How social media can act as a primary sales channel for your business

We can already discern qualitatively how social media has the most impressive impact when it comes to eCommerce. Social media specializes in creating an emotional appeal to audiences and having a positive user response to ads, as you can see here. It is no longer becoming a question but an assumption that social media will be any businesses primary sales channel. Imperatively, social media offers multiple forms of engagement along with efficiently allowing video content. Video content is 1200% more successful than other content (marketing statistics).

Facebook

First off, let's look at the benefits of using a site such as Facebook as a primary sales channel. 41% of surveyed marketers claimed that Facebook gave them the best ROAS, putting it at the top of the most popular social media sites for marketing (raddinteractive). It is incredibly adaptable and specific, allowing both b2b and b2c type marketing, widening the scope of businesses that should consider marketing on Facebook as viable. The meticulous level of detail in targeted ads allows businesses to hone in on and find their target demographics under a plethora of signifiers such as; interests, political affiliation, behaviour, recent purchases and job titles and so much more. This shows the benefits of being able to market to roughly 2.89 billion monthly active users as of the second quarter of 2021 (Statista). This is why the site draws in nearly 10 million active advertisers and this isn’t slowing, in 2020 Facebook was driving more than 80% of all social referrals to eCommerce sites in the U.S, Facebook now accounting for 40% of annual digital display ad revenue. 

Facebook ads come in several varieties. You can promote your page or posts on your page or your website itself. Configurations including images, videos, carousel (multiple images) instant experiences and collections. Wolfgang Digital’s 2020 KPI reports that Facebook’s user feed ads are the single best-performing ad type for eCommerce. Many niche businesses across all industries are already reaping the benefits. For an example of how companies are doing this, we can look at ‘Daily deal’ sites like Groupon, AppSumo, and Fab who combine elements from multiple industries. They use the method of email sign-ups, as to not scare away customers with immediate purchasing options. They instead ask for your email address, confident that they’ll sell you on a deal later using targeted advertising and data to know which deals to send you. You can also benefit through Facebook testing tools to improve ad results. A/B testing allows you to see which adjustments, no matter how minuscule, perform better over time, all set on a time scale to suit your business plans. Estimated daily results predictions show daily estimated reach and daily estimated results that appear when creating or editing an ad set.

Instagram

Instagram is the second most accessed network behind Facebook. With over one billion active monthly users and 500 million daily Instagram Stories (pewresearch). There is plenty of variety and opportunity to utilise Instagram as a primary sales channel, especially for those who wish to take advantage of the app as a visual first forum. There has been a stark increase in brands that have developed a presence on the platform. Oberlo estimates that 71% of businesses use Instagram in the U.S, this is why you should join them; Nearly 45% of their users are between the ages of 18 and 44 (sproutssocial) and are actively spending money on the site directly contributing over $18.16 billion in ad revenue in 2020 (hootsuit). Invaluable to any business looking to bring in physical customers or sell directly through shipping to whichever distance is appropriate. Every month,130 million Instagram users engage with shopping content (statista) and using Instagram as purely an online marketplace to make sales is a viable method that is only increasing through continued growth in legitimacy and popularity. 

90% of Instagram users follow at least one business, connecting to consumers can be accessed simply through developing a consistent brand, more info on that here. Products aimed at consumers are not the only ones that benefit; More than 36% of b2b decision-makers use Instagram when researching new products or services (hootsuite). There are; targeted video ads or sponsored posts that can run targeting different audiences simultaneously. You can also use live streams, more info on which is here. Instagram stories function as a slideshow consisting of posts that last 24 hours, appearing at the very top of user displays, highlighted in red to draw attention. Beneficial to brands in that it allows the maximisation of content, using stories to capture behind-the-scenes insider posts that may not be as high-quality as regular posts but still promote direct sales or general promotion. These methods are all inexpensive, flexible not to mention the heights achieved when brands partner with influencers. For more information check out this article.

Tiktok

Benefits of using TikTok to advertise: 

While the audience on TikTok is big, it was the most popular overall app downloaded globally in 2020 (850 million global downloads) there is still a lack of a firm grasp on every demographic—for now. Brands that target gen Z and younger millennials will find the most success in reaching potential customers. 63% of U.S. TikTok users are between 10 and 29 years old (adweek). However, usage trends show an increase in 25- to 54-year-old TikTokers as well. With 51.8% of these users having an average income of $75K or more (marketingcharts), it is an audience any business must keep in mind as a potential primary sales channel. In add-on to this TikTok possesses all the benefits of the previous two sites mentioned, for example, the ability to specify a target audience and test multiple different video advertisements simultaneously across demographics. Furthermore, TikTok also possesses high engagement rates, even micro-influencers had engagement rates of 17.96% on TikTok compared to 3.86% on Instagram and 1.63% on YouTube (hootsuite). You can see why there has been so much buzz around the potential of this app to grow your brand image in conjunction with directly selling products.  

Tiktok has several distinctive features that allow beneficial advertising on the site. There are in-feed video ads, short-form videos that appear in the news feed on the for you page. These masquerading as native TikToks, for a moment or two at least, granting extra moments with consumers to generate intrigue. In a space where every second counts, this is inestimable. Using your audience to sell to your audience is another development that TikTok is at the forefront of, with branded hashtag challenges. Where you can use your reach to encourage users to create and post content with a specific hashtag. These are placed at or near the top of the discovery page, creating a cycle of engagement. This has been incredibly useful for brands across all industries. For example, the clothing brand Guess partnered with influencers to push their #inmydenim 6-day challenge accumulating over 5,550 user-generated videos, 10.5 million video views, 14.3% engagement rate and over 12,000 additional followers were directed to the Guess business account on TikTok. You also have brand takeovers where you can push branded augmented reality content, usually, these are lenses, stickers, and other 2D/3D/AR content that can be purchased or used in videos. For more on how these are used in conjunction with custom influencer packages check this out.