Social Commerce: boost your eCommerce sales

Social media has continued to adapt and evolve to changing consumer trends over the last 20 years.  We’ve seen it grow from simple, text-based updates, to increasingly visual content, with platforms like Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok. One of the biggest developments has been the rise of social commerce which has opened up new revenue streams for eCommerce businesses who had previously struggled to monetise their social media presence.

The rise of Social Commerce 

With an unprecedented global pandemic, the increase in consumers using social media as the vehicle to purchase products and services has been staggering. Sprout Social’s 2021 report found 63% of shoppers last year bought off of social media. 

With Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest adding commerce to their platforms, the eCommerce industry is rapidly transforming. 

With around 8 in 10 businesses expected to be selling their products via social media in the next few years, now is the time to act to ensure you stay ahead of the social commerce curve.

In the current climate, Sprout Social estimated over 50% of internet shoppers are mobile users with a much higher percentage of abandoned baskets than desktop users. Then add to that the 59% of shoppers surveyed by Google who said that mobile-friendly modes of shopping were essential in deciding which brand or retailer to buy from. 

This is why social commerce works so well; social shopping is a fuss free process via mobile and quicker than traditional purchasing routes. 

Benefits of Social Commerce 

For eCommerce retailers, there’s a multitude of very good reasons why social commerce should be taken seriously: 

• Increase your reach by showing your catalogue to a larger audience 
• Lower abandonment rate with less steps involved in your buying process
• Greater data capture – purchases made via social platforms capture all data from users’ social media profiles 
• Enhance brand reputation with the ability for customers to purchase and leave reviews in one location 

Integration with your eCommerce solution 

The majority of eCommerce solutions, like Magento, Shopify and WooCommerce are easily integrated with the major social media platforms.  

Facebook and Instagram

In 2022, one in three users will make a purchase on Facebook. The platform’s social commerce offer is Facebook Shops and it’s free to use. 

You can easily sync your product catalogues to the platform, including integration with Ads Manager to create dynamic ads. It’s also a very customisable feature, with the ability to choose which products to showcase and also customise the imagery, fonts and colours to complement your brand. 

You need a Facebook Shop in order to create an Instagram Shop as Instagram will pull data from your Facebook catalogue. Again, similar to Facebook, you can customise all the features from media to the detailed description. You can also tag your products in posts or stories to further highlight your inventory. 

Additionally setting up an AI chatbot to help people through the shopping process is a great option for your Facebook commerce; any FAQ’s or quick queries should all be answerable within this. 

Pinterest

Pinterest offers a slightly different take to social commerce. If you have a business account, you are able to create product pins; although this does take users away from Pinterest and onto your eCommerce solution to purchase, it’s still a good option to showcase your items via social media. 

To integrate, it’s pretty simple. You require a Pinterest Business account but the majority of the work can be done for you if you have a Magento account. The Magento integration will automatically format your products into rich pins on Pinterest and generate a product feed in the right format for the buyable pins programme. Once you’ve done this, there are a few more steps:

• Create browsable product pins for your catalogue 
• You then need to add a blue ‘buy it’ button and price on the top to turn them into buyable pins
• Ensure your site has integrated the specific API required for Pinterest (Magento will do this for you) 

Kanuka Digital and Social Commerce  

As part of our social media commerce services we offer; product catalogue integration with Facebook Commerce Manager, Facebook/Instagram Shop customisation and dynamic content. We measure success by tracking the number of shop purchases, providing comprehensive analytics from bounce rates to number of visitors and product page views.

Social Commerce case study: Mountfield Lawnmowers

Founded in 1962, Mountfield have become the UK’s best sellers for petrol and ride on lawnmowers. With an increasing younger audience demographic, they were looking to reach new audiences by expanding from Google Ads into social commerce. 

We integrated their product feed into Facebook and Instagram and customised the way their products were displayed to enhance the user experience; incorporating best sellers, different categories and sale items. The social shops have allowed them to get more comprehensive insights into how their products were performing organically and has further enhanced their audience.

And of course, it’s given them a profitable, significant revenue stream.