Why Social Commerce Will Play a Big Role This Holiday Season

Social commerce — buzzword or new marketing essential?

From our vantage point, the convergence between influencer strategy and commerce is underway, which is why we recently launched a new set of social commerce capabilities.

There are a plethora of market indicators that suggest that social commerce will soon become a marketing staple. 

• Platforms: TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest are the platforms with the most recent commerce features and integrations, but every major social platform is working hard to support shopping. 
• Brands: Leading beauty brands are getting into it! For example, Shiseido says social commerce is already a part of their marketing strategy, and L’Oreal invested directly in a social commerce platform. 
• Influencers: Creators - who are known to help solidify trends - are using shopping terms (discount codes, affiliate programs, swipe to shop, etc.) more, and we expect to see a huge surge this holiday season. 
  

We have the data to back it up. 

In a recent analysis* comparing the 2019 and 2020 holiday seasons, we found that influencer posts mentioning shopping calls-to-action increased by 21% and audience engagements increased by 5%.‍

Even more interesting, when we analyzed social commerce conversations even further, we found that there are a few specific terms that rose to the top. Posts mentioning discount codes increased by 29%, affiliate codes increased by 32%, live shopping increased by 117% increase, and “swipe to shop” increased by 2444%.

Note: While Instagram retired the “swipe up to shop” feature, it has replaced it with shopping stickers, which is arguably an easier shopping action.

It makes a lot of sense that social commerce was top of mind for influencers and their audiences last year. Brands were desperate to find efficient ways to promote their products during a holiday season that had little-to-no in-store shopping and smaller marketing budgets. Now that marketers have seen how powerful influencers and ecommerce can be, we can only expect the use of social media to drive sales will continue on an upward trajectory. 

If you are looking to build out your social commerce program, first check out this short how-to guide and then take a look at how Traackr’s complete campaign management for paid, organic and affiliate programs can help you. ‍

*For the purpose of this study we analyzed a sample of 42,605 influencers primarily located in the United States, Canada, and Europe, tracking who produced content with specific social commerce terms and phrases including, but not limited to: discount codes, social shopping, live shopping, swipe to shope, use my code, shop link, and more.