How can social media increase sales? Social media purchasing is something that goes beyond just posting ads or making posts to help people find your business. This, simply put allows users to purchase a specific product directly within the social media platform. If you have a business for which you sell products you probably already know that having an online presence is important. What you may not realize is how many options are available to you to increase your sales. You’ve got your e-commerce website which you maintain and try to get potential customers to find you and make a purchase. Social media purchasing could be the option that truly makes a difference in your sales. There are many different marketing tactics you can use to help make it easier for customers to find and purchase your products. It’s important to try everything to ensure people do actually land on your website and/or buy. Maybe you have paid ads online, blog consistently, manage your SEO, and/or post on social media. The Impact of Social Media You may be using social media already to help market your business, brand, and products. With the introduction of social media purchasing, users can buy products directly from a post. Your normal marketing posts are definitely still needed but if you aren’t creating these types of click to buy options for your brand you could be missing out on additional sales. The Audience Millennials are primarily the ones using social media so they will be more comfortable making purchases this way. They average about 1.5 hours a day on social media. Over half of them are already searching for products through various social platforms. Although it has started off slow, we are going to see a continuous rise in the number of sales we see. Like anything else, people have to get used to social media purchasing. Eventually, once people get used to it, it will become the new normal for buying. This is similar to the way that people went from only buying in a physical store to buying it through their online store. It took people a while to get used to that, but now people prefer doing it online. To give you a little perspective on how this is truly changing things. Approximately 40% of businesses who have an online presence are using social media to help get them sales. A quarter of business is specifically using Facebook. As far as the users of social media there are about 30% of them that say they would make a purchase through social media. Let’s take a look at what some of these social media giants have to offer your company: Pinterest The ability to sell with your pins is a key feature here. Yes, customers could always click on a pin and go to your website and do whatever they want there. Now, however, it’s changed a bit and is called Buyable Pins. Brands can show various products through various pins. Customers can simply click the “Buy it” button to purchase that product. It’s quick and simple which people want and helps brands sell more. Instagram Their new shopping experience allows users to see what is called Shoppable Posts within their feed, and with one simple tap they can learn about the products and make a purchase from the pop up that appears. Businesses can show videos or pictures to entice people to click and buy. It’s an easy, painless way to make a purchase. This is something every e-commerce business should consider integrating because it can definitely help get your name out there. Many brands have already seen increases in their revenue because of this. Twitter Years ago Twitter released product pages where people can easily find the products they want and buy them. Twitter still works heavily off of #’s and getting influencers to mention a product. Twitter offers an easy way to use #’s and communicate with customers which makes things more personal and helps them make their purchase decision. This is honestly still the best way to increase brand awareness and sales, even over the simple “Buy Button” Twitter offers. It’s a great tool to use because it allows customers to simply click a button to buy a product while browsing around Twitter itself. Facebook Like the others, users can see the product advertisements and make a purchase directly on Facebook without having to leave. Even better is the Facebook Marketplace where users can now find all sorts of products to purchase. Users know when they go there it’s about looking for things. It’s a great option for businesses to put their products on there. Snapchat They provide a simple path to making a purchase. Users just click on a video and are directed to install or open the app, and then leads them to their website. From there they can make their purchases. This is all done without actually leaving the app because it’s the app that is guiding the user to their destination. One unique thing to note here is that Snapchat is using AR to really enhance this shopping feature which creates a better user experience. Shopify No, this isn’t a social media platform. However, Shopify is a great tool to enable social media purchasing. This is the tool you should use to connect your website with all these great purchasing options through social media. Many people especially those in e-commerce is familiar with Shopify. They offer a fantastic service that provides brands the ability to allow purchasing through social media platforms. The technology being used to allow customers to easily make these purchases on social media is heavily connected with Shopify. Find, promote, and connect are all apart of Shopify’s tools to help you sell more. What Does All This Mean Social media is no longer just a place for you to promote your business, or get people to find you. It’s grown way beyond that to something better and more useful. This doesn’t mean that you just create some of these shopping ads and your sales automatically skyrocket. This is still in its beginning stages so there is much more you need to do to make this successful. The images, videos, and text you choose should be well thought out and calculated. All of that has a significant effect on whether or not people will click to purchase. It’s all about a personalized experience no matter what device the user has. Although social media purchasing is rising at a slow pace, what’s not slow is the fact that people are actively searching for information about products which means they have an interest. You must provide enough details about your products because over 50% of people on social media are interested in the information. Keep in mind that most people still prefer to buy big-ticket items like furniture and major appliances in the stores versus online. That doesn’t mean that doing this for large items is going to hurt you but don’t expect too much. How you present everything can sway them to buy yours vs others whether it be online or in the actual brick and mortar store. Don’t worry if you are unsure if this will work for you or not. The stats say that social media purchasing is on the rise, it’s a slow but steady rise so it’s definitely time to really consider doing this for your brand. If you want to learn more about implementing purchases through social media you can contact Sakshi Sharma at 408.621.8481 or email her at team@sdi.la. It’s time to increase those sales and get your brand name out there.