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Social commerce-EN

Trends in 2018
There are several trends expected for the Social commerce from 2018 on.

For the marketing manager of Yotpo, Melanie Koss, "Today’s most successful eCommerce brands are not seeking just to grab attention on social, but to join the conversation". This happens due to the fact that Social commerce is growing year after year, an example of that is Facebook that had 1.13 billion daily active users in 2016 and in the end of 2017 had more than 2 billion active users. Instagram is another good example of that, because it had around 500 million active users in 2016 and in the end of 2017 it had more than 800 million users. Other examples are Twitter, which has more than 313 million monthly active users, and Pinterest, which has more than 110 million. Hence, companies that are using (or in process to use) this tool to sale through out the Social media need to know which are the future trends in this scenario, which are:

Become an Insta-brand

As more users there are in Social medias, as more they become influenced by visual contents. Therefore, companies using Social commerce tends to be visually driven, relatable, and authentically focus "on brand" to obtain success. One example of that comes from the company MVMT Watches which made their success by maintaining high standards of content in their Instagram's posts, unifying color schemes to create a visual identity with customers, showing a curate appearance of the brand and basing their content on feeds collected from fans and influencers. MVMT watches have about 1 million-strong shoppers which were likely to learn about MVMT on Instagram before ever visiting their site. Hence, brands are looking to have customers engagement with their brands, making them new influencers living a Lifestyle brand, who propel the brand in Social media through Word-of-mouth marketing. Companies realize that fewer engaged followers worth more than a ton of passive ones. Photoslurp presents several other examples of success companies using this strategic tool, two of them are CLUSE which posts feeds full of user-generated content to show off their products with a personal touch, or Sephora who does a "Fragrance IQ" quiz which covers a brief series of questions to help them determinate the ideal perfumes or colognes for the taker.

Finding micro-influencers

Currently consumers are considering micro-influencers more authentic than celebrities, hence, being more influenced by them. Micro-influencers could be designers, photographers, writers, athletes, bohemian world-wanderers, professors, or any professional which could authentically channel things that speak about a brand. These kind of channels are rapidly growing all over the social media, having more targeted audiences, higher engagement rates and which are already living out a "Brand" ideals. It is clear that these channels have fewer followers than the average celebrities accounts, most of the time they have less than 10,000 followers (according to Georgia Hatton from Social Media Today ), but the quality of the audiences in it tends to be better, with a higher potential for like-minded tight-knit community of shoppers eager to take recommendations from one another. Georgia Hatton cited some success cases of companies using this strategy, two of them are Tribe and Takumi which are communities of individuals who pride themselves on aesthetic social media accounts. This topic have been also discussed by many others organizations such as Adweek, Medium , Forbes , Brand24 , and many others.

Pay more attention to Pinterest

Pinterest is the fastest-growing social network today and it is becoming a dominating force in the Social commerce world. This platform becomes more than a simply place to obtain ideas, it became a real and powerful marketing machine, a place where everything is "Pinnable", collectable, and purchasable. Melaine Koss also mentions that "With 88% of people who save pins doing so in search of a purchase, missing out on this opportunity would mean losing some of the highest intent social traffic out there. Take Pinterest’s visual product discovery capabilities to the next level by including customer photos on your boards to increase traffic to your site by up to 50%.". Sites as Marketing Land and Pot Pie Girl are examples of the growing attention in the use of this tool and how to get the best result of it. Pinterest, by itself, gives several tutorials of selling , pinning , using the social media and also presents many success stories with the winning strategies used.

Use customer-created Facebook ads

Another trend is the use of customers reviews and photos in place of professional ad creative, creating ads that are a seamless fit in customers' newsfeeds, increasing the possibility that potential customers will enjoy the products and/or the brands, and making them pay more attention to companies' ads. This strategy also makes the ads simple, relatable, and completely scalable. Blenders Eyewear is a good example of this strategy because they were able to reduce their acquisition costs in 38% and got twice the click-through rate. Other companies that are using Facebook Dynamic Product Ads successfully are Audi UK, Volvo Car Germany , HOB Spain , Virgin EMI Records , Visa , and many others.