Recent talks about a potential partnership between MasterCard and Twitter reflects a growing trend across social networks: the arms race for social commerce success.
It’s no secret that Twitter has struggled in recent years with user acquisition and ad revenue growth. This will be an inevitable story for all social networks – user acquisition is inherently limited and ad blindness continues to reach critical mass. Even as Facebook reaches 1.59 billion monthly active users (14% YoY growth), it too will reach a saturation point. The only way for social networks to achieve continued revenue growth is to aim to increase average revenue per person.
It follows then, that despite these struggles, the two sweet spots of opportunity for Twitter’s revenue growth are through the influencer marketing agency, Niche – acquired last year and already paying dividends – and the untapped purchase power that a ‘buy now’ button would capitalize on.
As the ‘Buy’ Button Arms Race on social channels heats up, brands are pursuing partnerships that will allow them to also monetize their audience to drive social commerce across relevant social channels. The race is on to tap into the buying power of each user to scale revenue growth, and increase average revenue per user. But the problem with this strategy-for both brands and social networks alike- is that the ‘buy button’ still comes in the form of an ad unit, and there’s major competition from eCommerce players like Amazon. .
Which leaves the next viable option for social commerce dominance: influencer marketing.
Today, social media networks are increasingly emphasizing algorithm-based social news feeds that place precedence on peer-to-peer engagement. More so, the largest generation in history is poised to be in control of the world’s purchasing power: nearly 7 in 10 Millennial social users are influenced to purchase based on friends’ posts. As a result, brands are in a position of opportunity to leverage the social capital of their existing influential customers, who are known as micro-influencers because they have the power to impact purchase decisions.
Forget about the ‘buy’ button. Your brand has its very own well of social capital already, sitting within your customer base.
Brands have thousands of existing micro-influencers driving purchase behaviors at every point of the customer decision journey daily, through their recommendations to friends & family. The key to tapping into this potential revenue stream is to discover which customers are influential across each social network, so that you know how to best leverage their social capital to drive your marketing objectives.
For example, when Yasso needed an innovative way to impact Millennial women between the ages of 24 and 35, it turned to existing micro-influencers to amplify branded posts on newsfeeds; the campaign yielded an ROI of 384%, and per 1,000 micro-influencers, there were 6,455 purchases driven from coupon downloads by friends. (more here)
Your best asset for social commerce success is your existing customer base – but not all of your customers are created equal. Take the first step towards discovering your brand’s micro-influencers, and check out our Facebook Fan Grader to index your 100 most influential Facebook fans for free.
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