Shoppable social is an important conversation because many people think it’s something than it actually is. People believe shoppable social is just the act of buying something online. However, it involves the user ratings, online communities, and social advertising that all enhance and facilitate online shopping. People often confuse and mistake social commerce for eCommerce. However, social commerce involves the use by people of social networks to engage in eCommerce transactions.
The term social commerce was introduced by Yahoo! In November 2005 to describe a set of online collaborative shopping tools such as shared pick lists, user ratings, and other user-generated content-sharing of online product information and advice. Due to the fact that more people are turning to social media for product recommendations and reviews, the concept of native social commerce sprouted up.
As of now, there are three social media sites that are owning the social commerce space: Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Facebook and Pinterest are the two apps where you can purchase right off the site. Using Spotify, credit card information can be stored for future purchases or Apple Pay can be used on the spot so customers can click a button to buy and never leave the app. Facebook is the leader in e-commerce now and is even known as F-commerce.
A big question is, “Is Amazon Shoppable Social?” Amazon came out with a new Amazon Spark which makes it easy for users to discover and shop in their interests. Using Amazon, the user is one tap away from purchasing the products they discover.
This is a big conversation to start because apps are advancing and soon everyone will be putting their credit card onto other technology devices in order to shop. People are becoming lazier since technology is evolving and making it easier for people to not leave their house.
I am highly interested in this topic and find it fascinating that the sales industry is quickly adapting to the uproar of social media and including it in their selling strategies. The MikMak service that “creates, distributes and measures shoppable video campaigns for brands” is a big part in this developing industry. The company recently launched its MikMak Attach product that allows the Instagram stories and Snapchat advertisements of retailers to ‘attach’ links to commence websites. In the spring of this year companies including GoPro and Birchbox tested this program out. I feel that with the speed at which this new innovation is growing that it will become its very own industry in the near future. In fact, the founder and CEO of MikMak Rachel Tipograph reported to Adweek that she believes the whole internet will be controlled by five companies and our attention will be consumed deeply by those platforms. “I designed it [MikMak] for Instagram Stories and Snap Ads because if you look at what’s happening within social media, vertical video, daily content is becoming the most popular use case within the platforms,” Tipograph said. Basically, the product that creates commerce experiences for the generation concentrated largely on videos arranges Snapchat ads that direct the user to “swipe up” leading them toward more of the company’s content while on Instagram only verified brands can perform the same technique. MikMak also can enable live videos on Facebook to become shoppable. Specifically, the Birchbox beauty products line formed seven different “shoppable videos” for a Mother’s Day campaign. Personally, I have seen this become more popular over the past few months on my personal social media accounts, and I honestly never knew much about the work behind it. Now that I am more educated about it I find it extremely interesting and incredibly smart. Tipograph brands all have the same major issue when experimenting with this new strategy to draw in online shoppers: taking the user from the media platform all the way to checkout and successfully purchasing a product. Once I personally have trouble loading a page or accessing a link I immediately move onto to something else on my phone which, in fact, seems common amongst users by this finding. Overall, this service is growing quickly before our eyes and I believe it will soon become the norm amongst brands across the country.
Source:
Johnson, Lauren. “How Brands Are Finally Cashing In on Social With Shoppable Instagram Stories and Snapchat Ads.” Adweek, Adweek, 25 Apr. 2017, http://www.adweek.com/digital/how-brands-are-cashing-in-on-social-commerce-with-shoppable-instagram-stories-and-snapchat-ads/.
Well put article, I definitely see this as a trend that will continue here in the near future and one that will become more and more popular. One social media element that was not listed that I see as a big influencer is Instagram. Being such a popular app with 500 million daily users many of which follow companies and brands that can advertise their merchandise to them everyday. Having a function that can allow users to buy products from the Instagram post would create a large influx in social commerce as friends can like and share post and indirectly sell the brand and products to their friends with little to no cost at all to the company/brand that made the original post.
https://www.clickz.com/how-instagram-became-a-social-commerce-powerhouse/108789/
I’m glad that you chose to clarify the difference between eCommerce and social shopping, this was something that I had not previously realized were two separate entities but had noticed becoming a recent trend. When spending money with a debit card or online, it’s hard for individuals to conceptualize the fact that they’re actually spending money. This could be problematic for individuals that have difficulty with impulse purchases, especially when recommended by friends or family members within their social circle. Putting a high value on comments and ratings can also become a barrier to entry for new and upcoming businesses that may not have as much exposure, or businesses that have received unnecessarily harsh remarks that cannot be hidden or removed. One connection that I had noticed recently was the pairing of BuzzFeed and Jet, which can be related back to social sharing in a way. BuzzFeed creates a lot of content for their site as well as their social media sites and has paired with Jet.com to sell products that they have written about or included in videos. For example, I saw a recipe video posted by Tasty and the description held a link to the frying pan used in the video as well as a caption stating that BuzzFeed would even get a profit from the sale if purchased through Jet. This seems like another form of social product promotion that makes users doubt the legitimacy of BuzzFeed’s suggestions if they know that they will be receiving a portion of the profit from the objects that they are promoting.