Social commerce gives brands opportunities to create seamless e-commerce experiences directly within popular social channels

One of the things that has always fascinated me about social media is the way it continues to adapt and evolve to changing consumer trends. Over the last 20 years we’ve seen a progressive shift from simple, text-based updates, to increasingly visual and ephemeral content, championed by app-based platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, and at the same time, social commerce has flourished. And whilst newer entrants such as TikTok have taken this trend even further, there have also been innovations in one-to-one communication seen in the development of messenger apps such as WeChat, WhatsApp and Messenger (the latter both owned by Facebook): 

It’s been interesting to see how some of these trends have converged to drive innovation in social media beyond communicating with friends and family. The impact and growth of social media has meant that brands now play an even bigger part in what we see across all channels. Whilst it’s been proven that users are very unlikely to engage or pay attention to brand content, what has caught consumers’ imaginations is the ability to browse and buy products within different digital environments.