No one wants to be behind the times. Being on-trend helps keep you and your business in front of the chasing pack, and away from the rabble fighting for the attention of your customers.
Highlighted here are six trends in social commerce to get super excited about in 2018 — incorporate these to keep your business on trend…

1. Facebook messenger commerce

Facebook messenger is one of the most engaged messaging services on the planet, with 1.3 billion users as of April 2017. Not only is it an opportunity for you to speak to your friends, family, and colleagues, it’s also an opportunity for you to sell your goods to your customers.

Using third-party software, such as Letsclap, lets you easily integrate your e-commerce business with Facebook messenger. This allows your customers to purchase from you via their Facebook account, making the whole commercial transaction easy and hassle-free.

Messenger apps overtook social apps back in 2015. We’re predicting that 2018 will continue you this trend and that as part of this Facebook messenger is going to be a goldmine of e-commerce sales opportunities.

Credit:(CC) Brian Solis, www.briansolis.com and bub.blicio.us. Flickr

2. Chatbot selling goes wild

Following swiftly on from Facebook messenger are standalone chatbots. You’ll have seen these popping up more and more, to the point you almost expect the site you’re visiting to come with a chatbot

Chatbots have the highest satisfaction level of any customer service funnel, with their 73% approval rating — placing them 12% ahead of nearest rival (email on 61%). These satisfaction levels exist because of the social nature of chatbots – you feel valued as if you’re talking to a real person, and the instant nature of chat means you aren’t ever left waiting around for answers.

There are innumerable chatbots available, with LiveChat Inc. being just one of the many brilliant options available. Chatbots are no longer niche and hard to implement or expensive — they have 100% made it into the mainstream and will only continue to grow in 2018.

3. Video lights the social commerce star

Live streaming videos aren’t a new thing, they’ve been a feature of Periscope, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube for some time now. However, selling products via this medium is becoming trendier and trendier.

Video has higher levels of engagement with viewers than just text-based content. Livestream represents a great opportunity for your brand to speak directly to your customers and to sell the value of your goods to them in real time.

Brands are already directing more and more of their marketing attention towards live streaming. It’s immediate, it’s unpredictable, and it can even be newsworthy. What’s not to love?

BuzzFeed’s live Facebook stream of two employees testing how many watermelons it takes to blow up a watermelon is an excellent example of how compelling the format can be:

4. The continued rise of influencers

Whether micro or macro, influencers are here to stay, and they’ve stamped their mark on social commerce with authority.

Operating in the same domain as live stream marketing, influencers speak to their audience in real time and help make brands seem more personable. Influencers hold tremendous power with their audiences, and often become rich themselves thanks to lucrative product tie-ins.

Influencers have uniquely engaged audiences, and they are usually willing to monetise them (to an extent). This represents an excellent opportunity for your brand to market your products to an audience who are engaged and hanging out on social media. Ride the coattails of a big influencer to make your product or service seem more ‘in’.

Using an influencer marketplace like FameBit allows you to connect with the right influencer for your brand.

Credit: FameBit

5. New wave of e-commerce entrepreneurs

It’s become so easy now to get started in e-commerce. Gone are the days when you needed a team of web designers, an array of stock, and a wad of cash to make your way in the industry.

Now, entrepreneurs are storming the marketplace with agile stores that make most of their sales through social media — using paid posts on Facebook and ads on Instagram to drive interest and sales.

Credit: mymarshmallowbaby

Marshmallow Baby is just one of the many great examples of e-commerce stores that you can buy ready-made, then bend to your will in order to establish your own social empire. Often, the accompanying social profiles become even more valuable than the actual domain!

With barriers to entry falling and social selling through chatbots, live streaming, and influencer marketing making the e-commerce industry an evermore social animal, we’re expecting a whole new wave of e-commerce entrepreneurs to appear onto the scene in 2018.

6. Sales driven by user-generated content

Getting your customers involved in the marketing of your brand and selling of your products might sound daring, risky, even nerve-wracking! But, embracing user-generated content is actually a very smart move for your business.

92% of customers trust user-generated content more than traditional marketing and advertising — that’s 9/10 of your customers!

By bringing your customers into the fold and allowing them to create content that markets and advertises your brand, you give yourself an enormous potential to drive up your sales figures.

Buffer is an excellent example of a brand incorporating user-generated content into their strategy with their #BufferCommunity posts:

Credit: Buffer

If almost all of your customers think that user-generated content is cool, why wouldn’t you invest some of your brand’s energy into this social commerce? You wouldn’t want to be uncool now, would you?

So there you have it, six social commerce trends that have us giddy about 2018 — which one are you most excited about?

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