It’s official: Twitter has joined the social shopping revolution, giving marketers a new selling channel to master. Earlier this year, Code3 made a strong case for why Twitter still belongs in your social media strategy, and the onslaught of new shopping features only reinforces our recommendation. Twitter has 192 million monetizable daily active users, according to its Global Impact Report, with 41% earning $75K a year. A whopping 96% of users are on Twitter at least once a month (half of all users are on it every day!), supporting what most brands already know: Twitter has one of the most active and engaged audiences of all social media. Here’s how Twitter commerce is adding a new and attractive layer of opportunity to your Twitter marketing.
What Twitter Commerce Brings to the Social Shopping Arena
Earlier this year, Twitter announced its plans to integrate social commerce features into its platform. These features will allow users to save product listings and make purchases within the app.
To reach its new and ambitious revenue goal of $7.5 billion by 2023, Twitter plans to monetize its platform and users beyond advertising. Two key options are grabbing marketers’ attention:
Twitter Shop Modules
The Shop Module allows brands to place a carousel of shoppable images at the top of their Twitter profiles. Users can scroll through the carousel, click or tap on an image to learn more about the product, and purchase the item on the spot.
Our team at Code3 sees a lot of opportunities to leverage Twitter advertising and shopping data. Brands can discover more about what drives a user’s buying behaviors. Given that users already connect with brands for questions and customer service on Twitter, one area of interest will be to see how brands can connect conversations to sales.
Twitter Shoppable Cards
Organic tweets that contain a link to a shopping page will have the option to be turned into Shoppable Cards. The Twitter cards will automatically populate the product details on the card. When users click on the card’s Shop button, they will be directed to the brand’s product page. This feature is a lot like Twitter’s current Promoted Tweets, except Code3 sees it as particularly useful in tracking organic shares.
Both shoppable cards and shop modules make excellent additions to the new Super Follow subscriber feature.
Tips for Twitter Commerce Success
Twitter is just the latest in a series of shifts to merge social media with ecommerce. But this move is particularly noteworthy since Twitter is much older than many of the platforms that are already offering shopping options. The push toward e-commerce is not only related to revenue but also to maintaining relevance. Without it, Twitter risks becoming obsolete.
Marketers should consider following Twitter’s lead.
First, start testing. Not much is known about Twitter and its shopping features, but you can learn a lot by doing. Keep your monetary investment low and start trying out its features. Remember, this is a test for Twitter, too.
Also, partnering with a skilled agency that can help you leverage Twitter’s shopping features and the data they collect can help you get more for your investment.
Reach out to Code3 to explore how we can help take your digital efforts to the next level.
