Nowadays, social networks have become an integral part of everyday life. Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest among others continue to engage users with relatable content, making them spend hours scrolling through their feed. With almost 90% of Asia Pacific’s population surfing through mobile commerce, brands and retailers put this media to greater use, thus, inventing a fairly new concept called Social Commerce.

1. Social Commerce: The Winning
Combination of Social Media and
eCommerce
Nowadays, social networks have become an integral part of everyday life. Facebook,
TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest among others continue to engage
users with relatable content, making them spend hours scrolling through their feed.
With almost 90% of Asia Pacific’s population surfing through mobile commerce,
brands and retailers put this media to greater use, thus, inventing a fairly new concept
called Social Commerce.
Earlier, businesses simply relied on social channels to improve their brand presence
and connect with their customers. But, in recent years, it has become far more than
that. Today, these channels have evolved to become another medium for online
shopping.
For instance, your shoppers might see a pair of red boots on their Facebook page, hit
“shop now” and complete the purchase then and there. Or, one of their friends has
posted a story featuring their brand new smartwatch. When they click on it, they can
purchase the same product right there in the app.
In a joint survey conducted by Magento and Hootsuite, almost 6 in 10 consumers
claimed that one-quarter of their online shopping is influenced by Facebook and
YouTube.

2. So, what exactly is social commerce and how can you benefit from it?
Social Commerce- Meaning and Practices
Investopedia explains social commerce as ‘The use of networking websites such as
Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter as vehicles to promote and sell their products.’
Although the definition may seem complex, implementing it is pretty simple. To put it
in context, as users interact with unique content, brands and businesses leverage
social presence to successfully achieve their marketing goals.
These practices include—
• Offering discounts and promotions, to users who share products on their social
feeds.
• Providing personalized buying options and a seamless browsing-to-checkout
journey.
• Attracting users with striking graphics such as videos and images, compelling
product descriptions, interesting posts, etc.
• Encouraging user-generated content such as product endorsements, reviews, and
recommendations, etc.
In a nutshell, social commerce creates a mini-shopping experience directly onto the
users’ social pages and motivates them to shop by interacting with the products and
services. Consumers can directly buy products, or share them with their friends and
followers, or otherwise review them directly on these social vehicles.
What Does Social Commerce Look Like Today
Of late, Social commerce has evolved into a powerful sales channel. Till now, brands
and retailers carried eCommerce activities only through conventional media. But,
social commerce has opened new opportunities that help buyers have a faster and
effective route to the instant shopping experience. This way brands and businesses
develop a meaningful relationship with these social users.

3. Source: The Rise of Social Commerce in Southeast Asia Report
Understanding the potential of social commerce, The Asia Social Commerce Report
conducted by Paypal, claims that almost 80% of retail businesses across APAC sell
through social media.

4. Taking a hint from brands and businesses, social channels keep focusing their efforts
to enhance this trend.
Social media companies keep adding new capabilities and functionalities to make the
shopper’s purchase journey easier than before.
To help optimize a seamless shopping experience, Instagram and Facebook have
enabled checkout features directly, without letting users leave the app.
Another significant feature of social commerce is having an interactive look-book or
visual catalogues. While Facebook has enabled relevant Call-To-Action buttons like
‘shop now ‘or ‘buy now’, Instagram has initiated a shop icon giving access to the latest
products that brands and retailers have on their eCommerce channels.
Apart from these capabilities, businesses have started focusing on tools, software, and
AI-enabled systems. User-friendly chatbots, products featured through live-selling and
broadcasting, social celebrity endorsements, etc. have had a significant prominence.
APAC businesses claim to have increased 13%-16% sales just by using live-
streaming.

5. As a result, most businesses agree to social commerce being a dominating
differentiator to expand their multichannel selling activities.
Benefits of Social Commerce
Although social commerce positively impacts the overall sales volume, that’s not the
only benefit you can get.
1. Improved Customer Engagement
Social networks open a two-way communication channel between your business and
customers. It does not just help you to promote your products, but also, enables your
audience to relate with them. Users are more likely to read reviews, comments,
opinions from previous customers on these channels. This further enhances the
authenticity of your business and helps them make an informed decision accordingly.
Some channels go further than this, and help you build a seamless shopping
experience with them. For example, Instagram has introduced Shoppable Instagram
Feed that lets you tag your products collected from user generated content or your
own posts and embed it directly to your eCommerce websites. So, with just two or
three clicks, shoppers can easily navigate to the right product page and purchase that
specific item.
2. Consistent Audience Growth
The primary aim of social commerce is to build a consistent audience. As per Kiepo’s
analysis, Southeast Asia has a new user generation rate at 16.98%. These statistics
clearly highlight the importance of social channels in the lives of Generation Z and how
your business can expand its scope of advertising and marketing; Resultantly,
exposing your sales activities to a newer user base every time.
Source: HootSuite

6. Since you acquire new shoppers through these channels, it is equally important you
maintain the same level of relationship with every user that interacts with your
business. By using the right methods to connect with them, you encourage the
shoppers to resonate with your brand, and they are more likely to recommend your
products.
Having a social commerce strategy therefore allows you to roll out new audience
growth and consistently retain your existing consumers.
3. Increased Average Order Value
It is no secret that millennials are the primary users of social channels. Brands and
businesses now understand the dynamics of the millennial market and how they need
to cater to them.
Seamless shopping experience, direct checkout, interactive lookbooks, etc. are a
great way to convince these users to shop more online.
Also, it increases your average order value (average amount customers are likely to
spend in one go) based on the content shared on your audience’s social page, the
ease of purchase cycle regardless of the device they use, what their friends and
followers are shopping for these days, etc.
The point is, social media can influence users to spend more, and, you can leverage
this information to curate better suggestions for your shoppers.
Furthermore, integrating your multichannel management platform with your social
channels, can help you synthesize the datasets into actionable insights.
4. Higher Search Engine Ranking
It is already proven that social media not only increases traffic to your website, but
also, leads to direct transactions. How? Better engagement helps you drive relevant
content according to the users’ interests, thus motivating them to make frequent
purchases.
This further helps you to create link build-up, recommendations, feedback and
comments, etc. Such organic actions improve your digital foot-print, resulting in
maximizing your search engine ranking.
5. Improved Customer Insights

7. Social commerce simplifies your efforts to measure and evaluate business insights.
Since all these channels come with ready metrics for impressions, engagement, and
reach, you are able to measure them regularly. It helps you group your audiences
appropriately, thus, sharing the right content with all of them.
Depending on the objectives and KPIs you set for social commerce, you can formulate
an effective plan and determine what is beneficial for your business.
A/B testing your recent initiatives, monitoring your content relevancy, studying your
followers and prospects helps you in understanding specific insights.
Social commerce is a trend that is going to get much stronger in the coming years.
The Social Commerce Global Market and Trajectory Report projects this trend to grow
to $604.5 billion in the next seven years. It is not only going to help you expand your
brand presence, but also enable you to create winning retail strategies.
So, when the competition grows, ensure that you invest the right amount of money,
time, and effort to maximize your chances of success through Social Commerce.