Social commerce has become one of the social media marketing trends in recent years, and is predicted to grow even more in the following years. Even PR Newswire, the value of global social commerce is expected to grow to 604.5 billion dollars. Not without reason, this happens because of the increasingly massive development of social media. So it’s no wonder that apart from using social media as a marketing channel (platform marketing campaign), marketers also maximize it for selling. Because, now social media is not only useful for expanding connections, but also for buying and selling transactions. For that, know the marketing campaign strategy to maximize sales through social media below!
What is Social Commerce?
Launching from Bigcommerce, social commerce is the activity of selling products directly through social media. This term is different from social selling or social media marketing. This is because social commerce offers an easier shopping experience (customer experience) for customers. This is because customers no longer need to go to a website or marketplace to buy a product. They can immediately search for products as well as pay for them through the social media platform. So, customers will feel the convenience of the shopping process without having to leave their social media applications.
The difference between Social Commerce and E-Commerce
You need to understand that social commerce and e-commerce are different. E-commerce is the process of buying and selling online, for example through marketplaces, landing pages, websites, and so on. Meanwhile, social commerce is the process of buying and selling through social media, so users don’t need to leave the application to buy products. You need to know that based on research, more than 50% of internet traffic comes from mobile devices. However, usually users tend to ignore the shopping cart more than desktop users. So, simplifying the checkout process is the key to making it easier for users to checkout and buy. Thus, social commerce is a solution to eliminate problem points that result in users ignoring their shopping carts.
Benefits of Social Commerce
Here are some of the benefits of social commerce that you need to know:
1. Improving Customer Experience
According to Hootsuite, the first benefit of using social commerce is improving the customer experience, because it can make the shopping experience much more interactive than shopping in regular e-commerce. Because buyers can shop more practically because they can choose goods and pay directly in one application.
2. Easier to Get Feedback
Next is to make it easier for brands to get feedback from customers. Because usually customers will provide feedback directly on the product catalog, so sellers can find out which products are the most interesting. In addition, social media will also make it easier for sellers to communicate and interact with customers. For example via comments or direct messages. 3. Wider Audience Reach The third benefit is a wider audience reach. Because social commerce is a platform that is preferred by various groups. Especially because the checkout and payment process is easy. So that the customer conversion rate will be higher and optimal (conversion rate optimization).
Strategies to Optimize Social Commerce
After knowing the benefits of social commerce for optimizing lead conversions, now you also have to know what strategies need to be implemented to maximize it, as follows:
1. Know Your Target Audience
The first is to identify who your target market or consumer segment is. For that, you need to do research and audience analysis on social media to find complete information. For example, gender, age, profession, and so forth. After knowing this information, you can use it to segment customers and get insights regarding customer needs, pain points, and so on. The more specific the research you do, the more you will know what your ideal customer is to create a persona. That way, you can offer products or services that best suit their needs, so the conversion rate can be even higher.
2. Create Interesting Content
Social media is a very effective marketing channel to attract consumer interest. So, social media can be a very good promotional tool to maximize sales. Therefore, you need to create interesting content related to the product you are marketing, so that your audience is interested in buying it. To create engaging content, you need to create the right content plan or content plan. For example functional content related to product knowledge, educational content, informative content, or content that involves audience participation to increase engagement rates. For example contest marketing content such as giveaways, and so on.
3. Actively Interact with Audiences
The next strategy is to always actively interact with audiences to increase engagement. Usually, the audience will ask about product details, product prices, payment options, shipping, and so on before deciding to buy a product. So you need to answer these questions clearly. Try to always provide informative answers and give the impression of being friendly. Also pay attention to your response time. Make sure you don’t take too long to respond to questions. Because the faster your response time, the more satisfied customers will feel.
4. Evaluation of Audience Feedback
One of the advantages of social commerce is the ease of getting feedback from the audience. Now, when you have received various kinds of reviews and testimonials from consumers, then you need to do an evaluation. The goal is to find out whether your product is in accordance with market orientation or not. This evaluation is also very important to help the product development process better and ensure quality. Because you need to improve your product so that customer satisfaction is maintained. This is a review of social commerce strategies to optimize sales through social media. Along with the times and digital transformation as it is now, marketers are indeed required to be good at utilizing the most optimal marketing channels to market products. Social media is one of the most effective marketing channels to increase sales today. Apart from the massive increase in the number of users, using social media as a selling platform is also capable of producing higher conversion rates. Because basically, selling through social media does offer convenience and practicality in transactions.