Social Commerce: How to Boost Sales for Your D2C Brand Using Social Media

Over 4.74 billion people across the world use social media. Every day, a person spends an average of 2 hours and 28 minutes per day on social media. This, in turn, makes social media a hotbed of online buyers. 

And businesses know it, this is why they are all over the social platforms, promoting and selling!

This is especially true for direct-to-consumer brands. After all, social media is full of real people who are potential buyers. And if brands stay active on social media and utilize it in the right way to reach their target audience, it can end up as the brand’s most profitable marketing channel. 

This is called Social Commerce.

Want more details? Let’s dive in!

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What is social commerce?

Social Commerce is the process of selling products right through social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. The best part about Social Commerce is, the entire process of showcasing products to selling them, the whole process takes place on the platform itself. 

Social commerce vs. e-commerce

While social commerce and eCommerce may seem the same, there are a few key differences between the two. Here’s a detailed comparison of the two based on a few factors.

	E-commerce	Social Commerce
Platform	Takes place on a website or online marketplace.	Takes place on social media platforms.
Shopping Experience	Provides a more traditional shopping experience, with customers searching for products, adding them to a cart, and checking out	Provides more social and engaging shopping experiences, with customers discovering products through social media interactions and influencers.
Payment	Payments are typically processed through the website or marketplace’s payment gateway.	Payments may be processed through the social media platform or redirected to the e-commerce business’s website.
Customer Data	Have more direct access to customer data, including purchase history and behavior.	Businesses may rely more on social media metrics and engagement data.
Marketing	Rely more on search engine optimization and paid advertising	Focus more on social media influencers and targeted social media advertising

How does social commerce work?

Social commerce typically involves the following steps:

Step 1: Discovery

A potential customer discovers a product through a social media platform. This can happen through a variety of means such as browsing a social media marketplace, seeing a product’s ad, or through an influencer’s post. 

Step 2: Engagement

Here comes the second step— the potential customer engages with the product either by liking, commenting, sharing, or clicking through to learn more.

Step 3: Purchase

Now if the potential customer is interested in making a purchase, they can either buy directly through the social media platform or visit the brand’s website to complete the project.

Step 4: Sharing

In this step, the customer may share their experience with their social network, helping to spread the word and potentially driving more customers. 

What are the types of social commerce?

Using social media to sell products is a marketing strategy that has been around for a while. By using social media platforms that have tools to sell products, brands can build better relationships with their target audience. This leads to more sales and customers who like the brand.

Before diving into the types of Social Commerce, here are the two important social media platforms that D2C brands can use to boost sales: 

Facebook: On Facebook, there is a ‘Facebook Shop’ feature that businesses can use for selling products. It is great for brands because it is easy to customize and use. Brands can choose which products to highlight and add items from their website, similar to how online brands do that are made with Shopify. 

While Facebook shops are discoverable through a business’ Facebook page or Instagram profile, they can also be discovered through stories or ads.

The best part is, if customers have any query related to the product or business, they can contact the business during the buying process through WhatsApp, Messenger, or Insta DM. 

Moreover, Facebook is trying to add more shopping options to its other apps, like Instagram Shop. They’re also working towards adding features for live shopping and loyalty programs.

Here are a few benefits of using Facebook shops for D2C brands-

The “Facebook” Benefit

Facebook Messenger has a whopping 132 million active users . This presents a great chance for direct-to-consumer brands to create a sales plan and convert interested customers right within the app. Selling products on the same platform has many benefits. For instance, customers can begin a conversation with your brand on Messenger and then easily browse your product catalog in your Facebook Shop to make a purchase.

Easy Catalog Option

Facebook Shops simplifies the process of cataloging. It stores all the information about the items you want to advertise or sell on Facebook and Instagram. If you need to make changes to your product details, like images, descriptions, prices, or variations, you can easily update them using the Catalog Manager.

You can also organize your products into collections based on categories like seasons, new arrivals, or always-available items. By tagging products in pictures, you can increase their visibility on both Instagram and Facebook. Moreover, you can create Ad Sets or Collections from your catalog to promote and highlight specific products. For large-scale sellers, Facebook offers a feature to assign permissions to partner businesses, allowing them to work with your catalog.

Multiple Call-to-Action Options

CTA buttons are helpful in guiding people to take specific actions that are important for your company, like shopping, making a purchase, arranging a call, or sending a message. These call-to-action buttons are compatible with Facebook Shops and can be used in various ways, such as sharing them as posts, displaying them on your page’s shop section, or including them in your product catalogs.

Depending on your campaign objective, such as building brand awareness, reaching more people, driving traffic, or increasing engagement, you can choose the appropriate CTA button. Examples include “Get Quote,” “Download,” “Order Now,” “Send Message,” “Send WhatsApp Message,” and “Shop Now.” These CTAs facilitate direct communication with your audience, making it easier for them to take the desired actions.

Dynamic Collections Ads and Promotions

With Facebook Shop, direct-to-consumer brands have the opportunity to run targeted promotions and utilize Messenger integrations to initiate conversations with customers who show interest in the promoted items. This means brands can customize their promotions to reach specific audiences and engage with potential customers through Messenger, making it easier to connect and communicate with those who are interested in their products.

Instagram: Instagram is a popular platform for discovering new products. With Instagram Shops, users can find and buy products without leaving the app. Facebook Shop is also available on Instagram.

Here are a few benefits of using Instagram shops for D2C brands-

Easy Product Discoverability

While scrolling Instagram, we often come across products that look interesting. However, we don’t like going through the page, looking for where we can buy that particular product, visiting the website, searching for the product, and then buying it. This is a long and tedious process that often leads to abandonment. 

There help Instagram shops. Brands use Instagram shops to chop off unnecessary steps and make it fast and smooth. With this users only need to click on the shoppable tags to explore the details and prices to buy it in real time. Check out this blog to understand how you can leverage Instagram shop to boost your sales.

Authentic Advertising

These days, people trust and rely more on content created by regular users when they’re deciding what to buy online, rather than content created by brands. To create a more reliable shopping experience, you can include user-generated content with clickable tags on an Instagram shop. This will show authentic photos of the products, how people are using them, their appearance, and reviews. This can help build support for the brand and increase sales.

Increased Engagement and Sales

Now let’s talk about the most important and main purpose of an Instagram shop for any brand, which is to increase user involvement and sales. 

Every brand wants to increase its sales and revenue through its marketing strategy. By turning Instagram posts into clickable shopping posts, users can quickly turn their intention to buy into action. 

When interested users click on these shopping posts, they can see all the information about the products. A new user interface opens up with details, descriptions, and related products, which enhances their engagement.

Let’s discuss some of the most popular Social Commerce strategies that can help brands sell more on social media platforms-

Influencer marketing

Social media influencers promote products or services on their pages and earn a commission for each sale. Since they have a large following, their endorsement can be seen as a positive recommendation, which often leads to sales.

Benefits of using influencer marketing for social commerce-

Trust: People trust influencers and the easiest way to gain that trust for your D2C brand is by collaborating with those influencers for your shoppable posts. They can share your shoppable posts in their feed or by sharing them in their stories. 

Brand visibility: When you work together with the right influencers, you can reach their audience and make more people aware of your brand. This means more people will know about your social commerce and you can reach a larger group of potential customers.

Audience segmentation: When you choose influencers who have fans that are similar to your target customers, you can make sure that the right people see your social commerce. This helps you connect with individuals who are more likely to be interested in what you’re selling, and it increases the chances that they will buy from you.

Creative content: Influencers are really good at making content that their fans like. When they work with your brand, they can make content that shows your products or services in a way that people can relate to and find interesting. This makes the content more real and exciting, which can get more people interested in what you’re offering.

Social media advertising

On social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, ads can be aimed at specific potential customers. These ads can offer a “buy now” option and provide a tailored experience for the user.

Here are some of the key benefits of using social media advertising for social commerce-

Better conversion rate: When you see a social media ad with a “buy now” button, you can buy the product right away without going to another website. This makes it quicker and easier for you to make a purchase. Because it’s so convenient, more people are likely to buy, which can increase the number of sales in social commerce.

Measurable results: Social media advertising platforms have tools that help you see how well your ads are doing. When you add a “buy now” option, you can easily keep track of how many people clicked on your ad, how many of them actually made a purchase, and how much money you earned from the ad. 

Remarketing: When people click the “buy now” button in a social media ad, you can save their information and keep it in your customer database. 

User-generated content

Getting customers to share their experiences on social media about a brand’s product or service is a powerful way to build trust with existing as well as potential customers. With these testimonials, brands can use social commerce features to convince people to buy, making use of these “micro-moments”.

The biggest benefit of using UGC is testimonials of real customers are way more powerful than any other content. When a potential customer sees a post from a real person, the chances of purchasing increase. And when there’s an option to “Buy Now” directly through the post, it acts as a cherry on the cake.

9 examples of successful social commerce campaigns

Here are some of the most popular D2C brands that are leveraging social commerce to increase sales.

Nykaa

Nykaa is a popular Indian beauty brand with over 2.3M followers. It was founded in 2012 by Falguni Nayar, offering Indian consumers a one-stop shop for beauty and wellness products. The brand gained popularity by offering a wide range of affordable products and excellent customer service. It has since expanded to include private label products, physical stores, and expanded product lines. 

Nykaa uses its Insta account to showcase and promote its products and also offers a “View Shop” option to visitors. Now if you see Nykaa’s account, you’ll see that it isn’t just a simple brand page, it’s a blend of user-generated content, influencer content, and of course, informative content. 

Bonobos

Bonobos is a men’s clothing company founded in 2007 by Andy Dunn and Brian Spaly, with a focus on well-fitting pants. It quickly gained a following with personalized shopping experiences and exceptional customer service. Bonobos has since expanded to offer a range of men’s clothing, was acquired by Walmart in 2017, and now also offers women’s clothing. Despite its growth, Bonobos remains dedicated to its mission of providing customers with clothing that fits well and makes them feel confident.

Bonobos has a very active Instagram account with over 160K followers. On their account, they regularly share various types of content like images, reels, and carousels to keep engaging with their audience and promote their products.

Just like Nykaa, they too have a “View Shop” option on the profile that takes the users to their Insta shop and explore their products. They have just four categories to help the users find relevant products. Once you tap on any product, it will show an option to “visit on website” and buy directly from there.

Noise

Noise is a startup that makes affordable and stylish headphones and speakers. They use social media to engage with customers and build a loyal community. They’ve expanded their product line to include wireless earbuds and smartwatches, but their core values remain affordability, quality, and community.

Noise is a well-known made-in-India company that makes affordable yet stylish headphones and speakers. It’s also India’s no. 1 smartwatch brand (as per its Insta bio). The brand uses social media as its primary marketing strategy to engage with its customers and build a loyal community.

The brand also has an Instagram store that showcases its general products as well as the products that are in the sale. 

Boat

When it comes to marketing, Boat knows how to promote its products. Just like Noise, it’s another popular electronics brand in India selling gadgets like headphones, smart watches, speakers, etc. 

Boat was built to provide high-quality audio products to people who love music. They wanted to make products that not only sounded great but also looked stylish and were affordable. To do this, Boat focused on creating sleek and modern designs that would appeal to a younger audience. They also made sure that their products had excellent sound quality and were compatible with all the latest devices.

The brand used social media to connect with its customers and build a loyal community of fans. They created engaging content that showcased their products’ features and benefits, and leveraged influencer marketing to promote their products. They also created an Insta store to help followers on Insta, explore their products and buy them from their website.

Myntra

Owned by Flipkart, Myntra is the most popular online fashion brand in India. Their goal was to create a one-stop shop for all your fashion needs, offering everything from clothing and shoes to accessories and home decor.

Myntra uses a variety of marketing strategizing including, including influencer marketing, social media marketing, collaborations, customer loyalty programs, and more. However, one strategy that isn’t used by most other brands is Pinterest marketing. 

Myntra has a page on Pinterest that allows Pinterest users to explore Myntra’s products and visit the website right through the platform to buy them. 

Myntra uses Pinterest because it is a platform that runs on images and showcasing fashion products using their images is the best way to promote them. Furthermore, not many brands use Pinterest, and this, in turn, gives Myntra a competitive edge over other brands.

mCaffeine

mCaffeine is a skincare brand from India that makes products infused with caffeine. They use natural and vegan ingredients and don’t test on animals.

They became popular by creating engaging social media posts and working with micro-influencers. People who care about innovation and sustainability love their products. And this is why it has become a popular product in India in a very short period. 

Since mCaffeine regularly uses influencer marketing and user-generated content to promote its products on Insta, it has become quite a popular brand among youths. And using a “Shop Now” option on the Insta page, they drive a huge chunk of buyers to their website. Unlike the above-mentioned brands, mCaffeine doesn’t allow people to check its products on Insta but rather they send them to their website and shorten the normal process of buying. 

Other than the shop now option, mCaffeiene also uses Instagram ads. But that’s not it. It doesn’t only promote its products but it also promotes its USP which is it’s a vegan product. This simple statement gives its customer a very powerful reason to buy its products. At last, it also uses discounts and freebies to increase sales. 

Glossier

Glossier is a popular beauty brand that was founded in 2014 by Emily Weiss. The brand quickly gained a dedicated following and became known for its minimalistic approach to beauty and emphasis on skincare.

The brand has over 2 million followers on Instagram. The most common strategy it uses is user-generated content to reflect the results of using its products. Along with UGC, it also adds the option to view the product by just clicking on “View Products.” 

Kylie Cosmetics

If you’re a woman chances are you already know about Kylie Cosmetics. Founded in 2015 by none other than Kylie Jenner, Kylie Cosmetics is a leading beauty and cosmetics brand with over 25 million Instagram followers. 

When it comes to marketing its products on Instagram, the brand focuses on creating users generated content to show how its products can be used in real life. Another strategy that it uses is influencer marketing. Kylie Jenner herself along with many other young influencers like Hailey Bieber, Kendall Jenner, and more can be seen doing makeup using its products in videos and photos.

Lastly, the brand also uses the “View Product” option in its videos to promote products that are being used by the influencers. 

Dollar Shave Club

Dollar Shave was founded in 2011 by Michael Dubin and Mark Levine. The idea popped up in their minds when they realized that razors were expensive and often overpriced. They wanted to offer a more affordable and convenient option. 

They started with a basic website that allowed visitors to sign-up for a monthly subscription to receive razors in the mail. The company quickly gained popularity, especially because of the viral video created by Dublin. 

The brand has an Instagram account with over 220K followers and regularly shares content highly targeted to its audience.

It also offers a “View Shop” feature to the users. Using this feature, users can easily view their Insta shop and buy directly through their platform. 

Benefits of social commerce

Is social commerce beneficial for your brand? Let’s uncover some of the benefits of using social commerce.

Reach a larger audience

What is the power of social media? It’s users. People from around the world use social media to connect with the rest of the world, making it a very effective way of reaching a wider audience for brands. 

The large user base of social media platforms means that businesses can tap into a diverse range of potential customers. These users come from various demographics, regions, and backgrounds, allowing businesses to expand their reach beyond their local market and target a global audience. This global reach can be particularly beneficial for businesses that aim to grow their customer base and establish a presence in new markets.

Provide a frictionless shopping experience

Social commerce makes buying things online easier by offering features like buy buttons and in-app checkout, which means you have fewer steps to go through when you’re buying something.

But, the more steps you have to take to buy something, the more likely you are to get bored and give up before you finish. So, if you want to make more sales, you need to make the buying process as easy as possible.

One way to do this is by keeping people on the social media app they’re already using, instead of sending them to your website. For example, instead of making people leave Instagram to buy something from your website, you can use the “Checkout on Instagram” option to let them buy it right there on the app. This way, they can keep scrolling through their feed while they shop.

Gather data on your audience

Another powerful benefit of social commerce is that it gives the ability to brands to gather useful customer data. Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest provide users with insights into their customers’ behavior, interests, and habits. This, in turn, allows you to build a better customer profile and offer a more personalized shopping experience. 

Build trust by leaning into social proof

When people shop online, they might not trust your brand right away. They might want to read customer reviews, compare products, or talk to other customers before they buy from you.

But with social commerce, you can use social proof to build trust. Social proof is when people see other people interacting with your brand, such as by liking, commenting, sharing, or following. The more people interact with your brand, the more likely other customers will trust you too.

To get more social proof, you can give customers incentives to share your content, like coupon codes, discounts, or giveaways. You can also create a fun hashtag that customers can use to share pictures and videos of your products and connect with other people who like your brand. This way, your community can grow and more people will feel confident buying from you.

Receive customer feedback

When you sell products on social media, it gives your business a personal touch that can help your customers feel like they’re talking directly to you. They can make comments on your posts or send you messages, which can start a conversation and give you honest feedback about your business.

This feedback can be really valuable because it can help you make your products or services even better. And when your customers feel like they have a direct line to you, they’ll be more likely to trust you and keep coming back to buy from you.

To conclude

Running a D2C brand successfully needs a powerful marketing strategy. Now while using an e-commerce store looks like the best bet here, using social commerce can act as a cherry on the cake. The idea is simple, if you want to leverage the full potential of social media to make sales, you need to allow users to chop off unnecessary steps and use social media as a bridge that takes them to their dream products. Happy selling!

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