Social media platforms, which entered our lives not too long ago, in the mid-2000s, take up more and more of our space and time with their various features. It has been quite a while since we first caught up with old friends on Facebook. Using today’s social media platforms, we share the details of our lives, our hobbies, our ideas on home decor, pictures from our trips, make business connections, express our ideas, directly contact artists, administrators or brands, and create music lists or videos and present them to people whom we’ve never met. Over the last few years, a new activity has been added to the list of things we use social media platforms for. Social media platforms are becoming lively, dynamic marketplaces, where brands and small businesses market their products and followers share their purchasing experiences. This particular market, referred to as “s-commerce”, which is short for “social commerce”, allows access to millions of people and offers features distinct from the rest of e-commerce sites.
What is S-Commerce?
The idea of social commerce, first mentioned by Yahoo! in 2005, has, since its inception, been described in various ways as social media platforms have evolved. It current description is complex, as it includes all other past descriptions.
In general terms, we can describe social commerce as a shopping system facilitated through social media platforms, like Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. This system allows all types of shopping to be carried out on social media platforms. It includes contributions from users who promote the sale of products and services online, marketing ads that aim to direct customers to corporate e-commerce websites, as well as “influencer” marketing.
What is the relationship between E-Commerce and Social Commerce?
Clearly, S-commerce has entered our lives as an extension of e-commerce. Evolving consumer behavior and demands have led to e-commerce platforms being more visible on social media, which offers more inclusive and interactive platforms.
Brands and e-commerce sites can monitor customer trends and expectations more accurately on social media platforms and offer more personalized suggestions to promote purchasing. With a reliable e-commerce infrastructure, social media platforms offer a site whereby sales can be completed. Today, many small businesses choose this method for selling their products.
Based on the report, “Economy’s Transformative Power: E-Commerce Impact Assessment”, published by the Turkish Informatics Industry Association (TÜBİSAD) in June 2021, 63% of businesses placed ads for their brands or products on social media, and 73% believed that social media offered the advantage of being readily available. On the consumer end, 41% stated that social media influenced their e-commerce preferences.
What are the Differences between E-Commerce and S-Commerce?
- Social commerce is a subset of electronic commerce, and it involves the use of social and online media, which support social interactions. E-commerce refers to purchasing goods, products or services on the internet, and it can be conducted in different categories, including business-to-consumer (B2C), business-to-business (B2B), or customer-to-customer (C2C).
- Social commerce allows customers to interact with, explore and purchase the products on social media without having the leave the social media platform.
- Establishing an e-commerce site requires comprehensive work and a lot of funding. Social commerce can be managed on social media platforms, without making costly infrastructure investments. This provides an important advantage to small business that are entering the market.
- Mutual interaction forms the foundation of social commerce. Customer feedback is quick. Customers can take part in the social media content posted about the products or brands, whereas relationships on e-commerce platforms are more formal.
- Thanks to their advanced algorithms, social media platforms allow you to view the products or services you might like without having to scan through hundreds of products on the e-commerce sites. Platforms dependent on visual perception, such as Instagram, make it easier for people to connect with products.
How is S-Commerce Conducted?
Aware of social commerce’s potential to grow, platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest allow users to open a business account. These accounts make it easier to take the necessary steps to bring your business online and to monitor your progress. That’s why it is recommended to open business accounts on the platforms you’d like to trade on and if possible, link these accounts to each other.
In the second step, you need to create product catalogues, add these catalogues to your social media profiles and direct your customers to a trusted payment platform. Carefully created product catalogues will make it easier for your customers to filter their preferences in your online shop.
In your product descriptions, you need to make sure the language you use is appropriate and tailored to the social media platform you use and your audience. You should also be sure the payment information is easy to understand.
Diversify your content and update it as much as possible. Share videos that introduce the product and its production stages, post photos and use the story feature on social media platforms effectively.
You should also follow your analytics to have a more detailed picture of your visitors and your customers.
On Which Platforms Can You Conduct S-Commerce?
Each social media platform has a different approach to s-commerce, but the one thing they have in common is the ease at which they allow purchasing decisions and steps to be made.
Instagram
Having started as a photo and video editing app in 2010, Instagram is one of the most popular media platforms in the world today. Considering its strong interaction, sharing and participation features, Instagram’s popularity is not surprising. The visual templates offered by the platform also allow businesses to create an attractive storefront to market their products.
Leveraging its visual strength, Instagram now allows people to shop from your photos and videos, using the “Shopping” feature. With this feature, you can open up an online shop, where you can upload and customize your sale catalogue, use tags to encourage shopping and group together the products under specific themes by creating collections.
The app also aims to provide easier access to users with the “Shopping” tab, found on the “Explore” page.
Another feature that is activated in the US, but not in Turkey, enables entire transactions to be completed on Instagram by clicking on the “Checkout at Instagram” button. The fact that it is already available in the US signals that this feature will be available in Turkey in the near future.
Facebook
With 1.84 billion daily users, Facebook continues to be the largest social media network, currently hosting over 80 million business accounts. Its Marketplace feature allows users to sell or purchase products, go through product listings and explore products they might need or want.
Facebook is expected to launch the “Shops” feature soon. Similar to the “Shopping” feature on Instagram, users will be able to set up a shop, create product catalogues and complete all transactions on the platform.
Pinterest
Pinterest is a social media platform that allows users to add inspiring visuals and videos, based on their interests, to their online pinboards. Although currently not the most popular, Pinterest has potential to grow in Turkey. Pinterest differs from other social media platforms insofar as users spend 50% more time on this platform compared to that of other platforms. About 50% of all Pinterest users in the world are in the US, and women make up 70% of the users. Last year, Generation Z’s Pinterest use has gone up by 40%, which indicates that its social commerce volume will expand.
To trade on Pinterest, you need to open a business account. This account helps users get the most out of Pinterest and gives them access to analyses, ads and special contents. On Pinterest, you can create customized pinboards and catalogues, get your audience to view your products, and increase your traffic and sales by directing users to your product pages by pinning them.
The Effective Power of Social Media: Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing, or impact marketing, is basically a social media marketing method. It is a concept that involves famous people, social media account owners with many followers, or experts in a field collaborating with products or brands, and expressing their experiences or ideas related to these products.
Posts by these influencers act as social credibility and aim to promote the product, increase the brand’s interaction or guide the users to sales channels. In order for influencer marketing to be successful, it needs to be compatible with the influencer’s identity on social media, as well as the brand’s needs.
As the number of social media users and their activities increase, influencer marketing must adapt to these changes. The recent addition of “nano-influencers” to the mega, macro, and micro influencer groups is a case in point of this adaptation. To be a mega influencer, you need to have over one million subscribers. More than 50 thousand can make you a macro influencer, and more than 10 thousand, a micro influencer. Nano influencers, on the other hand, have between 1 to 10 thousand subscribers and are willing to place ads on social media platforms.
Mega influencers help brands reach a wide audience, whereas nano influencers help reach a certain customer segment through candid and natural social media posts at a fraction of the cost.
The Advantages of Social Commerce
Social commerce increases the interaction between customers and brands
When it comes to promoting sales to potential customers, socializing plays a big role. Buyers can enter into direct interaction with the brands they like on social media, read posts written by other shoppers, consult their friends on their purchasing decisions or convince them to make a purchase. This interaction between the customer and the seller increases brand loyalty and sales. This almost instantaneous interaction model is much quicker and more intense than that of traditional e-commerce platforms and is highly valuable in today’s high tempo online environment.
Social commerce is a quickly-developing area of commerce
The Digital 2021 Turkey report prepared by We Are Social and Hootsuite states that:
- 70.8% of the Turkish population, which equals 60 million people, use social media.
- 59.1% of social media users in Turkey prefer mobile phones for access and spend an average of 2 hours and 57 minutes per day on social media.
- The key age range that marketers can reach through ads on social media is 18-54 years-olds.
- The five most popular social media platforms used in Turkey are YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp and Twitter, in respective order of popularity.
- On mobile phones, the order of popularity changes to WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Twitter, respectively.
The findings of this research in Turkey show similarities to the rest of the world, proof that Turkey is digitalizing. Generation Y and Z are especially dynamic users of social media, and they tend to meet many of their needs, including socializing and shopping, on social media. These data show that social commerce will be on the agenda for many years to come.
Social Commerce allows you to reach your target audience.
The constantly improving algorithms of social media platforms help you to reach your target audience for your products and services with perfect accuracy. One of the biggest advantages of social commerce, compared to traditional or electronic commerce, is that it presents ready-to-go products to ready-to-buy customers.
Social commerce provides a hassle-free experience to customers
Social media shopping has features that provide an easy transition from exploring products to purchasing them. By clicking on the products we like, it is relatively easy to see its price and to purchase it.
E-commerce harbors the risk of turning shopping into a long trip that involves searching through multiple pages and different filters, where each click has the potential to change the buyer’s opinion on a purchase.
Social Commerce increases sales.
Social commerce provides an effective customer support tool, allowing you to directly interact with your target audience, answer their questions and provide live support. This creates happy customers and more sales.
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