What is social commerce?
The term “social commerce” consists of two important elements in marketing:
Social media: social networks.
Commerce.
In simple words, social commerce is when a company sells its products or services through social networks.
What is the difference between eCommerce and social commerce?
When we talk about e-commerce we refer to all online buying and selling processes. This type of commerce is characterized by being a more extensive sales process because customers must open the web page to make the purchase, since they cannot make it in the advertisement they have seen of your product or service.
On the other hand, social commerce focuses on social networks, such as Facebook and Instagram, and is distinguished by the fact that users can make purchases of your products or services without leaving the social network where they have seen them. With social commerce you can exclude from your sales funnel the stages where people usually leave without completing the purchase.
Why is it convenient to integrate social commerce into your company?
Increase the audience of your business
Mexico's social commerce market report shows that 80 million people in the country were active on Facebook during the year of 2021. Additionally, Mexico has more than 30 million active Instagram users. This is a good stimulus to start incorporating social networks into your business, since you will reach a very good number of users.
Interaction between brand and subscribers
Buying on a social network is a very different process than doing it through a website.
Social commerce stands out for the level of interaction between the brand and customers, since on social networks it is possible to offer a more personalized and much faster service, in addition, there are numerous opportunities for interaction that facilitate and help your company to improve engagement.
Reach the right users
In social networks, the transformation of the subscriber into a consumer is carried out in a more natural way. For example: a Facebook user finds your post, opens the link and if they like the content on your profile, they follow you.
Thus, your new follower begins to interact with your publications: they can read the comments they leave you and see what you reply to them. This generates greater confidence in your potential clients, because they already know you and know what they can expect from you.
Before long, your potential customer will leave comments or ask you about the products or services they are interested in. This is the consideration or evaluation stage, when a lead who already knows you is deciding whether or not to buy from you. Thus, the attention you offer him or her and the way you communicate with him or her will be an important factor in closing the deal.
It is crucial to mention that the report revealed that 55% of users made a purchase through social networks and more than 85% said they bought products from Facebook, almost 40% did so through WhatsApp and 30% through Instagram.
Facilitates the purchase process
Unlike traditional e-commerce, the purchase process through social networks is shorter because the customer does not have to leave the application they are using. In social commerce, an optimal consumer process consists of only three steps: view, click and buy.
To execute it, you can integrate CTAs (calls to action), for example: “buy now”. Thus, your follower will understand what the next step is. It is essential to use CTAs because it is a method that helps direct the attention of your client to make the sale. Otherwise, if your business doesn't use CTAs, the customer is more likely to ignore your post after reading it because you didn't tell them what to do.
Manage your social networks with Odoo
As we have seen throughout this blog, it is very important that your company is present in social networks, as it increases the recognition of your brand, connects you with your customers, increases leads and income. It also helps you provide customer support and spread valuable company news and messages.
With Odoo Social Marketing you will have various benefits:
You will be able to manage your company's social networks from the same place, taking control of each one of the publications without having to navigate between platforms.
You will have the opportunity to create marketing campaigns and add keywords, hashtags and track them in real time.
You can make use of various resources for your posts such as external links, high-resolution images and multimedia to complement the messages you want to send to your followers.
The present requires that companies are always on par with the demands of their customers; this can be achieved by making use of social networks as a resource in your marketing team.