The New Frontier in Social Commerce: Is Your Brand Ready?
The cofounders of Headliner Labs explain how retailers and brands can better use various social media platforms to drive sales.
E-commerce: In March, Instagram tested a limited rollout of revolutionary e-commerce capabilities, enabling in-app checkout for e-commerce purchasing. Functionally, this looks like an entire in-app branded web site accessible via posts and stories, with checkout utilizing Instagram’s new payment feature. Since then, Instagram has expanded this feature to more brands and most recently, added a double arrow symbol signifying posts where products can be purchased in-app — as shown in Kim Kardashian’s KKW Beauty Instagram store below.
Once a user checks out and inputs payment information into Instagram for the first time, they have a single-click checkout available to them for all future in-app purchases. This undeniably tightens the purchase funnel: Adidas reported that despite having to pay Instagram a fee for the capability, they saw online sales ales jump 40 percent, which they attributed ed in large part to Instagram. And Instagram m is just getting started with its in-app network etwork of branded sites; in November, it launched unched Instagram-curated product collections ctions as well as an @shop account consisting ting entirely of product posts.
2. TIKTOK
The explosive reach of TikTok is all anyone who focuses on social media has been talking about over the last few months. onths.
From its rapidly growing user base — 1 billion users and counting, more than 27 million of whom are monthly actives in the U.S. — to the fact that most of those users are in the coveted Gen Z demographic, there is no denying that TikTok is an emerging powerhouse in social media with staying power. And as all marketers know, every explosive platform comes with its own iteration of influencers, brand marketing and, ultimately, ads. Here’s what is going on by way of brand activity on TikTok:
Ads: Some retailers, such as Hollister and Poshmark, have tested out ad campaigns that include a button opening an in-app shopping site. Many, like Fenty Beauty in the image above, have invested in growing their brand accounts and creating unique content for it.
Social Commerce/Influencers: In the
U.S., November 2019 brought the first opening of social commerce capabilities in TikTok, unlocking two features for testing: (1) accounts can include a URL to an outside site in their bios, and (2) influencers can embed a link to e-commerce sites within their videos, creating “shoppable posts.” These capabilities can be used for influencers to direct traffic to e-commerce sites, and for brands with growing followings to promote certain products and link directly to them from their bios.
A lot more seems to be on the horizon for TikTok; in the Chinese version of the app, accounts that pass a certain threshold of followers can add a shopping cart button allowing their followers to purchase items. While buy buttons have historically resonated much more with Asian audiences than U.S. consumers, there are a variety of promising use cases including influencerdriven product-specific campaigns.
3. YOUTUBE
Ads: Many shoppers look to YouTube for reviews before purchasing a product. Now, when you search for product reviews, a Google Shopping ad may be triggered to display suggested products
4. SNAP
Social Commerce: The Snapchat app has more than 180 million daily active users and counting. Snap has long been focused on new ad options for marketers, and in October 2019, Snap released Dynamic
Ads to automate advertisements for e-commerce retailers. Before Dynamic
Ads, e-commerce retailers could only use the Catalog function to manually choose formats and displays for content. With Dynamic Ads, there are more effective creative displays and a higher degree of audience relevance. Dynamic Ads not only automate the templates for existing ads but also adjust themselves based on the effectiveness and conversion of results from other users. Snap claims that “more than 75 percent of the 13- to 34-year-old U.S. population is active on Snapchat” and Dynamic Ads enables e-commerce retailers to reach this audience more effectively.
5. PINTEREST
Visual Search/Commerce: Pinterest’s value to marketers continues to grow as it expands its discovery and purchase capabilities. Most recently, in September 2019, Pinterest announced enhanced Lens capabilities for its camera, which can now identify up to 2.5 billion different fashion and home items for visual search. And Pinterest went a step further, combining this with shoppable Product Pins that provide price information and links to e-commerce web sites where the item can be purchased, as well as offering recommendations of similar products. Marrying shoppable pins with Lens search results unlocks a unique opportunity for marketers in fashion and home by enabling brands to tap into visual search in a way that offers a clear path from discovery through purchase. And this pathway is of exceedingly high value: 80% of “Pinners” — Pinterests’s lingo signifying active users — and more than half of “nonPinners” begin their shopping journeys with visual search.
If you are a marketer, as you look beyond hitting your holiday 2019 KPIs, these five platforms and the emerging opportunities on them should be a focus of your 2020 planning.
Dana Gibber and Caroline Klatt are cofounders at Headliner Labs.