In brief
In brief
Social commerce, a key omnichannel strategy component, is a human-centric approach to online shopping that can change your consumer relationships.
Unless brands work with platforms, creators and consumers to get this right, the opportunity will fail to materialize.
There is no social commerce playbook, making it difficult for brands to identify how best to integrate social commerce into their brand strategy.
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Developing the right brand strategies for a complex social commerce world
Social commerce is much more than just another channel. It’s a human-centric approach to commerce, one that can fundamentally change the consumer dynamic . It enables instantaneous interactions and feedback and radically new experiences. In fact, it flips traditional transactional relationships on their head.
The scale of opportunity that social commerce offers brand managers is near-infinite. But so are the complex choices it presents. With so many models of engagement and potential routes to market (see graphic below), the challenge for brands is knowing where to play in a new field with no established playbook to follow.
Developing an effective social commerce strategy
In this essay, we’ll explore the choices brands need to make to succeed in this dynamic arena. And these are far from easy. The very thing that makes social commerce unique – the interrelationships between creators, influencers, consumers and platforms – also pushes brands out of their comfort-zone. Why? Because to co-create social commerce experiences, they need to relinquish a level of control. Instead of carefully managing the end-to-end experience, they need to put their trust in the partners they work with—including their end consumers—to create, enable, and organically evolve the most meaningful forms of connection.
Choosing the right engagement model
Brands must determine which engagement model(s) – content-driven, experience-driven, or network-driven – will be most effective for them. This is likely to involve some trade-offs. For many brands, content-driven models (such as shoppable posts) seem an obvious choice – and, for certain categories, they’re very much on target. With these types of models, content is clearly king. Accordingly, brands – and their partners – should get creative.
Cleaning brands are one such category and they’ve enjoyed great success in this space: #Cleantok videos have become something of a phenomenon, showcasing the cleaning prowess of various brands in a visually satisfying way. The #CloroxMistChallenge has more than 8bn views on TikTok, for example, with users juxtaposing the original cleaning video with their own types of “glow-up” to create a range of inventive transformation content. Users can navigate from the #CloroxMistChallenge landing page on TikTok to an in-app retailer via a “Shop Now” button.
Experience-driven models can include livestreaming, gamification and augmented reality. Nearly six out of 10 social media users say they’re likely to watch a livestream on beauty and personal care, for example, with streams often adding an entertainment element to keep shoppers engaged. E.l.f. Cosmetics was the first beauty brand to create a branded channel on Twitch, bringing together gaming and make-up. Food is another burgeoning space. Eating shows called “mukbang” currently have 51.8bn views on TikTok, while Chinese influencer Viya sold around US$125m worth of food products via livestreams in 2020 – almost 50% more than grocer Carrefour’s annual sales.
With excitement around the metaverse building, numerous brands are also exploring virtual commerce experiences. Take Absolut.Land, a virtual destination set up by the vodka brand to mimic and supplement its physical presence at Coachella. Visitors can mix cocktails, get exclusive merchandise, and earn discounts and prizes in the gamified, interactive environment.
In contrast, low purchase-risk categories like pantry staples can take advantage of network-driven models, such as group buying, that make use of existing social networks and connections to expand brand reach into new pools of consumers. More than one in four consumers rate this a “must have” for social commerce experiences related to food and groceries. One example? Pinduoduo connected 16m farmers to 869m buyers through group buying in its last financial year, driving a record 61bn orders. These types of models are best engaged when there is a clear “hook” such as humorous or catchy content, promotions or incentives, that can encourage widespread sharing through social networks.
Social media and commerce: choosing the best paths to market
While deciding which engagement model works for them, brands also need to pick the most effective route to market. Selling direct to consumers has clear advantages. It retains close control over how consumers experience a brand, and it’s a great way to deepen consumer relationships and collect data to improve social marketing performance. A good example? Beauty brand Kiehl's drove a 22% increase in sales through a Facebook campaign in Vietnam which used targeted Stories and a Messenger bot to enable direct consumer ordering.
However, to really grow brand awareness and engage with new consumers and/or communities, partners such as influencers can be a more productive, nuanced route that builds on the trusted relationships these partners already have with their community.
In the people-powered world of social commerce, influencers are evolving from promoters to strategic partners who can use their understanding of an audience to help brands to grow. This does require relinquishing a degree of control, however. Restaurant chain Chipotle is embracing this, inviting participants of their Chipotle Creator Class to brainstorm new ideas and strategies and help shape the brand’s future. In return, Chipotle supports the career growth of their creators, offering a range of perks and opportunities that promotes long-term collaboration.
Partners don’t need to be high-profile. In fact, our research shows that friends are the most powerful source of influence for both large and small brands. Prior studies also show that micro-influencers, those with fewer than 5,000 followers, consistently have the highest engagement rates because they are seen as the most authentic. In 2020, micro-influencers achieved a 5% engagement rate compared with just 1.6% for those with 1m+ followers.
If giving up control is challenging, virtual influencers could be considered. In China, where over 60% of social media users already follow a virtual character, engagement rates can be up to three times higher versus interactions with real people. Beauty companies such as L’Oreal, Laneige and Estee Lauder all now have virtual brand ambassadors, using them as the faces for their campaigns.
For brands that are ready to truly embrace people-power though, it’s possible to turn passionate consumers into advocates, marketers and sellers. Brands can reap big benefits from the halo effect of trust that these consumer-sellers create.
That’s what KFC China did in a collaboration with Accenture by creating a virtual KFC store that anyone could own via a WeChat mini program. Consumers became content creators and promoters. They could set up their own stores, sell items to be redeemed in physical outlets, add candies to their friends’ stores (to unlock offers), and compete with friends for popularity and ranking.
Considering your target consumers
Regardless of the engagement models and routes to market they select, brands need to make sure they tailor the social commerce experience they offer to the maturity of social shoppers in their target consumer base. And as we showed in Essay #2 of this series, shoppers around the world are at very different stages of maturity.
Social commerce users today can be divided into three key segments: immature, evolving, and mature shoppers. Within those segments, we’ve identified six shopper categories, each of which has different motivations and levels of engagement with different social commerce features.
Six shopper segments sit across the maturity curve, with increasing adoption of social features and willingness to pay
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Immature Shoppers Little-to-no experience shopping through social commerce
Evolving Shoppers Occasionally shop through social commerce with increasing comfort
Mature Shoppers Frequently use social commerce as a key purchase channel
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