In 2017, the top 500 retailers raked in an estimated $6.5 billion from social shopping.
That’s billions of dollars in revenue generated from selling via social media.
And this number is growing.
With over 3 billion social media users, ecommerce businesses need to be visible in the eyes of these users. If your brand name is nowhere on social media feeds, your business is not capturing the attention of a huge chunk of the market.
This is where social commerce comes in play. Social commerce is a buzz phrase that has gained popularity in recent years. And why not? It makes shopping so convenient for users!
And social media networks know this. Which is why they have released numerous features to encourage connection with your audience.
For instance:
- Facebook has Facebook Marketplace plus allows Messenger Chatbot integrations that have increased ecommerce engagement by almost four times.
- Instagram has Shoppable Posts, and is currently testing out Instagram Checkout.
- Pinterest has buy buttons and Shop The Look pins to encourage purchases.
- Snapchat recently partnered with Amazon. Through this partnership, Snapchat users will be notified if the item(s) in their image is listed on Amazon.
To keep up with the evolution of social commerce, platforms continue to help ecommerce owners keep customers engaged and to make it easier for new businesses to be a part of this ecosystem.
After all, what social commerce can offer, that your ecommerce site as-is may not, is interactiveness. While the traditional way to communicate with customers is via email, social media offers the ability to create engaging conversations that are 1:1 and instant.
And with tools like Jumper, these integrations are so easy to set up!
Types of Social Commerce Integrations For Your Marketing Stack
Although social media is lauded for allowing instant communication, it isn’t just a medium for chatting or boosting ads anymore. It has evolved to become a vital tool in your sales funnel. Some even argue that it can even replace your ecommerce website.
But let’s not jump the gun. If you already have an ecommerce website and all you really want is to keep your momentum going and sales numbers up, social commerce can help you meet that goal. Through plugging in social commerce tools on your existing social media profiles, you can build lists, nurture users, and then turn these engagements into sales.
To help you understand how you can utilize available tools and maintain social gains, we’ve broken the list of methods of integration down by goal.
Customer Acquisition
Are you already running Facebook ads to get new customers? Are you dissatisfied with the conversion rate?
That’s probably because Facebook Ads don’t encourage 1:1 communication between sellers and buyers.
Running Facebook Ads may cause your conversion journey to be fragmented. Customers won’t always just click buy and purchase an item on your ecommerce site. Some may have questions about your products. And if your ecommerce site can’t answer these questions, customers leave without making a purchase.
Social commerce can close all these gaps.
How?
On Facebook, you have the option of adding call-to-action buttons when running ads. If you’ve noticed that direct conversions aren’t happening, change your CTA to lead your customers to Messenger instead of your website directly. Through the chatbox, engage customers via conversations that would ultimately make them purchase.
Yes, you can make your customers purchase directly on Facebook or Instagram without ever leaving the chat box.
You can do so by adding an automated chatbot checkout onto ads using JSON.
Here’s the basic steps to using this for Instagram:
- Creating a Messenger ad campaign
- Selecting your target audience
- Selecting Instagram placement
- Using Jumper to set up your product
- Adding the JSON code
Click here to read a step-by-step guide on how you can acquire customers and sell faster using this tool.
Once you have this set up, any user who engages with you via Messenger will have the option to directly checkout via the chatbot immediately.
It’s fast and it’s easy!
Cart Abandonment
No business owner wants to lose a customer.
Mostly because it costs more to get a new customer than to retain a loyal one.
Traditionally, ecommerce sites have heavily relied on email marketing to retarget customers and to recover some of the money lost from abandoned carts.
Recently though, we’ve seen more success with recovering carts via Messenger. Last time we checked, click rates are reaching 15% (and more in some industries!) – which is at least three times that of email marketing.
Which means, if you engage social commerce tools like Jumper to plug in Messenger communication instead of sending emails, you’re likely to see your sales number shoot up.
Run effective cart recovery campaigns by planning the sequence of your messages well. Figure out how long you want your campaign to run for (e.g. first message after 30 mins of dropping the cart, with 2 more follow-ups within 24 hours?). Choose your CTAs wisely. Where do you want to lead your customers to? Think of what your customer profile commonly asks for and engage them in a conversation that’ll help with their purchase decision.
Having said that, we don’t in any way claim that your business should stop sending emails.
But if you’re currently only running email campaigns to recover abandoned carts, start testing out chatbot marketing too. You can start by running both campaigns side by side and see which one works best!
Watch this quick guide on how you can automate cart recovery on Facebook Messenger via Jumper:
Pro tip: Wherever you run your cart recovery campaign, personalize your message. Don’t limit it to addressing your customer by name, but attempt to customize the message to what they’re looking for. For example, remind them of the specific product that they abandoned on their cart.
Nurture Past Buyers
Social commerce is not a one and done process.
When you engage with your customers, they’re giving you permission to converse with them through Messenger platforms.
And not continuing to engage with them will be a waste of marketing efforts.
Instead, use social commerce to nurture relationships – just like you would through email campaigns.
You can do this using Jumper’s broadcast feature, where you can send “mass” messages to subscribers who have previously interacted with you via your Facebook page. It’s inherently the same way email marketing works, but on a shorter and more instant platform.
Let’s say someone visits your page and clicks on the “send message” button. As soon as they initiate a conversation with you, they’ll automatically be subscribed to receive future broadcast messages from your page.
In the same way, if someone has purchased from you via Messenger, they will continue to receive regular messages from you. You can use broadcast messages for new arrivals and even exclusive promos for social media followers.
Pro tip: Before beginning nurture sequences on Messenger, check out our guide to Facebook Subscription Messages Rules so you don’t get any of your privileges revoked, or worse – your account flagged.
Broadcast messages help keep your brand top-of-mind. Customers have the option to unsubscribe should they have maxed out on their interest in your products – but you clearly don’t want that, so craft your messages well by focusing on benefits they can get by purchasing from your site.
Engage your customers further using automated drip campaigns, which are essentially a sequence of messages and call-to-actions to keep your customers engaged in a “conversation” with you.
Drip campaigns will send automated messages according to your settings (e.g. message a new subscriber on day 1, and then follow up on day 10). Tools like Botletter via Jumper or Manychat are great to set this up.
Nurturing doesn’t stop there. Another issue that ecommerce sites face is maintaining customer loyalty. Repeat conversations with past buyers help to maintain awareness, but how can social commerce encourage repeat purchases?
Repeat Purchases
Your relationship with a customer shouldn’t end at their first purchase.
Introducing a loyalty program is a great way to get your customers to return.
What was once a physical card that you can display at the counter has evolved into digital loyalty programs like standalone apps (for in-store purchases).
But these options aren’t viable for ecommerce stores.
Previously, ecommerce marketers would have a database of loyal customers and send emails to remind them of promotions to encourage repeat purchases. While loyalty emails get more opens than regular marketing emails, it doesn’t address the problem: how do people sign up to reward program in the first place?
Creating a loyalty program required a lot of thought, once upon a time. Technology wasn’t cheap and following up with clients was mostly done on email.
Thankfully, with social commerce, creating loyalty programs have become even simpler (and affordable!).
By using tools like Jumper, you can start your own rewards program with ease.
With Jumper, when customers purchase from your social platforms (e.g. via Facebook Messenger), you can issue out points based on how much they spend. Customers will be notified when their points are about to expire via Messenger too. This entices them to keep coming back to collect points that they can use for future purchases.
Plus, with an integrated tool like Jumper, you can check all the boxes of making your reward program successful thanks to features that are simple, allows easy communication and helps you track how your reward program is performing.
As it is with cart recovery, loyalty program shouldn’t be promoted via one channel only. Social commerce is not there to replace the existing methods you have, rather an addition to give you more leverage and angles to reach different audience segments.
Did you know? Loyalty programs are also great for new customers. A first time purchaser who joins the loyalty program spends 40% more than a first time purchaser who doesn’t.
On-Site Chatbots
One area that most ecommerce business owners overlook is integrating messenger platforms on their site (versus using Messenger just on Facebook).
Plugging in a chatbot using an on-site widget gives people an added checkout option.
Plus, a chatbot is a tool that’s pro conversational commerce. Imagine if a person has interest in your product on your site but has a question before making a purchase. Your on-site chatbot can provide quick replies and instant assistance, facilitating their research and, eventually, encouraging purchase.
Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Wouldn’t you rather have quick replies than to have to send emails and wait for an answer before you buy? Would you even remember a product if you didn’t hear from a store for 2-3 days?
Conversations not only help keep your customers engaged, but it reduces the friction points that would initially cause them to abandon their carts.
ag9zfmp1bXBlci0xNDc4MDZyGAsSC0p1bXBlcmltYWdlGICAgMmin6gKDA
To start with, all you have to do is to add your products on Jumper and then embed the customizable chatbot on your site.
Jumper’s chatbot is a simplified process, but it still isn’t your primary checkout gateway. Think of the on-site chatbot as a means to appeal to an audience segment which prefers a simplified and conversation-friendly checkout process.
Social Commerce Won’t Require a Full Redesign of Your Existing Campaigns
Social commerce is effective for ecommerce sites that don’t want to spend too much resources or reinvent the wheel. It can be plugged in to the campaigns you’re already running and simply offer a more convenient process for users.
Say you have an existing site and a Facebook account, all you have to do is integrate an on-site chatbot. Or if you feel like your carts are being abandoned, start automating cart recovery messages to customers via Facebook Messenger.
Whichever method you pick – the only way you will know if it works for your site is to measure its effectiveness. The key to social commerce is to improve the experiences and results of your current campaigns – not to shake the system and reboot what already works.
It isn’t even necessary for you to run all social commerce tools. In fact, we recommend that you start small and then adjust and improve as you go along.
By using tools like Jumper, you can leverage on social commerce campaigns that will enhance your user’s experience on your site. You can also analyze what works and what doesn’t.
Emerge ahead of the curve with social commerce.