Here Is Why Social Commerce Will Rule Social Media in 2020. #SMDAY

Social commerce is the act of selling products directly through social media platforms, whether you do it through posts, videos, comments, forums, or any other means. The key difference between social media marketing and social commerce is that in the second case, you're actively selling on the platform itself, instead of driving referral traffic from social media to a website. This means that the whole shopping experience happens without the customer ever leaving the social media channel.

No wonder it continues to be a leader in running product discovery for companies & brands. According to research, 55% of online shoppers have made a purchase via social media. And 54% of social browsers use social media to actually research products. Another study showed that 90% of people buy from brands they follow on social media. We can go on and on about all impressive data, but the point is that you can use existing channels and its tools to drive it. Moreover, people are there and fully ready to adopt new technologies that support buying/selling.

Increases the discoverability. For instance, Facebook alone reaches 60.6% of internet users. So you can either use your own online store or their own platform to create a store (e.g.Facebook shop & Market). These microsites are much more mobile-friendly which will generally lead to increased conversion rates.

Social media is quite interactive and engaging when done right. It helps to build a strong relationship between you and the audience. While the ability to interact with people directly also helps answer questions and remove barriers. People can come to your page to ask questions and get a quick response. You can also make direct sales pitches or share landing pages, too. Let the customer drive this social shopping experience for the best results. Keep in mind that social media is a personalized experience itself, most of the decision-making processes happen naturally there. And being is someone's feed makes a step closer to the sale.

Video and temporary content are growing extremely popular on social media. So, social commerce has followed. One of the growing trends now are shopping options in these timed services. Facebook and Instagram are well-known options because they've made it easy for brands to promote products. For instance, On Instagram, you can use product tags to highlight anything that you sell within your stories. Facebook has similar tagging and also includes the option to add a call-to-action on your Stories page. Pinterest, for example, is designed to be a shoppable gallery in and of itself. You can create boards of different product categories and display your products on them with links to buy pages. It's a smart and savvy way to reach your audience with compelling content.