With social media use at an all-time high, social commerce or “social selling” is an intriguing proposition for brands. The halo effect of being connected to an influencer can be an appealing sales strategy, using their social media channels to connect with prospective customers, develop connections and drive sales. Social commerce can be a successful tool for brands and a fun and helpful way for consumers to discover and purchase new products. But it only really works if the connective tissue in this relationship, influencers, are set up for success.
What Brands Should Know About Social Selling Today
Unfortunately, not all brands have taken full advantage of social selling and the vast ecosystem of potential customers it opens. It’s not that social selling or social commerce is hyped or not, it’s that certain elements of it are not delivering on their promise.
What Brands Should Know About Social Selling Today
While there’s no silver bullet to “doing social commerce right,” here are a few things to keep in mind:
What Brands Should Know About Social Selling Today
Make Creating Seamless
To work effectively, a social commerce ecosystem must prioritize the influencer (at Mavely, we call them “creators”) at the center. The platform needs to be seamless and efficient, the user experience should be top-notch and the payoff has to be worth the effort.
What Brands Should Know About Social Selling Today
Platforms that involve too many steps for creators to get started, or offer unnecessary hurdles like only being able to tag certain products, have struggled to gain adoption among the creator audience, causing some, like Instagram, to abandon their affiliate programs altogether. And being tethered to a single platform can undermine a creator by forcing their followers to only engage on one venue, or excluding them.
What Brands Should Know About Social Selling Today
What is working is true connections and discovery. Social platforms each have a unique value proposition — YouTube for education, Instagram for discovery and TikTok…
What Brands Should Know About Social Selling Today
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