What is Social Commerce
If you are selling products you will have an e-commerce website (online store) so that people can buy from you. Ideally, you will want your customers to go to your website and purchase what you have.
You will have a great mobile responsive website with the latest look and feel, designed to hopefully convert customers quickly to buying.
More and more people are preferring to do the majority of their shopping online and this is great news for online stores. Physical stores are slowing turning into space where we look and try but don’t always purchase.
Mobile is also dominant as the tool we use to look online – Does your website look great on a mobile device?
Where though do the vast majority (billions) of worldwide consumers spend their time when they are online?
Facebook – Instagram – Pinterest
Social Commerce
Did you know people can be purchasing directly from your social media pages?
According to Statista, at the end of 2017 Facebook had more than 2 Billion active users and Instagram more than 800million.
If you are smart you will already have your social networks set up and active. If not, today is the day to get busy because it is practically impossible to be successful without using social media.
Facebook, being the number one platform, it is a given that you have a Facebook Page for your business. You will be posting regularly and marketing your business on Facebook. Instagram, also owned by Facebook, will be another platform you are posting to regularly and using hashtags to help your business to be found. Pinterest may or may not be on your radar but if you are selling products, then it should be.
Do you have a Facebook Business Page, and Instagram Business account and a Pinterest Business account?
Have you been publishing posts and advertising hoping to drive traffic back to your website and gain sales! What if you could get the purchase without additional steps? Simplifying the steps to purchase increases conversion rates!
Statistics
According to Pixlee, 78% of people surveyed said that social media posts impact their purchasing decision.
41% of people who found the item they purchased on social media said they just happened upon it and hadn’t thought about buying it before that. Conversely 88% of people who found the item they purchased by searching for it on social media.
50% of Pinterest purchasers had created a board specifically for making a purchasing decision.
Where to begin
Facebook remains number one for a reason so this is the best place to start if you are wanting to sell your products. Emarketer states that nearly 50% of purchases are on Facebook with Instagram following.
Ensure you are logged in to your Facebook Business Page
- Go to your settings
- Click Edit Page
- Scroll to the bottom and click Add a Tab
- Add the Shop tab
- Return to your business page, click on the shop icon to the left and set up your shop.
- From here you can add your shops’ details, set up payments (stripe or PayPal) and add/manage products within your shop. People can then shop direct from your Facebook page or travel to your website as always via the shop now button. (note you may not as yet have this feature as Facebook releases it over time)
Note: Without a shop set up on Facebook you cannot have shopping links on Instagram images. You must do this first.
For some time you have been able to use the simple advertising feature on Instagram to create an ad with a shop now link. More recently the feature of tagging your image with the price has come into play. Instagram’s shop-able Image feature is proving popular, with purchase statistics increasing daily. You may have seen it or used it yourself to see the price of an item. As mentioned above, simplifying the steps to purchase increases your conversion rates.
The last social commerce platform I want to mention is Pinterest. This is a platform that has really taken leaps forward and now also has the click to purchase option. Currently only available to select retailers and the US but will be expanding.
Conclusion
What is your social commerce strategy going to be? How can you operate your business better online using social networks to increase your conversion rate?
If you need any help with this contact Kelly @ My Sassy Business
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