E-commerce is not subsiding anytime soon. The global pandemic has changed everyone’s lives. Furthermore, our means of shopping is changing from traditional to social. Whether you are an e-commerce or storefront business owner, social commerce marketing can help you reach your goals.

Building trust is an important part of the process to attract new customers. The impersonal world of online business makes that more difficult and time consuming. Not being able to provide the ability to touch and experience a product firsthand is also a challenge of e-commerce.

Social commerce leverages the power of networking to solve both of these problems. It can both build your brand online and expand it beyond geographic limits.

What is Social Commerce?

The broad concept of Social Commerce is relatively straightforward: reward your loyal customers for sharing and talking about the products they own. It takes word of mouth marketing a step further by actively working with your best customers and rewarding them for their efforts.

Think about it, who better to sell your products than your satisfied customers? People naturally provide their opinions on products and services every day. Social commerce marketing uses what individuals do already: share their favorite products. In other words, they become powerful marketers for your brand.

But how do you encourage product sharing? Simply provide incentives for those who promote your brand or product. Reward them with things such as product discounts, bonus loyalty points, or free products. This marketing method is not about removing brick-and-mortar retail systems. Instead, it is an enhancement by combining physical and digital selling like never before.

How Does Social Commerce Work?

There are a variety of ways you can make social commerce marketing work for your brand. There is no one size fits all approach as it depends on your industry and product category, marketing mix and distribution channels. There are some important elements you should keep in mind when building your social commerce marketing strategy.

Build Trust

As previously mentioned, it takes time to build trust with your potential customers, even more so in an online environment. Studies have shown that, on average, it takes a minimum of eight interactions with your brand before a customer considers a purchase.

However, there is a way to shorten this span of time. Glean from the pre-existing trust that your customer marketers have already earned with their connections. When they share your products with their network, this will substantially increase the trust level newcomers have in the product.

For example, Amy has known Nicole for years. Nicole gets on social media raving about a new product that she recently purchased. Amy is now curious about the product and is considering purchasing one for herself. Yet, Amy saw an ad for the product recently and didn’t even think to click on it. This immediate jump in interest happened because of her level of personal connection and trust with Nicole.

Provide Product Experiences

Around 51% of online shoppers want to experience a product before making a purchase. Social commerce marketing casts a wide net to ensure your potential online customers are able to truly experience your brand. These experiences come from organized local meetups or a trusted friend’s experience.

For example, a sofa is meant to help you relax in your home. Your customer wants to experience the true comfort that it provides. By viewing a product like these on a screen, they can’t physically feel the texture of the material. They also can’t feel themselves sink into its cushions.

Yet, they may be able to sit on this same couch at a friend’s house. Or they can schedule a meetup with a local acquaintance or “host” to try out the couch in person. Then they place an order and the host gets a reward for their demo efforts.

These are the types of sales opportunities that social commerce marketing can provide for your business.

Find Social Commerce Opportunities with Moast

This method sounds like the perfect solution for your business. After all, it’s a triple-win situation for your business, your existing customer, and potential clients. However, you don’t know where to start.

Moast is here to help brands like yours establish the right opportunities. Let us help you turn your current customers into an army of brand ambassadors.

Contact us to get access today. Let us help you start using social commerce marketing to help your brand thrive.