Tuesday, November 24, 2015

The Social Commerce Growth Wave

While still a small contributor to overall e-commerce sales volumes, social commerce is becoming hard to ignore. Social media driven e-commerce revenue grew 26% in 2013 compared with 16% growth in e-commerce overall. With the recent introduction of advertising on Instagram and "Buy" buttons on Pinterest social commerce growth has the potential to grow significantly. Currently Facebook is the primary driver with 50% share of social referrals and 64% of total social revenue but Instagram and Pinterest are likely to start taking share with the introduction of "Sponsored" posts and "Buy" buttons.

Before the introduction of sponsored posts Instagram was primarily used for brand building purposes but with the introduction of call to action tools such as LiketoOwn.it, it is also becoming an e-commerce tool. The visual and mobile-first nature of Instagram drives significantly more engagement than Facebook and Twitter. Brands can now capitalize on the higher engagement and credibility of recommendation factors to drive sales via Instagram. Even the sponsored ads on Instagram are much less disruptive to the user experience than say a Facebook ad or promoted Facebook post.

Pinterest recently introduced shoppable pins. They have the potential to drive significant conversion due to the search engine nature of the site. Consumers usually go to the site to search for things they are already looking to buy. By targeting users with shoppable pins based on past pins they have the potential not only to drive sales for their retail partners but also to increase engagement with their users by providing with what they are looking for. According to initial data shoppable pins are doubling the rate at which searches result in sales.  

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