Social Shopping for Marketers
Sometimes you stay awake at night thinking of the strangest things. Like how you can buy stuff from every social media platform these days.
In my freelance work I often deal with TikTok, Pinterest and ESPECIALLY Instagram. Just had to type up some 1AM thoughts to get them out of my head. Hope they help someone.
Social Shopping is Here to Stay
You don’t need to leave your house to go to the store. And now, you don’t need to go to the store in order to shop. At least, that’s the promise behind social media platforms adding “social shopping” features to their apps.
The big ones mentioned in this report are Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest. All accomplish the same trade: sacrifice traffic and product margin for more sales volume. Obviously there’s other benefits to being on these platforms, including but not limited to:
- Up to date totally not fake news
- 24/7 customer support
- Crippling anxiety
But when you’re a small business that sells stuff, it’s worth it all for the extra sales. In theory. So let’s look at the arbitrary set of platforms that I’m most familiar with to see which ones are worth investing time and money into for your business.
How Platforms are Evaluated
Here are the factors I used to evaluate the platforms:
- Reputation
- What is the sentiment or “vibe” of the platform?
- Quickest ROI
- How effectively/quickly can the platform provide reach and sales that make up for the time/money invested in it?
- Cost of Advertising
- If the business wants to advertise on the platform, how costly is it (generally speaking)?
- Content Marketing Potential
- Does the platform give us the tools and flexibility to establish our brand and create an engaged following?
- Ease of Setup and Use
- How easy is it to get started with the shopping features?
- How simple and quick it is to maintain those features over time?
- Extensibility
- How easy it is to add more features to the platform or automate existing ones?
- Future Proofing
- What does the future of the platform look like?
Instagram has become the new Facebook, attracting an older audience with more disposable income. With around 2 billion monthly active users, it is by far the largest platform discussed.
Instagram serves as the largest hub for content marketing on this list, offering the opportunity to establish the business as a reputable brand. This, in turn, can help attract repeat customers and build lasting relationships.
The platform has plenty of tools for engaging with its general audience, and they are all flexible enough to suit the business' needs. To reach a more specific, targeted audience, advertising is eventually necessary. Currently, Instagram’s ad prices are reasonable, but I expect therm to rise in the future.
Although active task management is required to maintain our presence on the platform, there are a few factors that makes this relatively easy. First, you’re already involved and active on Instagram a lot. In addition, Instagram’s longevity has resulted in a robust API, allowing other apps and services to integrate seamlessly. So some tasks can be scheduled using these tools.
With all that being said, the Instagram algorithm can be unpredictable. While it currently provides the reach needed to benefit the business, its effectiveness could change without warning if Meta’s past history is any indication.
Instagram is popular around the world for a reason, and it is reaping the benefits of its collective hard work. Some have even argued that it is a monopoly that requires government intervention, although risk of that is pretty minimal. It’s a well-oiled machine with a proven track record of positive ROI, and should be considered an essential marketing component.
TikTok
TikTok is a major platform among younger audiences, with 50% of its U.S. users under 30 and about 1.6 billion monthly active users globally.
It emphasizes impulse buying, a culture that can be advantageous for quick sales. However, the platform’s users also have the shortest attention spans, making it difficult to generate repeat customers.
In addition, the platform’s algorithm is highly volatile, leading to either minimal reach or massive spikes in engagement and sales. More importantly, it encourages the use of its video creation tools and content that’s platform-specific in order to maximize reach. And it watermarks videos create this way, making cross-posting videos less than ideal.
The platform is primarily mobile-based, with most of its tools and features being exclusive to the app. This can make managing complex tasks somewhat challenging.
One key task that TikTok doesn’t support is post scheduling. You have to manually open the app to post a video. It sounds like a small nuisance, but it is one that wastes time and mental energy that can otherwise be spent elsewhere. There are workarounds, but they are generally more trouble than they are worth. As a closed system, TikTok doesn’t easily integrate with other apps. And the ones that try often come with their own drawbacks.
TikTok is the most volatile platform discussed, even without regarding its regulatory woes. It can pop off and net a lot of sales or do absolutely nothing, and there’s no way to predict what will work now or in the future.
Pinterest is a unique platform to evaluate. Although it’s the smallest platform with about 700 million monthly active users, it has a highly engaged community within your niche. It’s the only platform that is predominantly women, and Pinterest has always been tied to helping its users make purchase decisions. That alone makes it a valuable space for the business to market to.
With some good photography and proper tagging, content marketing is simple and should result in solid natural reach. Ad prices are moderate and are expected to remain stable, so paid reach is a reasonable option.
The platform requires passive engagement from us that can be easily automated with scheduled posts. It doesn’t do anything fancy like Instagram or emphasize video like TikTok, but that simplicity is reflected in the ROI. It’s unlikely to generate huge sales, the low investment in both time and money helps to balance it out.
The app is user-friendly, although most business-related features need to be accessed through the website. Its extensibility is limited, but it provides the essential tools by default.
The Pinterest algorithm isn’t nearly as volatile as the other platforms, favoring good photography and proper SEO over growth hacks and luck. I liken it to tending a small garden in your own yard: it won’t yield huge results quickly, but over time it’ll be indispensable.
Pinterest may not be the richest or most successful platform compared to others, but it is arguably the most stable and safe.
Recommendation & Considerations
Instagram is the most likely to deliver a positive ROI due to its massive audience and flexible toolkit. It’s already a platform you know/enjoy and is likely to remain that way for the next 1–3 years at minimum.
Pinterest needs minimal investment and has proven stability. It may not double sales numbers, but it feels like the easiest sales out of the three platforms.
Although TikTok offers the highest potential ROI, it also carries the highest risk of wasting any investment. And given that the US government seems intent on either banning or butchering the platform, I recommend not investing too much into it.
Wrap Up
I have no idea if this will be helpful to someone, but hey, at least it’s out of my head. Good night and ttyl!
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