Did you find this blog while you were scrolling past social media? I’m not surprised. With over 3.78 billion active users daily across platforms, it is clear that in order to provide unified experiences, having a social media storefront is indispensable for B2C brands. With multiple channels, and newer ones cropping up each day, we have listed out the must-have features on the big 4- Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and YouTube to help you ensure that you have an airtight omnichannel strategy that includes the right mix of social media in addition to other channels.

Instagram

Instagram has intuitive technology available that helps retailers further their unified commerce strategy from a social media standpoint. It even offers a great connection with your digital commerce platform, to help quickly convert interest to a sale. Let us have a quick look at some of the most popular shopping tools of Instagram.

Using Influencer Marketing to impact Buying Decision

Haven’t we all fallen in love with the most happening trends on Instagram as shown to us by our beloved influencers? While most brands have a strong influencer strategy, it helps to keep in mind that popular e-commerce platforms such as Salesforce and Magento even offer tools to help with affiliate marketing strategies.

Influencers can weave a seamless brand story that connects with the target audience. The messages that they convey seem authentic and can maximize the sense of “belonging” to a certain brand.

Instagram Checkout

Many brands are keen to sell some of their products on social media, but they don’t have the bandwidth to create a Facebook Business Page or catalog to open a shop. For such brands, Instagram has an in-app Checkout experience that is linked to the brand’s shoppable posts on their Instagram page itself.

It enables customers to complete purchases while they are still on Instagram. Users can opt to save their purchasing information when they click on a shoppable post for the first time to avoid adding in the information every time they make a purchase.

Instagram Live Shopping

Instagram Live Shopping allows users to purchase through live content that is streamed on the app. Using Instagram Live Shopping, brands or their influencers come up with a small CTA for a product at the bottom of the live stream, and customers can make the purchase by clicking on the CTA.

Facebook

Despite facing cut-throat competition from various other social media platforms, Facebook remains the largest social platform in the world with around 2.4 billion users. However, with multiple businesses using Facebook, the challenge is to stand out in the crowd. If you closely look at brands like Nike, Netflix, National Geographic, or Fitbit you realize that they have a powerful presence on Facebook. Now the question is how have they achieved it? The formula isn’t that complex, it’s just that brands must delve down a bit more.

To stand out on Facebook, brands should find out what makes them different from their competitors and play that off in the most creative way possible. For example, Nike focuses on the science and research that goes into its product development. Also, one shouldn’t be too salesy, rather, brands must focus on offering helpful tips to the target audience for more engagement. Another factor that pays off, in the long run, is to remain authentic and establish a human connection with your audience.

What are some of the ways to effectively market your brand on Facebook, let us have a look?

Facebook Shops

Facebook Shops allow Instagram followers of a brand to purchase without having a Facebook account. With Facebook Shops, brands can create online stores and link them to the brand’s Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, or Facebook Business Page.

Facebook Shops are a great way to boost sales for a small or medium-sized business that does not have the time or bandwidth for a full-fledged eCommerce site.

Facebook Live Shopping

This feature allows users to view Facebook Live Streams through which the related products pop up and consumers click on those pop up to buy them while continuing to watch the Facebook live video. To enable Facebook Live Shopping, a Facebook Shop is a must-have requirement.

Pinterest

Things that aren’t conventional might sometimes bedazzle even the biggest experts. That’s exactly the case with Pinterest. Even a brand that is a pro with all their social handles might find it difficult to tame Pinterest because it is a tad bit different. Pinterest, however, is highly useful for small businesses.

The first step towards effective marketing on Pinterest is to set up an impactful profile. How would you do that? The secret is to have a business account for your store instead of a personal one. The benefit is that you shall have access to Pinterest analytics and other advertising tools. Consistent branding across various social channels using the same logo is a must for a business account on Pinterest.

YouTube

Two billion active users worldwide and availability in 76 different languages is no cake-walk. YouTube boasts of these statistics and is the world’s second-largest search engine, which has become an essential tool for B2C businesses over the years. Retailers can intelligently leverage YouTube to establish brand presence and present easily consumable, unique content to the target group. However, YouTube’s marketing strategy can be quite tricky, it should ideally combine SEO and rich videos. Whenever a business plans a YouTube marketing strategy, it is important to determine goals, decide on the topics, and properly promote the brand while remaining true to its brand spirit.

Social Media Marketing is an important part of a retailer’s unified commerce plan

New-age customers are seeking unified experiences across channels. Retailers should focus on showing up for the right set of customers at the right time in the most remarkable way possible instead of being present everywhere and showing them the entire product range. Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube have a crucial role to craft this harmonized retail experience. B2C brands benefit from engaging with customers through social platforms to decode their wants and help them have a seamless experience irrespective of their shopping channels. These platforms make it easy to convert a buyer’s wants into needs and thereby a necessity. To stay connected is the new retail Mantra

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