The rise of TikTok
With TikTok available in over 150 countries and 1 billion active users and growing, social media marketers cannot afford to consider TikTok as a passing phase. TikTok attracts a wide demographic age range of people between 13 and 60 years old, covering a market that includes teens and adults with the highest purchasing power.
Worldwide, the app has been downloaded 2.6 billion times. TikTok users are using the app an average of 95 minutes per day and opening the app an average of 8 times per day. Engagement on TikTok has been challenging to quantify but considering that TikTok usage is surging, it’s worthwhile for marketers to include the platform in their social media strategy if they want to stay relevant and remain competitive.
The demand for social commerce
There was a time when people discovered products and services while scrolling their feeds. And once they found something they were interested in, they would leave the social media platform to visit the brand’s website. Companies would make it easier for users to find their product pages by including external links in their posts or profile descriptions. This worked for a time; however, consumers have now come to expect that they can buy your products directly on social media.
For non-disruptive shopping experiences, many brands have leveraged in-app shopping solutions that many social media apps feature. To lessen the risk of losing potential customers when they have to take the extra step and leave the platform, Facebook and Instagram have provided the ability to checkout items without having to leave the app.
Social customer care expectations
When users discover your products on social media, they expect to have the ability to also complete their purchase within the app. Beyond that, they have also come to expect that product-specific queries can be answered in-app. The reality is that consumers have become more impatient and 90% of them rate an “immediate” response as very important when they have a customer service question. This demand has given rise to social media customer service strategies, which ensure that customer service conversations take place on the platform.
Many brands implement chatbots to help increase their response time and prevent the user from waiting too long. Companies may find having a dedicated customer service agent monitoring social channels is a worthwhile investment, especially if you’ve determined you’re losing opportunities by not paying as much attention to social customer care as you should.
Stay tuned for more trends in social media marketing. Be sure you’re reaching your contacts on the right social channels. With Social Media Append, we can take your contact list and provide you with your contact’s social media handles and their most used method to communicate. It’s an easy way to augment your existing contact list for the purposes of target marketing, data collecting, and updating the way you can communicate with your contacts.