Social media and e-commerce continue to get enmeshed in our daily lives with each passing day and the chances for them to strengthen each other seem to be numerous. Every month, at least 450 million Facebook users visit ‘Buy and Sell’ groups on this popular platform. Facebook has taken note of this and introduced the Facebook Marketplace where buyers meet sellers. Nearly 90% of eCommerce customers claim that social media now influences their shopping decision. Interestingly, from 2011 to 2017, the revenue from social e-Commerce was estimated to be $78 billion. These figures are increasingly rising and chances are, they won’t plummet any time soon.
Social marketing or advertising focuses on gaining the attention of your prospective clients and building a connection. As a very specific example, if you’re selling an IKEA Ektorp sofa cover from Bemz, you can capture your target audience by genuinely telling them why this brand is unique as opposed to barraging them with too much information. Before the rise of social media, a brand could only be noticed through advertisements in the newspapers while other brands opted for Radio and Television. However, we are now living in a digital era whereby businesses and brands are inclined more to their social media presence. Nowadays, brands use social media to advertise products and services, boost their online presence as well as give top-notch customer service.
The public nature of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram also boost a brand’s organic customer acquisition. As such, once you provide content which your customers find pertinent to their interests, there’s a high probability that they will share or show it to their relatives and friends. Basically, your prospective clients will actually market your content on their behalf. Also, given that the information is being conveyed by a friend or relative – as opposed to directly from the brand – it will be viewed less as a campaign and more as a verified source.
In the coming years, social media is expected to continue playing a huge part not only in e-Commerce but all facets of our daily lives, as witnessed in the past decade or so. However, keeping business and personal life seperate is vital if a brand is to succeed in social e-Commerce. That said, some of the popular networking technologies that brands can use to reach out to social audiences include Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and LinkedIn among others.