As eCommerce develops, brands and businesses are realizing the benefits of social commerce.

This is especially true as consumer behavior evolves from using social media from a communication tool to a shopping destination.

We introduced the ”social commerce” phenomena and how it works for customers and businesses…

But does it serve brands? Let’s find out.

Here are the TOP 5 BENEFITS of Social Commerce for online stores:

1. ENHANCED CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Overtime, eCommerce went from a simple exchange of goods into a social activity that requires a lot of brand engagement to stimulate the desire to make a purchase.

Putting the customer first remains to be an important element in business success, especially as the power to determine trends shifted into the market’s hands.

Being able to purchase through a social commerce platform reduces friction in the shopping process that otherwise serves as a barrier for customers to opt-out.

Now that shopping should no longer look like an errand or a chore, there’s a strong demand for:

• Providing the latest brand information
• Ongoing promotions and discounts
• Sharing entertaining and valuable content
• Offering customer service
• Accepting client feedback

Social commerce provides the convenience of mobile payment and checkout on the same platform, so users don’t have to go to browse in between pages and apps to complete their purchases.

2. BUILD CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS

Apart from customer experience, it is the brand’s responsibility to pay attention to its audience.

How customers react and engage with a brand on social commerce platforms are relevant data about what strategies are working and which ones to avoid.

Smaller businesses can start experimenting with a focus group to narrow down their target market.

It can be categorized into different segmentations like demographics, psychographics, behavioral and geographic groups - read this article to learn more about marketing for MSMEs.

Social commerce platforms are designed to be personalized, so customers can interact with brands through direct engagement.

Instead of speaking to your audience in general, your customers feel that they are speaking to a brand one-on-one.

3. CONSTANT GROWTH EVERYWHERE

There are over 4 billion people on social media today, a number that continues to increase every day in terms of users and time spent online.

For businesses located in the social media capital of the world, adopting social commerce technology is an upgrade from a basic online presence.

This is more apparent as there are more smartphone users compared to desktop users in the world, so apps and websites are accessed on mobile more frequently.

4. IMPROVE SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO) RANKINGS

Notice how this point is a domino-effect of the previous benefits we mentioned.

When brands adopt social commerce to improve customer experience, there will be an increase in traffic rooted in customers engaging with them.

So, when brands are active in their customer interaction, the number of transactions is also bound to grow.

Brands can further improve their rankings by consistently marketing and targeting keywords that fit their business type and reaching out to a specific audience.

5. MULTIPLY SALES AND PROFITS

For the cherry on top, social commerce is an added sales channel for businesses to make more money online.

Like we have mentioned before, social commerce isn’t for everyone, so putting all your eggs in one basket (or one channel), might not work out well for some brands.

That’s why we suggest giving it a shot to see whether it will be suitable or not.

Product reviews and customer testimonials are more reliable because they come in the form of social proof or actual people who use the platforms and purchased from brands directly.

Brands in social commerce can also collect business metrics and insights that are more accurate because they come directly from the customers.

CONCLUSION

And that’s just FIVE right-off-the-bat benefits of social commerce for brands with an online store.

It’s so easy to get started when you work with the pros!

Here’s a summary of the points we shared in this article, to help you remember:

1. Enhanced Customer Experience
2. Build Customer Relationships
3. Constant Growth Everywhere
4. Improve Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Rankings
5. Multiply Sales And Profits

At Prosperna, it’s our mission to continue empowering Philippine MSMEs in growing their businesses with the help of eCommerce software technology.

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