After deciding to add a payment option available through Messenger and WhatsApp, Facebook has added a new feature to Instagram : let users make purchases directly using the mobile app. But it’s not the only social media to do so, Snapchat has now extended shopping actions to its famous stories thanks to Amazon.
 
Social shopping is rising.
Social shopping is the ability to shop through a social media app. It helps brands turn its audience into customers, it’s a new form of advertisement. A practice well known by influencers and brands who won’t hesitate to purchase expensive ads in order to get shown to more people.
Instagram is not only a photo-sharing platform anymore, it’s also a marketplace. Same as Snapchat. By allowing users to directly buy from a social app, it makes you wonder what the future holds for m-commerce. Will brands work exclusively with influencers? Will basic ads disappear like we thought they would ? Or will they be even more present in our life ? The latter answer seems to be the right one…
Instagram has nearly a billion users every month and knowing that Americans spend a daily average of 55 minutes on the app , it’s no surprise that the company has decided to get involved in such a way. M-commerce is growing rapidly and social media might be a very important piece of the puzzle.
 
The impulse buyer.
Even if Snapchat is losing popularity (Instagram stories attract twice the eyeballs than Snapchat Stories), it would be quite smart for the company to make an alliance with such big brands as Amazon. By allowing users to buy directly from the app, Snapchat could take advantage of the most interesting part of m-commerce : instant buy. That moment when an impulse buyer won’t think twice before hitting the “payment” button because they have seen an advertisement or a promoted post and they instantly thought that they wanted to buy the product displayed.
Impulse buying is not something new, it’s something that was just harder to find in regular e-commerce. When you walk around in the city center, you will always find something that you would like to buy in the blink of an eye, even if you don’t need it. Online, it’s quite more difficult, as you actually need to search for something first. Social media is erasing that big step that is “searching” : brands will advertise what they want to sell and you won’t even notice it as you will just scroll your app.
Even Facebook Messenger has decided to put ads between your messages, Tumblr ads are now intertwined with the background, Facebook has  augmented reality ads so users can see how products look before buying them…
 
 
Video advertising is quickly becoming the most popular form of advertisement, the numbers of mobile users and active social media users are growing each year and the fact that people spend more time on social media than watching TV says it all. Advertisement is evolving towards m-commerce and social media could become the single most important marketplace.

A propos de Steven GUILBERT