
5 Reasons to Embrace Social Media for eCommerce

If we could summarise this article with a single statement, it would be that using social media for eCommerce is no longer optional.
As a business, you absolutely must be embracing social media if you want to succeed at selling online.
Not convinced? Take a peek at the facts for 2019:
- 4.3 billion people are now using the internet worldwide. Up 9.1% year-on-year.
- 3.4 billion people are active on social media. Up 9% year-on-year.
- 5.1 billion people have access to a smartphone. Up 2% year-on-year.
With numbers like that, it’s difficult to understand why any business would shy away from selling online via social.
But, just in case you’re still on the fence, here are five more reasons to start using social media to help boost your eCommerce potential.

1. Selling on social media is a no brainer
It’s not just the number of people on social media that’s impressive. It’s the amount of time that people are actually spending on their newsfeeds.
According to TechJury, the average person gives up 2 hours and 22 minutes of their day to catch up on social media. Which, when you think about it, accounts for a staggering 14% of their waking hours.
This presents you with a tremendous opportunity to reach out to an ever-growing audience with your products and services. Though doing so isn’t quite as simple as flooding your newsfeed with your products.
A big part of selling on social media is demonstrating a compelling reason for people to buy your products. Not to mention the tricky business of ensuring that you are targeting the right kind of people in the first place.
Fortunately, most social media services have sophisticated advertising platforms to help you do this. Allowing you to target people based on specific demographics, interests, job titles and even lookalike audiences.
2. People buy with their emotions
If you wanted to sell a pair of snow boots, you wouldn’t write about how durable the leather is. You’d try to describe how it feels to actually own a pair of snow boots. This helps the customer form an emotional connection with the product before they even buy it.
Social media works in a similar way. With images and videos performing far better than walls of text. This is because the brain can interpret and react to images far faster than the written word. Which means that emotions can be triggered far quicker as a result.
Sellers use this to their advantage, particularly on visual social media platforms such as Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat. Just take a look at well-known brands such as Oreo to see this being used to great effect.
3. Your business needs to be credible
Success on social media is often about the perception of credibility. Which boils down to how popular your business appears to be on the social platforms. This could take the form of likes, followers, reviews and verification badges. All of it adds to your overall credibility.
This doesn’t just apply to how your customers view your social media profiles either. You’ve also got to consider how your suppliers and potential influencers perceive your brand from a social perspective. Getting this right goes a long way towards establishing yourself as an authority in your niches social space.
