clothing collections that resonate with its customers.
Their listing features engaging descriptions, high-resolution images of products, shipping information, and more.
Get inspired by Madewell to encourage your social commerce.
2. Instagram
This is yet another popular social platform with over 1.2 billion active users. Known for its eye-grabbing Stories, Reels, and pictures, Instagram is a perfect fit for social commerce.
Having a great audience base on this platform can make selling easier.
What Do You Require? Set up Instagram Shopping. It is a Facebook business profile that links Facebook Shop to Instagram.
Similar to Facebook, you can upload product catalogs and create shoppable posts. This can help boost engagement and streamline the buying process for your target customers.
That’s not it.
You can create shoppable Stories and embed product stickers. This allows your audience to buy directly.
All these provisions make Instagram a great platform to sell on and build a steady revenue stream.
Pro Tip: Leverage Instagram Insights, its inbuilt analytics feature, to review your posts’ performance and engagement levels. Use this information to create informative, engaging, and shoppable posts.
Notice how Zara, a Spanish multi-national retail clothing chain, leverages Instagram Shopping. The brand showcases stunning clothing styles and offers instant shopping provision.
Besides, they proactively respond to target audience queries and ensure a healthy engagement.
No wonder, the brand has around 60 million followers.
3. Pinterest
According to reports, even when Pinterest users don’t buy anything immediately, they’re 7x more likely to purchase their saved pins in the future.
This makes it an ideal social commerce platform for businesses, specifically small and medium-sized brands, aiming to build a steady revenue stream in the long term.
What’s more? The platform claims that around 80% of weekly Pinners have discovered a new product or business via the pins.
While all this stands true, users cannot directly purchase the platform. The Pins redirect them to the eCommerce website for buying options. So, consider it a combination of social and eCommerce shopping.
What Do You Require? Set up your Pinterest Shopping account.
Once it’s done, upload your products and convert them into Rich Pins.
The Rich Pins automatically fetch product information like its description, price, availability, and more from your website and showcase it to the users.
Pro Tip: Enable a Shop tab on your Pinterest account to compile and place all the Rich Pins together.
These Pins can link to your eCommerce website’s relevant pages where users can make a purchase.
Take inspiration from Levi’s. Observe how the denim brand uses Pinterest to create boards highlighting distinct denim styles.
They optimize the board according to the trends and seasons.
Moreover, the brand offers shoppable Pins and collaborates with influencers to boost engagement and reach.
4. TikTok
According to Adweek, 49% of TikTok users bought new products after seeing them promoted, advertised, or reviewed on the platform.
That’s not all! The platform’s impact on social shopping trends is so commendable that it inspired the hashtag #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt (billions of views).
What Do You Require? Set up a TikTok Shop to sell your products.
This feature allows you to create engaging, shoppable videos. Besides, it enables video viewers to buy directly via your TikTok LIVE broadcasts.
Pro Tip: Incorporate relevant and trending hashtags in your video content. This can boost your TikTok Shop’s content visibility within no time.
Observe how Kylie Cosmetics leverages the platform to sell its products. The cosmetic brand uses relevant hashtags.
They also partner with influencers to boost engagement and conversions. No wonder, the brand has over 2 million followers on TikTok.
Summing Up
Besides networking benefits, social media is emerging as a powerful revenue-generation platform for businesses of all sizes.
With the advent of social commerce, you can offer seamless buying options to your target audience via leading social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and more.
This type of shopping experience, where users don’t have to leave the platform and visit the website or any app, makes the entire buying journey frictionless.
This significantly boosts user experience and audience engagement, thus increasing the chances of sales.
We’re confident the tips and examples shared in this post will help you build a successful social commerce strategy and yield a high, steady revenue stream for your business.
So, leverage social commerce to take your business to new heights.
All the best!
