It’s now 2024, and e-commerce has advanced significantly. While 2025 has a lot on the horizon, people are still trying to capture the essence of social commerce as a marketing method. Social commerce was first brought up by the global tech company Yahoo! in 2005. It was linked to their project called “Shoposphere,” which allowed users to create their product listings, provide ratings, and share their views for it. Since then, it has evolved so much as a branch of e-commerce that is still evolving.
Users now get a seamless shopping experience through integrated social media and e-commerce platforms. Straits Research, a globally acknowledged market intelligence and market research organization, has stated the social commerce market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 31.60%, clearly highlighting the tremendous scope that this sub-branch of e-commerce carries. Read ahead as we delve deep into knowing what exactly social commerce is, how it’s beneficial for businesses, and shed light on ways to leverage it and its future as well.
What Is Social Commerce?
Social commerce is the practice through which businesses directly sell their products/services to people over the online world using various social media platforms. Think of it as an amalgamation of your preferred social media platform and an e-commerce one. That is the best way to brief what exactly social commerce is. Wouldn’t it be convenient for you to buy a product/service on the same social media channel from where you treasured it? Although it might sound a bit like social media marketing, actually it’s not. Utilizing social commerce as a marketing method involves facilitating users to complete their buying journey within the social media platform itself, without needing them to get redirected to a different platform.
How Is Social Commerce Marketing Advantageous To Businesses?
As a business unit, you have a limited amount of funds that need to be allocated in different areas that facilitate your business’ growth. Trying out something new as a part of your marketing strategy is always skeptical. So how do you credit social commerce as a marketing tool that would aid you in making significant strides in your business journey? The answer lies in the tried and true results that so many businesses have got till now. From helping businesses demonstrate their social proofing to allowing them to directly interact with customers and boost their sales chart, there’s a lot that social commerce marketing can help you do.
Helps Attract A Mass Of New Customers
Capturing a customer’s attention is key in this digital age. Luckily, social media helps you do that efficiently. By having a sturdy presence on various social media platforms, you boost your chances of appearing in new places, in front of potential customers. Moreover, social commerce aids you in better communicating with your customers as a means of promoting your products.
Backs Your Credibility
Social proofing is everything required for a successful social commerce marketing campaign. Social media platforms allow users to share their views and experiences for a particular product or service, helping businesses to build trust and credibility in the ever-competitive digital sphere. Customers straight away jump into the comment section to discover how practicable the deemed product is. Furthermore, they look for influencers’ reviews for their chosen product to better assess its suitability for themselves. This way, brands can easily enhance their standing in the ever-evolving competitive niche that they are operating in.
Better Acquisition Rates
Providing users with an amalgamated social commerce experience reduces the chances of abandoned shopping carts. Having such a provision means no distractions or unwanted ads would be there, allowing customers to stay on the right track, i.e., buying their chosen product. Additionally, social commerce allows businesses to gather and analyze data to better understand their customers’ preferences to tailor their offerings accordingly. Chatbots could also be used to drive more engagement and sales.
What Sort Of Businesses Can Be Benefited From Social Commerce Marketing?
Social commerce is surely a worthwhile instrument that allows businesses to reach their customers in a more direct and personalized manner by creating a seamless shopping experience for them. Even though this marketing technique is equally good for businesses of all kinds, it’s contemplated that those having Gen Z as their customer base will be more likely to thrive. Spending hours daily scrolling through the social media platform, they are the ones who are so rich in social awareness and have high expectations from brands. Plus, they are the lighthouse customers, always keen on trying out new things. By understanding their needs and preferences and catering to the same, a business can surely achieve more growth for itself. It has been estimated that around 32% of Gen Zs make a purchase decision based on an influencer’s recommendations.
Best Platforms For Social Commerce
By having your presence on different social media platforms, you can easily turn the usual social media content into a sales agent, working round the clock for your business. But how to begin with everything? Which platform to choose and why? These thoughts might be concerning you. Fret not! as we’ll now explore the top social media platforms that you can leverage for social commerce marketing for business.
As the fastest growing social media platform in the world, Facebook has over 3.07 billion monthly active users. They feature a standalone social commerce tool called Facebook Shops, which allows users to sell their products on it. Each month, around one million users buy the featured items, demonstrating the low entry barriers this platform has. For social commerce buyers, it’s expected that the numbers will reach 64.6 million by the end of 2024.
TikTok
With an active base of over 1.58 billion active users worldwide, TikTok needs to be at the forefront of social media channels to be used for social commerce marketing. The social commerce it features is truly commendable. By creating an account over it, businesses can either create shoppable videos featuring their products or go live to showcase their offerings.
Around one-third, or about 34%, of the active monthly users on Instagram make purchases on the platform itself only, making it the most popular social commerce platform to look for in 2025. Via shoppable posts and reels, users can feature their products on Instagram, allowing customers to directly buy their preferred products without needing to get redirected to some other platform. Other possibilities include using the livestream feature to showcase some chosen products while interacting with the public.
As of now, there are around 518 million monthly active users on this social media platform, of which almost three-quarters of the users are women. Make your Pinterest business page, upload your product catalog, and start selling. That’s how simple it is to do business through Pinterest. To elaborate, you have to tag the uploaded products in your pins to let customers click on these tags, from where they will be directed to the actual product page to complete their purchase.
YouTube
Currently, YouTube has over 2.49 billion monthly active users, which is equivalent to almost 47% of the world’s total population, evidencing the opportunity worth apprehending. This free online video-sharing platform allows users to feature their offered products on their channel’s Store tab, allowing potential customers to directly make the purchase without needing to leave the platform. It’s up to you whether you want to showcase the products via videos, Shorts, or live streams.
Snapchat
As per estimates, Snapchat has around 443 million daily active users worldwide. This Gen Z- and Millennial-loved platform enables social commerce through various interactive features like Shoppable Snaps and augmented reality lenses. Using shoppable snaps, users are able to directly purchase the product, while AR lenses allow brands to offer a more immersive experience to their customer base. The possibilities include virtual try-ons and more. By creating interactive content, brands can effortlessly combine entertainment with shopping, advancing their sales chart.
Ways To Incorporate Social Commerce In Your Marketing Strategy
The e-commerce industry is thriving, and brands need to match the growing pace if they are serious about growth. Around 65% of all the e-commerce traffic is based on mobile commerce accounts, exhibiting the power that lies for businesses in providing users with a more mobile-friendly shopping experience. Almost all the major social media platforms are becoming inclusive of social commerce, presenting a whole lot of variables that can be opted as a means of employing it as a marketing tool. Following are some possibilities for it:
Optimize Social Media Profiles
The key to a successful social commerce campaign is to have optimized social media profiles for your brand. Complete your profile by filling it with unfeigned information and featuring high-quality images and videos, as they are pivotal to attracting a huge customer base. Showcase the offered products attractively and engagingly by utilizing platform-specific features like Instagram shopping, Facebook shops, or Pinterest shopping.
Create Meaningful And Shoppable Content
No matter which social media platform you use, it’s crucial to present your products in action through videos and even live streams if possible. Encourage your audience to share their experiences using your products and post them as UGC posts that will act as social proof for your brand. UGC posts are almost like word-of-mouth advertising that might even earn you more ROI than paid promotions.
Opting For Influencer Marketing
Look for relevant influencers that align with your brand voice and target audience and partner with them. You can either provide them with your provided products/services at a discounted rate or give the same to them as a sample and ask them to create video reviews based on your offered products/services’ utility. Additionally, you can choose to run contests and giveaways partnering with those influencers.
Stay Updated About Social Media Trends
Social media is all about trends and updates. What’s trending now might not stay relevant after a couple of months. Therefore, you have to keep yourself up-to-date with all the latest social media trends and best practices to stay ahead of everyone.
Is Social Commerce The Next Big Thing?
Since its first usage in 2005, the term “social commerce” has come a long way. As of now, there are around 5.22 billion active social media users globally, signifying the extent to which it could benefit businesses. As per the IT giant—Accenture, social commerce is expected to grow 3 times faster than traditional e-commerce, carrying a scope to reach a value of around $1.2 trillion by 2025. With social media becoming a shopping norm and its feed becoming the new storefront, more and more businesses are inclining towards inculcating social commerce as a means to boost their visibility.
What Are The Social Commerce Trends In 2025?
The social commerce landscape is evolving constantly, and there’s a lot down the road for 2025 that will transform how businesses interact with customers. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok will continue to better themselves, becoming more of a vibrant marketplace for customers to use for shopping. In the future ahead, shoppable content is expected to become more prevalent, and brands will be using it more as a way of boosting their online sales.
Additionally, the scope for hyper-personalization will rise even more, which will further enhance a brand’s ability to deliver a highly tailored experience that resonates with its audience. Employment opportunities will also be generated with new job roles on the horizon featuring roles like that of a social commerce strategist, social media merchandiser, social commerce data analyst, and social commerce customer experience manager, among others.
The Long and Short of It
From being used as a mere mode of interaction between businesses and their customers to facilitating ease of business, social media has advanced a lot. The vitalness of social commerce as a marketing tool can’t be emphasized enough. Providing brands with privileges like aiding them secure new customers by reaching a wider audience base, boosting brand awareness, and helping build long-lasting relationships, embodying social commerce in the marketing strategy can assuredly help businesses thrive in the digital sphere. We hope that this guide was helpful for you to get an in-depth understanding of what all social commerce marketing is about and the ways to leverage it.