Influencers have played an evolutionary role in brand marketing strategies, facilitating discovery, increasing brand awareness, creating content, and becoming advocates. Today, the emergence of social commerce is ushering in a new era of influencer marketing; an opportunity that Accenture predicts will triple by 2025 to $1.2 trillion.
Influencer Intelligence interviewed more than 150 global marketers for its latest white paper, which explores the role influencers play in social commerce. He revealed that 62% of survey respondents “agree” that social commerce will be the most popular focus for influencer marketing campaigns next year.
In fact, the experts interviewed agreed that influencers have the potential to become the most important vehicle in social commerce. The #tiktokmademebuyit meme has amassed 14.1 billion views, and Influencer Intelligence reports that roughly half of US social media users between the ages of 18 and 34 have made at least one social purchase. festival.
The potential for technological innovation to reshape social commerce is exciting and could reinvent the world of influencer marketing as we know it. Brands experimenting now will reap the rewards by staying ahead and benefiting from established audiences and favorable algorithms.
Current status of social commerce
Social commerce can be defined as the convergence of social media and e-commerce, allowing users to browse and shop within the app or through a third party for the time being. This presents a huge opportunity for brands to convert sales impacted by social media. Waiting times are reduced and there are fewer clicks to purchase, allowing for quick purchases.
Influencer content has been proven effective in driving sales, and this new, shorter path to purchase can increase the effectiveness of sales-focused campaigns. Influencers can now directly tag products, giving brands more opportunity to target consumers who engage with their content with a direct link. to buy. This is essentially how social commerce was born, with consumers no longer needing to create a separate shopping journey to search for products they found on social media or disrupt interaction. their content to shop.
Combining this with better ROI tracking through social commerce, marketers can strengthen their influencer marketing proposition as part of the marketing mix by demonstrating tremendous value. it’s for brands. With the development of better on-platform shopping functionality, influencers can play a larger role in brands’ e-commerce strategy. Coupled with the fact that social networking is where consumers spend a lot of time, it has the potential to become the most important form of social commerce.
How and where do marketers spend their budgets?
Marketers are increasingly incorporating social commerce goals into their influencer campaigns, with more than a third (36%) of our survey respondents saying they have made the sale of a product or service a measurable goal for the past two to four years.
Over a quarter (27%) of the marketers we surveyed said they spend 20-30% of their influencer marketing budgets on social commerce, and an additional 23% allocate 30-50% of their marketing budgets. influencers market.
This shows that while social commerce is still young in the influencer marketing industry, it gets a fair share of marketers’ budgets for testing.
As social commerce emerges, it’s exciting to see the techniques marketers are adopting to find success.
What does the future of social commerce look like?
A heated industry conversation is about which platform will win the social commerce race.
It can be said that Instagram is currently leading. More than two-thirds of marketers (68%) in our report cited Instagram as the most successful platform for social commerce campaigns, followed by TikTok (40%) and Facebook (35%). ), came first in the comparisons.
When it comes to choosing influencers to work with, these are probably the micro-influencers that 43% of the experts we spoke to are most successful in social commerce strategies. their. However, top influencers (38%), celebrities (33%) and mid-range influencers (30%) are also driving success.
In terms of social commerce tactics, nearly two-thirds (61%) of respondents said they plan to include videos with shoppable links in their strategy. Shoppable live streaming is also definitely on the agenda, with 51% saying they “agree” that it will become a “must-have” practice for all brands over the next year.
However, technological innovation is also changing the game dramatically, with augmented reality becoming a growing trend. A third (36%) of experts in our report predict influencer marketing campaigns using augmented reality (AR) will dominate social commerce strategies by 2024 (30). %) think AI-powered influencer marketing campaigns will also be a hot trend.
As marketers tweak and test their influencer marketing strategies, the Influencer Intelligence white paper highlights the traction that social commerce will only continue to gain. With a seamless shopping experience, making purchases has never been easier. It should come as no surprise that marketers plan to spend more of their budget on social commerce after seeing the success it has had and the exciting future it could hold.
