Social and commerce just go together, like peanut butter and jelly. And Meta, TikTok and Amazon are all vying for a bite of the social shopping explosion.
Researchers at Insider Intelligence estimate social commerce will become a $100 billion market by 2025, up from $67 billion this year. This presents marketers with an unparalleled opportunity.
The question is how to win in this fast-moving landscape.
Driving purchases on social platforms
Social media is no longer just for connection. It is increasingly for experience, too. We’ve all been along for the meteoric rise of short-form video and the dominance of creators and influencers on culture and commerce. TikTok hit 1 billion users in 2021, and marketers have taken notice.
Creators lend an air of authenticity, which is a goal for brands who want to turn creator popularity into sales. This intersection of authenticity and performance signals a change from an era of brand loyalty to one of brand trust. If a consumer believes in the creator-driven content they are seeing across social, they are much more likely to trust the message and ultimately purchase the product. Some brands have seen as high as 50% conversion within shoppable media when using influencer creative, according to a recent Ad Age story.
But social commerce still has a long way to go to realize dominance within the commerce sector. Despite the rise of social search, most people don’t go to social media with an intent to buy: They’re inspired to do so from the content they see. Purchases may not happen on the platform, but both Meta and TikTok are angling to change that.
The play for Meta makes sense in two key ways. Removing friction from the purchase journey equals more purchases. The rise of mobile saw a focus on collapsing the purchase journey with tactics like clicking straight from ad to product. Social commerce simplifies this further by taking shoppers from feed to purchase in a matter of seconds. Likewise, having access to the conversion data in-platform means the ability to optimize better.
As marketers face signal loss with iOS14 and beyond, social commerce offers full visibility into the purchase journey, including details like who bought what, for how much and when. This data is extremely powerful for driving relevance and ultimately influencing new purchases.
TikTok Shop, which recently launched in the US, could be a huge hit among Gen Z – 31% now consider TikTok as the best creator commerce destination vs. 26% for YouTube and 24% for Instagram, per 2022 data from IZEA. Today, users spend an average of 2+ hours a day on TikTok. Now, the platform aims to reach $10 million in sales a day by the end of the year, according to a recent WSJ article.
Improving engagement
As platforms continue to roll out developments aimed at getting users to think of them as shopping destinations, the biggest challenge will be keeping users engaged for longer. For example, TikTok considers itself an entertainment platform, versus a purely social one, famously saying “you check social media, but you watch TikTok.”
In order to keep audiences attentive, brands need to offer content that prioritizes entertainment, which can take many forms. Content should entertain, inspire, teach or provide audiences something of value. The look and feel of successful vertical video ad creative can feel organic or highly produced, but, ultimately, entertainment and utility remain paramount to performance.
Another best practice in-market right now is Meta’s “The Language of Reels,” which offers ways to make creative that is organic to the platform.
Mastering this language on each platform is critical to making sure you stand out by fitting in. Creative assets should feel like a natural part of the viewing experience to reduce friction with audiences.
Quality always counts
The data doesn’t lie. According to Nielsen, today 70% of ad performance is driven by creative. And as more tech players bid for attention in this rapidly growing social commerce market, the differentiator will be the quality of the ad creative at the right time and with the right message.
The experience will be what stops the thumb scroll and gets consumers to click, engage and buy.
“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.
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