AI in Social Commerce: The Future of E-Commerce?

1. These are the benefits of Social Commerce
2. Who is Social Commerce worthwhile for?
3. How AI and Social Commerce Fit Together
4. Mastering Social Commerce Successfully
5. Conclusion: Social Commerce Belongs on Your Agenda for 2024

The entire shopping experience in social commerce takes place in social networks. The study Social Media in Retail - Importance and Performance Comparison of Sectors underlines the potential of sale via social media for you: 86 percent of online orders are triggered via social networks. What AI has to do with social commerce and how to get off to a good start in social networks, is covered in this article.

These are the benefits of Social Commerce

From your ad to triggering the order in social commerce all touchpoints are in social networks. Social Commerce helps companies increase their sales and make their customers happier by strengthening the personal relationship between buyer and provider, as well as the sense of community within their community.

• User-friendly purchasing process: The easier it is for users, the higher your conversion rate will be. Users buy your products within a few clicks without having to change the platform.
• Unobtrusive advertising: Users bridge waiting times in social media, scroll through their feed when bored or specifically look for inspirations there. Your advertising is perceived as entertaining. This opens up a huge opportunity for small businesses in particular.
• Emotions connect: Build an emotional connection and lend your company a sympathetic and trustworthy face in the anonymous online world.
• Strengthen trust with reviews: Help new customers make purchasing decisions by standing out with positive reviews and best practices.
• Free advertising thanks to User Generated Content (UGC): Encourage your community with hashtag campaigns, contests and tags for "Shop the Look" content to showcase your products. With the right concept, you transform your customers into valuable brand ambassadors.
• Increase reach with influencers: Make your product known by collaborating with influential people who already have a large reach and enjoy the trust of your target group.
• Competitive Advantage: There are countless online stores now. Whoever also operates social commerce stands out from the crowd.
• Specific Marketing Campaigns: You decide based on demographic user data who sees your ad and avoid costly scattering loss.
• Planable costs: You determine your costs specifically with organic posts, paid ads and collaborations with influencers.

Who is Social Commerce worthwhile for?

According to DIGITAL 2023, 43 percent of 16- to 64-year-old internet users in Germany buy a product online weekly. The search engine is used most frequently with 65 percent. 38.1 percent of users search for brands and products through price comparison portals. Social networks rank third with 31 percent. A quarter of the advertising budget (approximately 21 percent more than the previous year) in the German market currently flows into social networks.

Almost every target group can be reached via social media, making social commerce worthwhile for just about any sector and corporate form. In particular, you can showcase food, fitness products and customizable products well on social networks.

Platforms for successful social commerce

As you can see, the potential is huge – and it's rapidly increasing! But which social network is suitable for social commerce? As often, it depends, because many social media channels achieve great results. Which platform will be the best choice for you depends primarily on your portfolio and your target group. It depends on which platform your target audience actively uses and how best to present and distribute your products or services.

Image: User numbers 2023

These social media can be suitable for social commerce:

• TikTok:TikTok (to the guide: Social Commerce on TikTok) records approximately 1.1 billion MANs. TikTok users are mainly aged between 9 and 24, and primarily belong to Generation Z. The most popular themes among users are entertainment, dance, pranks, fitness, and DIY.

Image: AI in Social Commerce TikTok

• Instagram: Instagram (to the guide: Social Commerce on Instagram) records approximately 2 billion monthly active MANs. Instagram users are aged between 13 and 65+ years. The majority of them are either 18 and 24 years (approximately 30.2 percent) or 25 and 34 years (approximately 31.7 percent) old. The most popular themes among users are fashion, food, design, travel, and fitness.

Image: AI in Social Commerce Instagram

• Facebook: Facebook records approximately 2.2 billion monthly active users (MANs). In 2021, 41 percent of German Facebook users were between the ages of 30 and 49. Particularly popular themes among users are lifestyle, cosmetics, travel, and fashion.

Image: AI in Social Commerce Facebook

• Pinterest:Pinterest (to the guide: Social Commerce on Pinterest) records approximately 482 million MANs. Pinterest users are about 25 to 49 years old. The majority belong to the millennials (approximately 36 percent) and Generation X (approximately 34 percent). Depending on the gender, either food, crafting, home decor and fashion or photography, art, design and home decor are the most popular themes among users.

Image: AI in Social Commerce Pinterest

You can find the details on the most important social networks and how to start with Social Commerce in this current Social Commerce Guide.

Social Commerce Types

There are different types of social commerce, which differ fundamentally from each other. These three should be known to you:

• Content-driven Social Commerce:Presentation of your products or services through storytelling
• Experience-driven Social Commerce: Livestreaming, live-shopping events, AR (test products digitally), and gaming
• Network-driven Social Commerce: Purchase or sale via existing social networks (e.g., gathering of several people for group discounts and influencer marketing)

How AI and Social Commerce Fit Together

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is currently THE topic. Of course, AI also helps you with social commerce: With its help, you can trace and analyze user behavior and implement your findings for optimization purposes.

• Communication and Availability: Chatbots in particular optimize your communication. They answer repeated questions in seconds and are available when your customer service enjoys their time off. Whenever a quick reaction is required, chatbots can deliver first answers (e.g., acknowledgment of ratings).
• Personalization and Product Recommendations: Patterns of your customers form the basis for product recommendations, personal address, and navigation during the shopping experience.
• Content Creation: You can collect ideas or write or translate entire texts. This speeds up your content creation.

Mastering Social Commerce Successfully

Social Commerce is so diverse. We have examined four Social Commerce Best Practices for you in a separate article. A popular product for social commerce via TikTok and Instagram is Advertizing PX Productsup. With it, you can easily keep up with the complex and fast-paced social media world and can flexibly adapt your product content processes. The provider works closely with social media platforms so that you automatically meet their requirements by using the Product-to-Consumer platform.

These benefits are guaranteed to you by using the P2C platform Productsup:

• Insights into the best campaign results: Productsup is an official partner of TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest. This insider knowledge forms the basis for successful campaigns.
• All-in-One Solution for Social Media Channels: Advertising PX includes all the features you need, including product catalog creation, feed management, and order synchronization. With Advertising PX, your teams can quickly create optimized, enriched, and error-free product feeds.
• Dynamic Graphics and Images for Social Channels: Use pre-made templates or create thousands of individual product images for different target groups and contexts with Advertising PX in seconds.
• Feed Translation and Localization: Manage your product offers for all regions or expand into new markets thanks to Productsup. Save time and money and accelerate market entry through automatic localization of currency, size, and weight.
• Automation:Processes that normally take days and weeks are largely automated on this platform (for example, the creation of product data, the optimization of product content, and the update of product lists). You can also use the automatic rules to create dynamic advertising content for your social ads.
• AI Assignment: Use AI to predict the appropriate attributes and taxonomies from imported and exported product content and assign them automatically to reduce manual operations and shorten the time to market.Performance optimization: Thanks to the ROI strategy tool, you can optimize your product content feed based on performance tracking data and KPI metrics.
• A/B Test Function: Test different variants of your offers to determine the best results.

Conclusion: Social Commerce Belongs on Your Agenda for 2024

To answer the question from the headline: "Everything suggests that social commerce with AI is the future of e-commerce". Because whoever doesn't put this topic on their 2024 agenda will find it incredibly hard to remain competitive in the recession and assert themselves against international competition. P2C platforms like Productsup, help you hit the nerve of (thrifty) customers in a resource-efficient way, create user-friendly purchases experiences, and quickly produce high-quality content using AI.