The Future of Social Selling

Social selling works. With more than 50% of the world’s population (including your granny) on social media and an increasing number of businesses (legit and not so legit) flocking to sell on social media, there is no doubt about its effectiveness. 

Let’s throw another buzzword in the mix - Social commerce.

What is Social Commerce?

Remember that time you were browsing the latest Instagram and before you knew it, purchased a funny outfit for your dog?

That’s what social commerce does. It enables you to shop directly through social media without the need to go onto the company’s website. Despite being under-utilised at the moment, Bigcommerce states that '

"even in its infancy, social commerce is making a huge impact on the world of e-commerce and marketing."

Another indicator that social commerce will be growing over the next years is China.

In many instances, Chinese consumer behaviour dictates trends.

"If you take a look at the various developments in social media channels and social commerce, there’s a definite trend of copying what’s already working in China."

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What are Micro Influencers?

Let’s look at some other phenomena! 

Years ago, everyone wanted ‘Jenny from the block’ to promote their products. Trends have recently changed and the focus is on getting the actual Jenny who still lives on the block to tell her following about the latest products she loves.

These so-called micro-influencers have a much smaller following but higher engagement. Let’s be honest, we all have this one person on our Instagram we’ve never met in person, yet we genuinely feel like we know them and could be friends. This positively impacts conversions based on trust. 

Taking this another step further, the best micro-influencers you can get access to are friends selling to one another. Knowing someone personally increases the level of trust exponentially. This leads the way to a different type of social selling encouraging group sales and gaining access to special offers by leveraging the power of group purchases. 

How micro influencers take the lead in social selling!

Formerly known as word-of-mouth this concept has existed for many decades and can now be harnessed through the use of social media. China is leading (who would have guessed?) with their social shopping platform PinDuoDuo. 

According to Forbes, this demonstrates that building a socially shared, dynamic experience is becoming more important than ever.

At Collctiv we know that social selling works beyond the group purchase of commodities offered by PinDuoDuo.

Whether it’s event-related experiences or product-based, the concept of social selling through sharing has huge potential and is one to incorporate into your marketing strategy for 2021. Even if you’ve already allocated all your marketing budget, the concept of group social selling can be utilised without any upfront cost and is super easy to implement.