Social media and ecommerce: A sales-focused guide for 2025
Retail ecommerce sales hit $5.621 trillion in 2023. And sales through social networks accounted for an estimated 18% of total online sales. By the end of 2024, ecommerce sales are expected to top $6 billion.
Ecommerce and social media marketing are like two peas in a pod. Social media marketing strategies drive traffic to ecommerce sites and can even drive direct sales. Meanwhile, ecommerce sites, sales, and promotions can draw attention to your social media accounts. This contributes to growing your loyal follower base.
Key takeaways
- Social media is essential for product discovery, especially for younger shoppers — over half of Gen Z primarily use it to research brands.
- The majority of consumers plan to buy from brands they follow on social media. Nurturing these connections with user-generated content, testimonials, and active engagement builds trust and increases sales over time.
- Direct social commerce tools (like Instagram Shops or Shoppable Pins on Pinterest) let users shop without leaving social apps, minimizing friction in the buying process. Supporting these social storefronts with strategies like targeted ads and product tagging helps boost sales.
Note: We’ll touch on social commerce in this post – that is, making sales directly on social media platforms through their native shopping tools. But if that’s your primary focus, check out our in-depth guide to social commerce first.
The benefits of using social media for ecommerce
Build awareness of your brand and products
Social platforms are overtaking search engines as the primary method of product discovery and brand research. Especially among younger shoppers. For example, 51% of Gen Z mainly uses social media to look up brands and new products, compared to the 45% who use search engines..
Source: eMarketer
Here’s the thing: You can’t view your social channels primarily as a promotional channel. The top social media turn-off among consumers is when brands are too focused on self-promotion.
Building brand awareness is a process. It takes time, and it requires you to put your followers first. To help, follow these tips:
- Showcase your personality and values. More than half (56%) of consumers think brands should be more relatable on social media.
- Demonstrate your value. This goes beyond the value of your products. Think about what value you can offer your followers directly on social media. Hint: Consumers most appreciate content that teaches them something new or makes them laugh.
Nurture an engaged audience of potential customers
Seventy percent of people who follow brands on social media plan to buy from them (soon or in the future). Getting more of your target audience to follow your social accounts directly equates to making more social media ecommerce sales.
Perhaps even more important, 58% of people say that following a brand on social has a moderate to high impact on their purchase decisions. For marketers, this means that attracting a follower is not enough. You need to nurture the relationship over time to keep your target demographic following and keep your brand top of mind.
Source: Hootsuite Social Media Consumer Report
For active shoppers, the most appealing things a brand can do on social media are:
- have an interesting point of view, and
- maintain an active social media presence that includes interacting with followers.
Keep in mind that brand content shared by a personal contact is the most effective for nudging people from brand awareness to consideration. Building a community that values and reshares your content is a powerful way to use social media marketing for ecommerce businesses.
Tap into relevant conversations
Social media can be a data goldmine for your brand. Social listening is the process of scanning social media for mentions of your brand or relevant conversations.
Specialized tools like Hootsuite Social Listening provide detailed insights into the conversations and topics that have the most potential ecommerce impact for your brand.
You’ll get a real-time look at what customers want from your brand, as well as any pain points that may be limiting social media ecommerce sales.
Social listening helps you identify potential buyers on the verge of making a purchase decision. Then, your team can reach out and seal the deal. You’ll also be able to identify the most valuable influencers for potential partnerships that drive sales.
Make more sales
The vast majority of consumers have made at least one purchase based on social media posts from ecommerce brands in the last 12 months. That includes 81% of Gen X and baby boomers, and 87% of Gen Z and millennials.
If you’re not winning those ecommerce customers over with your social content, you can be sure your competitors are.
Social media ecommerce offers several ways to make more sales, including:
- sell directly from your social media accounts
- drive traffic to your sales landing pages with ecommerce social media advertising
- build brand trust through informative and engaging organic content
4 not-super-obvious tips for a successful social media ecommerce strategy
1. Focus on success stories and testimonials
It’s reasonable for new customers to be skeptical about buying from brands they discover on social media. Consider that 44% of the 56,000 social media frauds reported to the FTC in the first six months of 2023 related to ecommerce. Those bad actors make it harder for good brands to win over new buyers.
That’s where success stories and testimonials from real customers come in. They help foster the brand trust you need to overcome skepticism and nudge social media users toward a sale.
Plus, everyday people are seen as much more trustworthy than brand employees, CEOs, and celebrities.
2. Create a seamless shopping experience
Using the social commerce features available through social platforms is one way to create a seamless online shopping experience. But it’s not the only way. Here are some important strategies to reduce friction in the social media ecommerce marketing process:
- Create a landing page for the specific product or offer highlighted in social ads. Don’t make users search your online store for the thing that caught their eye.
- Use a link in bio tool like HootBio to link each social post to the relevant content on platforms that don’t allow direct linking.
- Use retargeting options in social ads to nudge people to complete purchases in abandoned shopping carts.
3. Encourage (and reshare) UGC
Encourage customers to share pictures and video content featuring your products on social media. You could create a branded hashtag for easy tracking, or ask them to tag your brand. Social media contests and giveaways can be an effective way to bring in UGC.
Social listening can also help you identify potential UGC where the original poster does not tag your brand.
In the context of ecommerce, UGC could include:
- reviews
- product unboxing
- content in which a customer uses, discusses, or shows off your products or services
- customers sharing their experiences with your brand or team
This ties back to the importance of positive reviews and social proof.
User-generated content is also an effective way of showcasing brand values. And it does so without veering into the overly promotional territory that turns social followers off. Don’t underestimate the importance of value alignment: 84% of people say shared values are a critical factor in the buying decision.
4. Provide customer service on social media channels
No social media ecommerce strategy is complete without taking customer support into account. Social platforms are ideal for nurturing and supporting existing customers. Because of that, they’ve become a de facto customer support channel for most major brands.
Tools like a unified social inbox and AI chatbots can help ensure your customers get the customer service they need in a timely manner. Hootsuite Inbox auto-routes incoming queries to the most relevant team member to smooth the process.
Some customers and followers will post their questions and concerns publically, or tag you with questions or complaints. Remember that how you handle complaints publicly speaks volumes about how you handle them privately. Always respond to public comments promptly and with grace.
How to make more sales by combining social media and ecommerce
Brands wanting to use social media for ecommerce sales can sell directly on social platforms using native solutions like Facebook Shops, Instagram Shops, Pinterest Product Pins, or TikTok Shop.
In this case, brands can sell without even creating their own ecommerce store, as customers can shop, select, and complete checkout without leaving the social media apps.
As you’ve seen, this is certainly not the only way to use social media for ecommerce, but it is a major potential source of ecommerce revenue. For example, eMarketer predicts that 36.9% of social buyers in the U.S. will purchase something on TikTok in 2024.
So what’s the best social media for ecommerce sales? There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Tools like Hootsuite Analytics can give you a deep understanding of your customer base. Use this information to choose your primary social media ecommerce platforms, then do some testing to further refine your platform mix over time.
Keep in mind that the platform driving the highest number of ecommerce sales is not necessarily the one driving the highest revenue. For example, on Black Friday last year, TikTok’s average order volume was $43, compared to $95 for Meta.
Set up shop
Consider setting up a storefront on one of the social commerce platforms provided by the major social media networks:
- Meta Shops: These online storefronts allow you to sell directly on Facebook and Instagram. Customers can access your shop from your Facebook Page, Instagram profile, Instagram ads, or shoppable content in your feed, stories, and Reels. Learn more about Facebook shops and Instagram shops.
- TikTok Shops: You can display and sell products directly through in-feed TikToks, TikTok Lives, your own Shop page, or the Shop tab. Learn more about TikTok Shops.
Post shoppable content
In addition to an actual storefront, you can create shoppable content to combine social media and ecommerce.
Product tags on Instagram and Facebook
Upload products to your Facebook and/or Instagram catalog, then add product tags to any post, story, or Reel.
Source: @merimeriparty
Users who click on the product tag are directed to the specific product that caught their eye. You can choose whether to set the process up to complete the purchase within the app, or on your own ecommerce site.
You can tag your own products, of course, but you can give creators access to tag your products too. This is a great way to use social media marketing for ecommerce influencer campaigns.
You can also include product tags in Facebook and Instagram ads for effective and direct ecommerce social media advertising.
Shoppable Pins
Upload your product catalog and Pinterest will automatically make a product Pin for every listing.
Source: Banana Republic on Pinterest
You can sort your Pins into product groups to keep things organized. If you want to add budget to your Pinterest ecommerce efforts, you can run Pinterest shopping ads.
To highlight your shoppable Pins on your own profile, save them to a public board.
You can also add meta tags to your website that allow other Pinterest users to create shoppable Pins featuring your products, extending your reach with baked-in social proof.
3 examples of social media ecommerce done right
Inspiration time! Let’s look at some brands using social media effectively to drive ecommerce sales.
1. Houseplant
Seth Rogan’s company selling ashtrays and other “thoughtfully-designed objects for people who like nice things” creates beautiful content showcasing their products with a unified aesthetic.
Much of the content has a midcentury modern vibe. This shoppable post mimics a magazine ad from the Mad Men era.
Clicking the product links in the post takes users to a product listing with a significant discount on the product, with more product details and a link to buy on the Houseplant website. Users can also tap or scroll to see more from the Houseplant Instagram shop.
Source: @Houseplant
Why it works:
- Instagram shopping tags and storefront allow for frictionless shopping of products in all posts and Reels.
- Consistent aesthetic and brand voice build consumer trust.
2. Aerie
Aerie regularly partners with influencers to showcase their products on different body types while extending their reach.
In this Reel, rather than tagging products directly, the creator asks viewers to comment “Link” to get an automated DM with a link to her personal Aerie shop. She adds the helpful tip that she is wearing a size large in all items.
Source: @kelclight
Source: ae.com/us/en/x/aerie/kelsey-faves
Why it works:
- With too many products to tag in one Reel, the automated DM link option makes it easier for viewers to shop all the products featured.
- Influencer marketing allows viewers to see the clothes in real-world situations, rather than just on a model in a studio, increasing trust.
3. Riversol
This skincare brand took a unique approach to showcasing customer reviews and testimonials. They simply asked people to comment on their customer experience with the brand in a Facebook post.
The original post is actually three years old, but the company continues to boost it as an ad, and new comments and testimonials keep coming in. The company makes sure to respond to each comment, and users even interact among themselves. This ongoing conversation provides a solid stock of social proof.
Source: @RiversolMD
The brand’s 62,000 Facebook followers have become used to this level of engagement with the brand and fellow fans. They have active conversations in the comments in many of the brand’s posts.
All of this drives impressive brand loyalty that translates directly into ecommerce sales. The company sold out of its 2024 Holiday Favourites Set just three days after announcing the launch.
Why it works:
- Social proof combined with a free sample helps overcome buying objections.
- Building an engaged fan base helps followers feel like they are part of a community.
Grow your social media presence faster with Hootsuite. Schedule content (including shoppable posts) ahead of time, answer DMs and comments and monitor your efforts using our comprehensive suite of social media analytics tools. Try it free today.
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