To enhance customer experience in online stores, E-commerce businesses are up to explore every area where they can lure their users. In the past decade, the increase in the use of social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest has shown us that the influence of these platforms is a force to be reckoned with. Till now the big brands leveraged these platforms to create the brand identity and loyalty among their users and SMBs were just getting their share of price comparison in the user’s mind. The fun part is that you can even make a standalone marketing strategy for online business with social media.

Big platforms like Magento, WooCommerce, and Shopify are catering to the needs of small business owners. These small businesses can now leverage the power of social media with the upcoming trend of social payments.

What is Social Payment or Social Commerce?

Social Payment or Social Commerce is a way to use social media platforms to enable a user to make payment for his favorite products using the same app or in other words to create an in-app payment process on social media platforms for an online store.

To simply understand this, suppose a scenario where you are an Instagram user and scrolling through your feed, laughing at memes and commenting on your friend’s selfies, you see an ad on your screen and it shows you a wonderful pair of footwear, which is exactly you were looking for your Christmas party. Now, if you click on it to buy then you will have to leave the app and you don’t wanna do it because there is a serious conversation going on in your group on Instagram, so you will, for that moment hit the like button on that ad and leave it to make the purchase later. 67% of the time such users won’t return to make the purchase. If the ad uses a social payment method then you can easily place an order for those wonderful pairs of shoes without having to leave the app. This way the businesses can retain 67% of users, who abandoned their product because the user didn’t want to leave the app.

How to use Social Payment for E-commerce?

For WooCommerce:

To enable social payment in WooCommerce Tap2pay is the best plugin available for now. This plugin enables the user to make payment in popular messengers like Facebook Messenger, Viber Chat, WhatsApp, and Telegram. It is supported by payment gateways such as Bluesnap, Braintree, Stripe, Paypal, Prepaid, and CreditGard. With a powerful dashboard, analytics, and support, this can add value to your small business. If you have a WooCommerce website, the suggestion is, go for it.

For Shopify:

Shopify has numerous apps to integrate into your Shopify store to enable Social commerce features. ‘Instagram channel’ gives you an ability to tag your products in your Instagram photos and one-click buying option for the user. ‘Facebook Shop Channel’ app does the same for Facebook photos and video ads. The best thing about these apps is, they are FREE!

For Magento:

There is an extension available for Magento 2 commerce called ‘Pixee- Shoppable Instagram solution’. Magento 2 stores that are looking to capitalize on their social media engagements can use this extension to drive sales. It can be easily integrated and initiated to campaign for the next upcoming products.

What are the benefits of using Social Commerce:

• Leverage Increased Engagement

The recent report shows that 40% of the buying decisions of Gen Z are influenced by social media. And there is an exponential increase in social media engagement. SMBs can leverage this increased engagement on the social platform by taking the decision to integrate Social Commerce in their online stores. Shoppable Instagram and FaceBook posts are reported to make the first purchase possible in just 24 hours. It is a faster approach to get to the customer and influence the buying decisions.

• Create Brand Loyalty

Gen Z likes to get in touch with their favorite brand and feel good when they are the first ones to know about a new product launch in their friend circle. Engaging with them on social media plays a huge role in creating a brand. Creating content that gives them a sense of connection, a sense of understanding can take your brand to the next level. With social commerce, you can actually monetize over these contents. It simple, yet very powerful move for growth of your small business.

• Higher Conversion Rates:

The online shopping websites are facing an issue of cart abandonment. The conversion rates are also not satisfactory and bouncing rates are increasing as well. Search engine algorithms are more centered on providing quality content. Social media, however, is increasing its impact on people’s lives. Social is where the Millenials spend most of their leisure time, for ideas, trends, insights, news, and entertainment. These platforms can be advantageous because of their high conversion rates.

• Minimal Efforts, High ROI

Once you have enabled the social payment feature for your business’s social media pages, all you need to do now is to create engaging content and reach out to your target audiences. Choosing the target audience has become easy with FaceBook’s paid advertisements. These advertisements are very focused and can benefit you in terms of reaching out to the right audience.

The rise of social commerce is inevitable. Gen Z is spending more time and money on social media every day. These platforms can influence decisions of this mass. Instagram has a broad market and is now leading social commerce. There is only a blurry line between social media and e-commerce now.

Hubspot defines omni-channel commerce as “the ability to deliver a seamless and consistent experience across channels while factoring in the different devices that consumers are using to interact with your business.”

The dominance of social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram surely played a big role in the rising of social commerce. Small businesses need technological boosts on their end. The decision to integrate social payments is on you. You can find experts to help you in creating strategies and technologies to enable you to do so.