Welcome to the third installment of our masterclass sessions, which took place during DMEXCO @home. Following on from our discussions on commerce anarchy and disrupting traditional commerce, Productsup Chief Innovation Officer Marcel Hollerbach met Jordanna Whayman, EMEA Product Marketing Lead at Facebook, to look at the current trend for social commerce.
You can watch this insightful 17-minute session right now.
We set the scene with this single mind-blowing stat: that social commerce sales are projected to reach more than $36 billion in the US alone by the end of 2021. Why is this happening? And what’s all the fuss around social commerce about?
The answer is simple. 73% of Generation Z now consume video on their smartphones, while research shows that just one in five watch linear television. Instead, these consumers are spending time hanging out on their social networks - Facebook and Instagram, sure, but also Tik Tok and Snapchat and the rest. And as we heard, that’s where today’s brands also need to be.
10 years of change in 10 months
As you’ll find out, this behavior has huge implications for brands that want to stay in touch with their consumers – especially given the rapid developments we've seen during COVID-19. In fact, as Jordanna explained, the pandemic condensed what would have been 10 years of e-commerce transformation into the space of a few short months.
The 4 main trends of social commerce
Having touched upon the driving force behind social commerce, we then drilled a little deeper. Jordanna spoke about four major trends Facebook sees as pushing the industry even further into a new world of social commerce. Are you looking to put your products in front of the right people in the right places? Don’t miss this session for some great tips and advice on getting started with serious social commerce.
*Social commerce means turning tradition on its head. You normally think of ecommerce in terms of finding the products you’re looking for, but that really limits shoppers in terms of knowing what they want. *
A whole new perspective
The conversation then moved onto one of the hot topics at Facebook right now. Watch the video and you’ll hear about what they term Discovery Commerce. Until recently, ecommerce has always involved people going out to buy products they’ve already determined they want. But that’s all changing, and success is now about products finding people. It’s about helping customers discover new things they're haven’t thought about – but are likely to love. And it’s about making sure those things…are your products.
Feeding the habit
Jordanna also described how many of the traditional touchpoints, from discovery to purchase to post-purchase interactions, are happening organically on social platforms. For example, did you know that 52% of online brand discovery now happens on public social feeds? As consumers begin to get used to content finding them our guests spoke about the likely implications this transformation will have on business priorities.
A glimpse of the future
We also gained some interesting insights into significant upcoming launches on Facebook’s social commerce journey, as well as the social media giant’s vision for the future of commerce. With so much innovation happening so quickly, it was exciting to glimpse what we can expect to see in the next five years.
Putting it all into context
Finally, given DMEXCO’s theme of setting new priorities, we talked through what this could mean in the context of social commerce. After all, the trends are continuing to accelerate as more networks adopt social commerce strategies. Just look at the quarterly analyst reports, whether that’s from Facebook or TikTok or Snapchat, and you’ll see social commerce is on the radar for pretty much everyone.
Ready to stay relevant?
For agile micro brands born in the cloud, social commerce represents a powerful sales tool. For more established brands, it offers a great way to get started with direct consumer selling - without the need for a large and expensive ecommerce operation. In short, social commerce is the forward for businesses who want to stay in touch, stay relevant, and stay successful. Are you ready?