Social commerce is proving to be an essential part of the e-commerce mix. More than that though, it’s actually changing how people shop.

McKinsey describes it as a “paradigm shift in how consumers interact with brands”¹, and the figures surrounding it support that claim. Worldwide social commerce sales are estimated to reach $1.7 trillion in 2024. By 2029, that figure is set to rise four-fold.²

But what exactly is social commerce?

Put simply, it’s the act of selling goods and services within a social media platform. It offers huge convenience to large numbers of people already discovering products they want to buy on social media. It helps to capture sales at the immediate point of interest, facilitate impulse buying and make the path to purchase faster and smoother.

There are other reasons why social commerce is becoming so popular. Large swathes of the population spend a lot of their time on social media, which can make them easier to reach, while Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z all say it’s their preferred channel for product discovery.³

It’s also working for retailers. Almost 90% of sellers say social commerce was effective for their business in 2023, with 59% say they were selling more through social media in that year than in 2022.⁴

There are several ways businesses can harness social commerce, including tagging items in posts and videos, making shoppable ads and working with influencers to promote their content. Finding the right balance for each individual business and its customers is important to maximise effectiveness, as is understanding the specific nuances, characteristics, and audience profile of each social channel. This can help determine which platforms to focus on and enable the content to be tailored more effectively.

Social media thrives on new content, and social commerce is no different. Keeping the conversation going with followers and potential customers can be vital, and consistency is key to retention and communication.⁹ How often you should post will vary depending on your business and the platform or platforms you are using – some research-backed suggestions can be found here.

Whether it’s reviews, testimonials, user-generated content, or anything else that shows real people engaging positively with a product, social proof provides credible endorsement, builds trust, and drives sales. For example, figures show that over a threemonth period, a quarter of social media users bought a product based on an influencer’s recommendation.¹⁰ There are many ways to attract social proof, from working with influencers to asking for customer reviews or encouraging people to share their experiences. Harnessing its power can be an important part of social commerce success.

Analysing the performance of social posts helps brands to tailor content more effectively. For example, monitoring likes, shares and comments can show what’s working and what isn’t.¹¹ Businesses can also dig deeper to more granular levels, such as learning what visual themes resonate the most, which types of content have the biggest impact, or even which products to focus on.¹² There’s a wealth of data available, and tapping into it can be key to creating more compelling content and targeting it more accurately.

Social commerce skews towards younger age groups, but not by as much as might be thought. Figures show that 70% of millennials (aged 27-42) made a purchase directly from a social platform in Q2 2023, as did 52% of Gen Z (18-26) consumers.¹³ But Gen X (43-58) was only just below at 51%, and baby boomers (59-77) only slightly further back at 46%. This indicates that social commerce is not solely a preserve of the young – older consumers are very active too so it’s important not to neglect them.

Social commerce hasn’t won over everybody. One big stumbling block for some people is trust – around 4 in 10 of those who have never shopped on social media say they are concerned about the security of their data, and a similar amount are suspicious of the merchants themselves.¹⁴ While these figures reduce for those that are social commerce users, they are still significant at 29% and 23%, respectively. This shows how important trust can be to converting consumers, so finding ways to boost confidence could make a big impact to overall sales.

Social commerce is not just for consumers, there’s also a strong B2B presence too. Research from Salesforce shows that 50% of B2B businesses already sell through shoppable social media posts or ads¹⁵, while 55% of B2B brands are investing in social media.¹⁶ With B2B social commerce adoption rates predicted to grow¹⁷, this could be an interesting sales channel to focus on.