Social Commerce Strategy: Improve Your Social Selling With These 11 Strategies

Social commerce is reshaping how people discover and purchase products online, blending the convenience of ecommerce with the connection of social interaction. Sales are on track to reach $100 billion in the US by 2026—and are projected to surpass $13 trillion globally by 2033. 

Driving the growth of the social commerce industry is the rapid adoption of social platforms. Roughly 65% of the global population has a social media account, with the average user spending 18 hours and 41 minutes every week on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.

The market opportunity is vast for retailers willing to embrace a human-centric approach to online shopping that strengthens consumer relationships. Any brand hoping to cash in on growing social commerce trends must create a strategy grounded in consumer understanding, thoughtful channel selection, and routine performance measurement. 

In this guide, we’ll look at 11 proven social commerce strategies to help you seize this opportunity, with examples from brands that have implemented their own version. 

What is a social commerce strategy?

A social commerce strategy outlines how a brand will use social media to sell products. Instead of using social apps solely to build brand awareness and acquire a following, the goal is to convert audiences into customers. This is done through social commerce capabilities such as shoppable content, in-app checkout, and live streaming. 

11 social commerce strategies for 2025 

1. Choose the right social commerce platforms
2. Enable social checkout
3. Create shoppable content
4. Co-create with influencers and creators
5. Host live shopping events
6. Optimize for social search
7. Gather data from social media audiences
8. Lean on bots to close social sales
9. Localize social content for international markets
10. Supplement organic posts with paid ads
11. Leverage data to refine your social commerce strategy

1. Choose the right social commerce platform 

To create a successful social commerce strategy, retailers must first recognize that it’s not about them. It’s about the customer.

First, identify where your target customers spend their time. Doing this research upfront will ensure that you are investing in the best social commerce platforms to connect with them:

• Research top competitors to see which social platforms they use to sell. 
• Consult the demographic data for popular social media platforms to see how they align with your target customer. YouTube and TikTok, for example, are popular with Gen Z, while Facebook tends to be the platform of choice for older generations. 
• Use Shopify Analytics to uncover which social channels customers are already using to find you. Those with a high conversion rate should be prioritized in your strategy.
• Add a question to customer feedback surveys that asks which social media app they use most frequently. Prioritize those mentioned most often.

2. Enable social checkout 

Today, many enterprise brands still look at their website as the place where commerce happens. But connecting with customers on social media and redirecting them to your online store to complete a purchase creates friction that often leads to cart abandonment.

Social commerce makes it easy to move customers from product discovery to purchase without leaving the apps they know and love. Leverage native checkout features that allow shoppers to buy directly within the platform. 

Most platforms offer these as standard, including:

• TikTok Shop
• Instagram Shop
• Facebook Shop
• Pinterest Shopping
• YouTube Shopping

Create frictionless customer experience by integrating your ecommerce platform with social checkout. This ensures your inventory is always accurate, your product catalog is up to date, and you’re promoting the right products at the right time. 

Shopify’s unified commerce platform, for example, integrates directly with TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. This gives you one central business “brain” that syncs product details, orders, and customer data wherever you sell. 

“Integrating all of our sales channels within a single platform allows us to deliver a personalized, cohesive experience at every touchpoint, reflecting the seamless luxury that our customers expect from Venus et Fleur,” says Brendan Gorman, head of ecommerce at Venus et Fleur. “With Shopify's unified ecosystem, we can manage ecommerce, retail, and social commerce data in one place, giving us a holistic view of our customer journey.”

3. Create shoppable content 

While the goal of social commerce is ultimately to drive sales, social media is very different from other marketing channels. Customers are open to shopping when they see something they like, but for many users, the primary reason to open a social media app is to be educated or entertained. 

Help potential customers discover your products by creating entertaining shoppable content. This places your product at the forefront of your post and offers a seamless shopping experience so customers can purchase directly through your in-app storefront without leaving the app.

The goal should be to entertain and educate followers while also helping them understand how your product works. Tried-and-tested formats include:

• Product demonstrations
• Unboxing videos 
• “Day in the life” content (featuring your products)
• Problem/solution hooks 

“You have to be compelling,” says Caitlin Strandberg, principal at venture capital firm Lerer Hippeau. “You've got to be interesting. You need to capture users' attention or a community or group of people that are easily distracted. You have to stand out among all the other distractions. It challenges brands to be creative, which they should be.” 

4. Co-create with influencers and creators

Most marketers advise posting on social commerce platforms at least once a day. This can quickly become overwhelming if you’re managing several platforms, each with its own posting requirements and content schedules.

The onus doesn’t have to be on your marketing team to fill content calendars. Leverage social proof and encourage customers to post their own photos or videos of themselves unboxing or using your product. You can repost these to your account (with permission) to add an unbiased point of view, like Glossier does with this TikTok video: 

If you’re amplifying this social commerce strategy with influencers, opt for the most relevant creators with the most engaged followers—also known as micro-influencers. These creators have built a tight-knit community that trusts their recommendations. 

Partner with them through influencer marketing campaigns such as: 

• Sponsored posts, where influencers get paid to post a piece of content on their own account. Prices range dramatically depending on the influencer’s follower count, niche, and engagement rate. Expect to pay around $1,300 on Instagram and $2,700 on TikTok.
• Affiliate partnerships, where influencers earn commission on every product they sell. TikTok, in particular, excels here. Creators can become affiliates for their favorite brand’s TikTok Shop, post shoppable content, tag the product, and earn commission when they make a sale through the app. 

The best partnerships span every channel your target customer is active on. Tools like Shopify Collabs can help you identify potential influencers, issue free samples, and track the results of your campaign—no matter which social media app it takes place on. 

Premium travel brand Solgaard, for example, experienced month-over-month revenue growth of over 287% generated by creators in their Shopify Collabs-powered program. They’ve already generated more than $50,000 in sales since the program launched.

“Shopify Collabs has revolutionized our approach to working with influencers and ambassadors,” says founder and CEO Adrian Solgaard. “Our team is constantly seeking new ways to advance our mission of preventing as much ocean plastic as possible. Fostering a community of remarkable individuals on the Shopify Collabs app has made our efforts easier and more effective, which helps us to drive maximum impact.”

5. Host live shopping events

Livestreams combine the interactivity of in-person shopping with the convenience of ecommerce. While Chinese customers were among the first to favor this type of real-time shopping experience, almost half of global consumers are interested in it, and 11% already participate regularly. 

“Livestreams are a great way for potential customers to get to know you as a brand and to answer questions they may have,” says Michael Bell, founder and CEO of Manukora. “Be sure to include where to purchase your products in the livestream and then drop your online store in the comments to make it easy to increase sales.”

To host a successful live shopping event on social media: 

• Choose an engaging format. Q&As, demos, tutorials, or product launches lend themselves to livestreams, building excitement and showcasing your product’s use cases. 
• Answer customer questions in real time. This removes purchase barriers and fosters personalized connections. 
• Leverage product tags. Tag products you’re talking about in your live broadcasts, so your audience can purchase directly from your in-app storefront without leaving the stream.

6. Optimize for social search

Google is no longer the search engine of choice for all consumers. Almost one in four consumers consult social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram to search for new products, with 46% of Gen Z and 35% of millennials preferring these experiences over traditional search engines. 

Focus on creating relevant content that can resonate with your target audience. If the content is good, it’s much more likely to perform well. 

From there, nail down your SEO fundamentals to reach social searchers when they’re actively looking for you:

• Optimize your social media profiles. Describe the products you sell and choose the most relevant account category. Chubbies, for example, uses keywords like “apparel” and “shorts” in their Instagram bio. The account is also tagged as “Clothing (brand).”
• Include keywords. Identify the phrases an ideal customer would search to discover each post. Include these keywords in post captions and video subtitles. 
• Add relevant hashtags. Make these specific to each video. A TikTok post to promote a moisturizer designed for acne sufferers, for example, could use hashtags like #acneskincare or #clearskin. 
• Geotag your posts. Social commerce platforms like TikTok have a “Nearby” feed factoring in a user’s location to display nearby opportunities—meaning you could reach customers in your area without them having to actively search for you. 

7. Gather data from social media audiences 

Relying solely on social media to reach your target audience is risky. Consider it as building an audience on rented land—the platform has the ultimate say on what content you can post. In extreme cases. The site can shut down and take your audience with it. The TikTok ban, although later reversed, is a prime example of how volatile these platforms can be. 

That’s not to say you should avoid building audiences on social media entirely. Instead, use your accounts to attract potential buyers, then engage them outside of the app. 

Customer data is the foundation of this audience migration. With your ideal customer’s email address, you can send direct outreach and reach them in a place most other retailers can’t—their inbox. These marketing emails have an average open rate of 37.93%—a far cry from the average engagement rate of just 3.5% on social media.

To gather customer data from social commerce platforms:

• Offer incentives. From workshops to priority access to a flash sale, give people a reason to head to your email registration page. 
• Automate the process. Use an automated chatbot to invite social media users to opt into email marketing without having to visit your website. Social commerce tools like Manychat and Chatfuel can collect a user’s data within a direct message and feed it back to your email marketing platform. 
• Host quizzes and polls. Collect first-party data—like your audience’s preferences, pain points, and purchase motivations—through a quiz. Offer personalized product recommendations in exchange for their email address or phone number. 

Bambu Earth, for example, invests in Meta advertising campaigns that drive customers towards a “Skin quiz.” The quiz asks consumers to share their age, skin concerns, skin type, and email address in exchange for a personalized product recommendation. 

According to quiz-building app OctaneAI, Bambu Earth is a “completely quiz-based business” that earns over $10 million in revenue each year from the survey—not to mention a database of emails and customer data they can use to send personalized marketing campaigns away from social media. 

8. Lean on bots to close social sales

Actively monitor the comments and DMs received via social media and respond proactively. Not only do they help guide customers through the customer journey, but they also make for engaging content ideas. 

Toothpaste brand Twice, for example, turns this TikTok comment into a standalone video that answers the question in greater depth: 

Automated social shopping chatbots can also issue fast responses to questions in a more private setting, such as in-app direct messages. For example, you could configure default answers to queries related to ingredients, compatibility, or shipping, then process their payment once objections have been addressed. 

That said, Hughes cautions against relying too heavily on AI to run your social commerce strategy. “People don’t come to social to read brochures,” he says. “Social media is about being social.” 

Consider incorporating a chatbot to answer simple questions when your staff is unavailable, but give customers the option to receive a callback if they’d prefer to speak to a representative.

💡Tip: Excellent customer service caters to the shopper wherever they are. Shopify makes this easy with unified customer profiles. View each shopper’s purchase history, loyalty points, and support tickets within one 360-degree customer view, so you can personalize your approach when they reach out through social media. 

9. Localize social content for international markets

You’ll find social media users in every country across the globe, but simply posting to your business’s account doesn’t guarantee you’ll reach them. Most people prefer to interact with content in their own language and pay for products using their own currency. 

The easiest way to localize your social media content is to create separate accounts targeting each region. Children’s brand Nuby, for example, uses the Instagram accounts @NubyUK and @NubyUSA. Both of these accounts:

• Use local dialect and spelling 
• Display product prices in the audience’s local currency
• Lean on trending topics in that area (such as the heat wave in the UK) 
• Partner with influencers who are popular in that region

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Nuby UK (@nubyuk)

💡Tip: You don’t need to create individual storefronts to continue the localized experience once social buyers visit your online store. Use Shopify’s Managed Markets to automatically translate website content, convert currencies, accept different payment methods, and display overseas shipping rates based on each visitor’s location. 

“We could turn on a store and sell products in local currency but have the content in English,” says Dylan Feiner, senior product manager at Ruggable, on the brand’s adoption of Managed Markets. “Or we could localize product recommendations and content specifically for a customer’s region and language.”

10. Supplement organic content with paid ads 

Some marketers report declines of 30% in organic reach as social commerce platforms push retailers toward a pay-to-play model. And while you can pay to target your ideal customers on social commerce platforms, costs are increasing. The average customer acquisition cost has increased by 222% in the past eight years. 

For social media advertising to become a lucrative customer acquisition channel, you need a smarter approach:

• Calculate your customer lifetime value (CLV). Digital ads aren’t effective if you’re spending more to acquire a customer than you’ll generate in revenue from them. Use your CLV as a benchmark for ad bidding. Set a bid cap to ensure you’re not overspending. 
• Build retargeting audience lists. Cold audiences are people with no prior knowledge of your brand. Those who’ve had some experience with you—whether it’s following your page, visiting your website, or abandoning an online cart—are naturally further along in the sales funnel. Use tools like Shopify Audiences to build these lists to retarget through social media ads. 
• Personalize your ads. Use data from Shopify’s unified customer profiles to anticipate what your audience needs. For example, you could promote products related to those they’re interested in, or upsell a subscription box for an item they've already bought repeatedly. 

Supplements brand BUBS Naturals turned to Shopify Audiences after experiencing increased costs and difficulty finding new customers. They now generate audiences based on the products they want to sell, and upload those custom targeting lists to the social commerce platforms their target audience is using. 

“Shopify Audiences has helped us regain confidence with top-of-funnel advertising and reach qualified buyers with return on ad spend as high as 3x,” says cofounder TJ Ferrara. “The ability to leverage Shopify’s understanding of intent and create audiences focused on our products significantly enhances our acquisition efforts.”

11. Leverage data to refine your social commerce strategy 

Most social media channels provide analytics. This data should guide the design and functionality of your social commerce storefronts, as well as the content you’re sharing. 

Evaluate your performance across each channel using metrics like: 

• Reach
• Engagement rate
• Click-through rate
• Audience demographics
• Conversion rate 

Some platforms show you deeper social commerce insights, such as the number of times a user tapped on a product tag and the number of people who visited your product page from a post. Use these insights to your advantage. If only a small percentage of people who click a product tag purchase the item, consider rewriting product descriptions or adding more social proof to your storefront. 

💡Tip: Social media users often need to see your product multiple times (both on and off the platform) before they buy. Multichannel attribution, such as time-delay attribution, lets you track the influence each social media platform has on customer behavior in the lead-up to a sale. 

Social commerce strategy examples

If you’re stuck for inspiration for how to implement these strategies for your brand, consider these social commerce examples. 

Laura Geller: Reducing acquisition costs with custom audience lists

Cosmetics brand Laura Geller is no stranger to using social commerce to drive sales. But increased competition and consumers’ privacy concerns put pressure on their marketing team. Acquisition costs were rising, and it became more difficult to target the right customers without overspending. 

“ROI from marketing has gotten tougher over the past few years,” says the brand’s VP of growth, Scott Kramer. “For us, finding new tools and ways to improve our customer acquisition costs is front and center. But the big question really is: ‘How do we grow our bottom line?’”

Instead of relying solely on TikTok or Meta algorithms, Laura Geller turned to Shopify Audiences. They created high-intent audience lists within Shopify, each varying in size and purchase intent, and synced them with advertising platforms—including Shop Campaigns.

This approach paid off. With Shopify Audiences and Shop Campaigns, Laura Geller: 

• Increased revenue by 140% year over year
• Reduced customer acquisition costs by 15% 
• Improved return on ad spend by 6%

“When acquisition costs start rising, Shopify Audiences gives us an easy way to test new audience lists and keep our marketing spend efficient,” Scott says. “It’s a no-brainer for us—it’s easy to implement, there’s no extra cost, and it helps us scale without overcomplicating things.”

immi: Creator-led affiliate program

If there’s one industry known to do incredibly well on social media, it’s food. Ramen brand immi accelerates this with a creator program that encourages happy customers to share their products on social media. 

immi uses Shopify Collabs to send hundreds of ramen samples to creators, asking for their feedback and inviting them to join their ambassador program. The platform supports custom affiliate links for each creator, as well as personalized discount codes to share with their audience. 

In just a few months, immi recruited over 400 ambassadors to join their program and drove over $200,000 in sales.

“We love using Shopify Collabs because it’s simple and easy to use,” says senior partnerships manager Simal Adenwala. “The Collabs team is easy to work with, always open to feedback, and the platform saves us so much time with really easy-to-use features for affiliate tracking, gifting and commission tracking.”

Leverage social commerce with Shopify’s unified commerce functionality

Social commerce sounds great in theory. But for many retailers, the reality of selling wherever your customers are is complex: a mismatched pile of disconnected systems that fail to sync product, order, and customer data between channels. Unified commerce is the solution. 

Shopify’s platform, in particular, gives you one business “brain” to centralize operations and offer omnichannel shopping experiences—including those on social media—without the complex technical infrastructure previously required. It offers core commerce components out of the box, without the need for patchy middleware and rising maintenance costs.

The best part? Investing in unified commerce delivers measurable returns. Research from independent analysts found Shopify retailers experience:

• 22% lower total cost of ownership 
• 25% reduction in maintenance costs
• 89% decrease in third-party support costs