It is no secret that social media had an incredibly fast evolution in the last decade—so much so we can only speculate how far the next few years will take us. Today, social content plays a fundamental role in the consumer journey. While new platforms and features are introduced seemingly every day, marketers must strive to be at the forefront of social media trends and make the most of the emerging technological possibilities like their brands depend on it—because they do.

A new white paper from IMA, our influencer activation team, seeks to guide brands through the next era of social media: shoppable content. Titled Influencers and Shoppable Content: the Future of Social Media, the report covers the habits that COVID-19 changed forever and how they’ve impacted the seamless fusion of content and commerce across platforms. It also provides a clear outlook on the role influencers play in virtual shopping and the era of everywhere commerce.

The Future of Shopping is Social

The paper starts by setting the scene with statistics on the current state of online shopping, and its acceleration during the pandemic. In a matter of months, skeptic consumers who were previously reluctant to adopt online shopping habits were suddenly “filling up their digital carts,” and by April 2020, online retail orders had grown 146% worldwide.

According to IMA, brands that tap into this new consumer behavior have the opportunity to “establish a robust social presence and take advantage of third-party ecommerce platforms.” But online shopping is no longer channel-specific. Both social and ecommerce platforms are already adding features that will revolutionize how consumers spend their time online and make purchases—allowing users to shop directly from social media channels and blurring the lines between content and commerce. Our BrandLab partnership with Mercado Libre (LATAM’s ecommerce giant) and L’Oréal Paris serves as a clear example: we developed an ideal “digital destination” for beauty enthusiasts with video tutorials led by recognizable influencers, which help differentiate the brand and its products while providing an improved user experience for shoppers.

Amazon is placing its bets on shoppable livestreaming through Amazon Live, too. The platform allows sellers to promote their products through their own livestreams with a smart addition: a carousel where shoppers can browse and seamlessly purchase featured items. Similarly, Instagram promises to amplify its influence in the shopping process with the “checkout” feature, which is swiftly “transforming the platform into an immersive storefront for people to explore and purchase” without leaving the app, according to the report.

Everywhere commerce will continue to rise in prominence and competitiveness, and platforms are also likely to incorporate AR and AI to increase customer confidence—enabling them to try before they buy. This will open a gateway to new entertaining shopping experiences that build user engagement as consumers share these virtualized experiences on their social media accounts.

From Awareness To Conversion, Influencers Conquer The Funnel

Of course, influencers will be key to brands as they envision how to show up in a revolutionized social media ecosystem. As deft content creators, natural conversation-starters and production powerhouses, influencers will become ever-more important for any brand’s social strategy—a must-have in any marketing mix.

As new, improved ecommerce functionalities are introduced, influencers are often early adopters who perfect delivering relevant content at speed. And they are the most proficient at doing so, too, finding meaningful ways that resonate with their audiences and enable seamless implementations that raise both awareness and conversions. Tapping into communities with a human touch, influencer-generated content is more likely to be perceived as authentic by the audience—especially within niche communities, where engagement levels tend to be higher. According to the white paper, 63% of consumers aged 18-34 years old say they trust what influencers say about brands much more than what brands say about themselves in their advertising. 

This authenticity that influencers bring to the table can help define brands’ success in a shoppable social ecosystem as long as the balance is right. “It’s important to keep in mind though that in order to maintain the genuine relationships between influencers and brands, these ecommerce features should be used in a meaningful way that resonates with audiences,” says Maddie Raedts, IMA Founder and Global Head of Social, Fashion  & Luxury at Media.Monks. “Don’t merely add shoppability to each post that features products, as it can come across very spammy and have the opposite effect.”

From livestreams with purchase options to Instagram posts with shoppable tags, influencer marketing will conquer the funnel from top to bottom—not only inspiring audiences but also driving direct, more measurable conversions. In addition to being at the forefront of social shopping, influencers are the enablers and catalysts of this evolution. For those who want to learn more about how shoppable content is revolutionizing customer behavior across platforms, Influencers and Shoppable Content: the Future of Social Media provides invaluable insights, and it’s available for download below. Discover the next generation of online shopping.

Sectors of the retail industry have been hit especially hard with many businesses unable to open their physical doors. These brands are left to rely on big name retailers or pivot their approach to increase reach visibility to convert consumers digitally. To do so, many are seeking inspiration from the direct to consumer model to engage directly with their audiences and make their products more widely available. While retailers and brands have both incrementally invested in digital platforms more and more, year after year, these challenges show how the need to digitally transform has accelerated to keep up with shifting user behaviors.

At a time when consumers are craving entertainment and connection while at home, livestream commerce—evoking the idea of home shopping TV programs, but made more interactive—is an intriguing solution for brands to directly and authentically engage with audiences. As a response to increased video viewership of at-home audiences, the strategy builds on recent trends in shoppable social content and the rise of influencer partnerships.

China is No Stranger to Livestream Commerce

While it may be having a moment right now, livestream commerce isn’t new; Taobao Live, the largest ecommerce streaming platform in China and owned by Alibaba, made $2.85 billion in sales on Singles Day (the country’s biggest shopping event) last year. The COVID-19-induced lockdown in China has increased the popularity of the platform even further; in February, merchants on the platform raised by 719%, according to Glossy.

Much of the appeal of livestreaming commerce is its ability to mix engaging, interactive content with brand stories. JD.com, another ecommerce platform in China, hosted online “e-clubbing” events featuring musical performances and DJ sets—and the ability to buy liquor in a few taps, replicating the social experience of being at an actual club.

How Western Brands Are Experimenting with Shoppable Content

In the west, Amazon has similarly mixed commerce and content with its “Twitch Sells Out” event for Prime Day, enlisting influencers and content creators in the gaming space to showcase items on sale that are relevant to the content they typically put out—for example, listing their streaming setup, gaming equipment or merchandise for a favorite game franchise. More than just a one-off event, Amazon employees livestream commerce on its Amazon Live platform, where brands and influencers broadcast content with shoppable listings underneath.

Elsewhere, other platforms have begun experimenting with shoppable advertisements. Instagram Checkout, lets users discover and purchase products right within the feed, and Levi’s has had success with a similar feature on TikTok. In the linear TV space, NBCUniversal has introduced NBCUniversal Checkout, making content across the brand shoppable. Emarketer’s Q1 2020 Digital Video Trends report notes that NBC’s Peacock streaming service will include shoppable content among the ads that it serves.

While these examples aren’t live, their development suggests there is a general growing demand for content that converts. MediaMonks Founder Wesley ter Haar notes that for many brands, conversion-based content remains top of mind as they consider ways to pivot existing strategies or continue to engage with audiences digitally.

“Brands are asking themselves if they need to keep the ‘content machine’ running,” he says. “If ecommerce and conversion-based content is an essential bucket, we can help fill it faster and more effectively by shifting from traditional production to tapping into influencers and livestreaming.”

While Social Distancing, Video is King

Over the course of the pandemic, at-home users have flocked to video content. According to data from WARC, 38% of consumers are watching more online video content now than they had before the pandemic. Out of that group, 73% say they expect to maintain that higher amount of viewing time. Among the most popular video content that people want to watch are how-to and tutorial videos, according to data from Hootsuite, a category that lends itself well to influencer content and B2B stories.

In fact, influencers are ideally situated to engage with new and existing customers with creative and livestreamed content. They are adept at using their voice and authority to recommend products to audiences and have built loyal followings through tutorial content—for example, the lucrative beauty space on YouTube that has catapulted popular vloggers into full-fledged business owners.

In response to the challenges that brands and retailers have felt due to the ongoing pandemic, our influencer activation team IMA recently offered a few solutions, including multichannel influencer campaigns that amplify voice and awareness across communities, as well as partnering with existing product advocates to carry business momentum on social media. Such strategies enable brands to reach consumers authentically, backed by a consolidated effort to ensure working teams can easily continue production safely at home and produce the stream remotely.

Build Value Through Assistive Content

While brands and retailers are focused on solving the “now,” they must also look ahead into how they will serve consumers throughout what may be a difficult year ahead. As consumers seek out content and connection that helps them understand and make the most of a new normal—whether that means staying sane while social distancing or stretching the value of a dollar—livestream commerce offers a great opportunity to build a brand relationship.

Despite being a vehicle for commerce, it doesn’t have to be too salesy—think about a retailer offering a live cooking show focused on recipes using ingredients that are already in the pantry, for example, or a makeup artist giving tutorials featuring “dupes,” or greater-value versions of popular cosmetics.

“This is the new family dinner, this is how we watch movies together,” says ter Haar on the innovative ways that people are connecting. “We’re building traditions now that we don’t yet know are traditions. User behavior is being built that will change how we use these tools and how we create and connect together.”

Now more than ever, brands and retailers must be there for their audiences. Through livestream commerce, brands can accommodate new user behaviors that have emerged and engage in authentic, informative ways with video content. Accommodating a need for connection and entertainment, the format is well tailored to building strategic relationships into the year ahead.

As consumer needs change, so do business strategies. Realizing the importance of purposeful, personalized digital experiences to their audiences, future-thinking B2B brands have seek to engage their audiences in new ways, humanizing their brand stories in the process.

In essence, this means adopting a “business to human” approach through customer-driven digital experiences. Today’s B2B customers expect an experience that is similar to the shopping they do in their personal lives. “The B2H model involves maintaining coherence while extending your offering across context and environments, and being able to break down your brand’s message into personalized variations that are relevant to a myriad of customer interests,” explains Remco Vroom (Global Head of Business, Platforms and Ecommerce, MediaMonks) and Tobias Wilson (VP Growth APAC, MediaMonks) over at Marketing Interactive.

Even with traditional production hampered by social distancing, brands can still achieve the above through more personalized, customer-driven digital experiences. Powered by CGI content, virtual demos and influencer validation, these small experiences are relatively easy for brands to begin building and offer the opportunity to plug into larger content strategies—here’s how.

Build Tactile Brand Stories Through Interactive Experiences

In B2B services, there exists a gap in delivering interactive, branded digital content that provides potential customers with the information they need to make informed purchases. According to data from Bizfeel, more than half of consumers say that the biggest drawback to shopping online is the inability to touch, feel or try a product. Without being able to try a product themselves, they turn to other avenues: 80% of business decision-makers look toward articles rather than ads for brand information.

These findings highlight a big need for brands to own their brand storytelling through interactive content that provides a good “feel experience”—a tactile experience that immerses the audience—and differentiates the brand by showcasing product features and stories. A gorgeous example is the Blue Canyon Technologies website, which features 3D graphics developed by MediaMonks. Each 3D model portrays a product in the company’s fleet of spacecraft as well as the specific components that set them apart. Visitors are invited to click on these features to learn more about them in depth, demystifying the technology against the backdrop of deep space.

CGI Content Enables Scale

B2B brand stories are powerful because they help customers better understand processes that might seem complex and abstract. To help build awareness and understanding of the HP Indigo Digital Press—an industrial printer differentiated by a unique component that allows for shorter runs—we used an existing set of CAD designs to develop a fluidly animated CGI walkthrough of its inner workings.

“When you’re looking at presses this big and complicated, you can’t move around them or look inside very easily,” says Chris Bryne, Global Program Director at MediaMonks. “It’s a way of letting people see under the hood.”

The use of renderings to produce the video also came out of a particular constraint: the product wasn’t yet manufactured, which meant there was no physical product yet to film. Today, as so many brands are experimenting with new ways to produce content while social distancing, CGI serves as an excellent example of how to tell a compelling brand story through video without a traditional shoot.

“CG assets are easy to update if features change or things are replaced,” says Byrne, noting that the technology is economical for scaling up and retailoring to other formats, too. “Experiences like these result in extra assets you can use to power different experiences across platforms.”

For example, following a video walkthrough, brands might want to add greater tangibility and intuitiveness by crafting an interactive demo with those assets, tying it into a larger customer obsession strategy. For HP, we built on the video offering by adding a WebGL demo that lets users get up close and personal with the LEPx technology that powers the Indigo printer. This way, users gain a tangible understanding of the product specifications through discovery.

Validate Your Brand Story Through Influencers

When you consider tailoring a B2H story to other platforms, don’t forget another strategy that’s risen to much fanfare in the B2C world: influencer marketing. Yes, influencer marketing does have a place in the professional world, too; in fact, 91% of B2B transactions are influenced by word of mouth.

Influencer strategies can plug into customer advocacy (lending legitimacy through success stories), employee advocacy (adding relatability through employees’ experiences) and expert advocacy. The latter includes the thought leaders and industry experts who lend credence and validation to a product or service.

Each of those strategies fit within different channels, whether you intend to raise awareness or support audiences in the consideration stage—for example, validating the decisions that customers have made. On this note, Byrne cautions that before brands get too far into establishing what kind of content their audiences need, they must first consider where those audiences fit within the customer decision journey. “Focusing on awareness or conversion gives your content a very different purpose.”

Purpose is key to delivering on the needs of your B2B audience. Whether it’s authentically relating with your audience via influencers or scaling up virtual product demoes through CGI content, seek ways to humanize your brand story by injecting interactivity through unique, personalized digital experiences.

It’s time to go Business to Human.

It’s widely understood that social media has fundamentally changed our culture—so rapidly, and in so many ways, that it can be difficult to gauge. For example, many still struggle to understand the role that social media plays in the lives of young people, an important segment of the market that enjoys increased purchasing power and exemplifies a radical shift in consumer values.

A new white paper from IMA, our brand activation and influencer engagement team, seeks to demystify Gen Z’s impact on culture, and provides key learnings on how today’s brands can retain relevance and build impact amidst shifting cultural values. Titled Anticipating Culture & Changing Behavior, the white paper lays out what separates Gen Z from those that came before it, and how influencers are key to reaching these community-obsessed consumers.

Surveying Today’s Social Landscape

Anticipating Culture & Changing Behavior opens with a look at the current state of culture and how it is shaped online. A key change that’s emerged in the past few years is that influencers have stepped in to replace brands as the intermediaries of culture, “bringing innovations from the margins of society into the mass market.”

How, or why, have influencers risen to take on this role? IMA’s describes a phenomenon called “crowdculture” to describe the new ways that younger consumers—most notably, Gen Z—are reshaping the way we gather together, build identities and discover or engage with brands.

Crowdcultures operates in two different ways. First, they include subcultures built around passions and hobbies. Second, they include “art worlds,” or the “loose network of overlapping subcultures held together by a belief in art,” according to IMA. The former includes niche interests, while the latter addresses the fact that individuals in such communities inspire and compete with one another, fueling an exchange in ideas and content that is amplified on social media. It’s within these new environments and networks that brands must learn to engage with audiences authentically.

Understanding Gen Z

If anyone is embedded within crowdcultures, it’s Gen Z—and forward-thinking, future-proofed brands across industries are eager to understand this unconventional consumer base that has largely eschewed labels. But IMA has one useful name for them, which gets at the heart of what they care about: they’re “the truth generation.”

With digital fluency and the ability to research products and brands, Gen Z is always in the pursuit of the truth. This includes expressing their own individual truths or connecting with those of others—such as experimenting with different identities.

Communication and dialogue are key for this type of exploration. “Gen Z’ers are always in search for authenticity since they believe it generates greater freedom of expression and greater openness to understanding different kinds of people,” reads the white paper. “They value connecting to different truths,” whether it be investigating diversity, environmental sustainability or more.

IMA’s work in casting and producing influencer-driven content illustrates this well. Working with audio equipment brand Marshall, they partnered with influencers to develop content for the brand’s Guided by Music social content series—a digital city guide through the lens of music and rock and roll—IMA developed a multi-tier influencer strategy for both reach and engagement. Giving influencers like musician Charlie Barker and professional skateboarder Boo Johnson creative freedom to produce content (backed by the help of professional assistance), Marshall was able to develop a full-year framework for authentic content.

Where to Begin Your Influencer Marketing Strategy

To evolve your digital strategy to accommodate these cultural shifts, first understand that influencers today are not just popular users, but innovators in their own right. They embody a new set of shared values and have risen through the ranks as leaders in their own respective art worlds and subcultures. Challenge yourself to extend your view outside of the conventional influencer “image” and recognize that they are authorities whose insight and opinions are trusted by today’s consumers.

Second, understand that consumers want to engage with other people—not faceless brands. “What’s happening now is that brands are facing a structural problem, not a creative one,” notes IMA’s paper. “They have the budget and the creativity to go above and beyond, however, they fail to arouse consumers’ interest and attention because they do not immerse themselves in their culture, their community, and their ideologies.” In a drive to become more customer-obsessed and assistive in their audience’s lives, brands would do well to explore how influencers can fit into their marketing mix to build relevance.

Driving online conversation and bolstered by increased purchasing power, Gen Z has fundamentally changed our culture. Brands that refuse to acknowledge shifts in younger consumers’ values and how they affect engagement with brands risk falling behind into obsolescence. For those that need guidance for integrating influencers into their marketing mix, Anticipating Culture & Changing Behavior is a great starting resource.

Get cultured in crowdculture.

Video content is compelling to users that have flocked to visual social platforms like Instagram, Snapchat and (more recently) TikTok. And after Instagram began to offer features that link content directly to the point of sale, video has captured renewed interest for brands and marketers as well.

Shoppable video has caught on with brands and consumers as social networks like Instagram have aimed to support consumers in not only discovering products within the platform but in making purchases as well. In “The Forrester Tech Tide™: Video Technologies For Customer And Employee Experience, Q1 2019,” Senior Analyst Nick Barber notes, “One aim of the technology is to bridge the gap between virtual and in-store shopping experiences. When US online adults choose to shop in stores rather than buy online, 38% do so to touch, see, feel, or smell products before purchasing them.” With these consumer needs in mind, shoppable video becomes an important way for consumers to engage with a brand and get to know their products better.

So, video is useful within an ecommerce setting. But how can it elevate the social experience? As it turns out, consumers enjoy turning to “Story” content—the quick, one-to-many snippets of video content distributed on platforms like Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook—to learn more about brands and products. An eMarketer analysis notes that 69% of Facebook Story users feel that “brands using stories is a great way for people to get to know new products or services,” and 62% say they “become more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in stories.”

Realizing this, brands have been using shoppable video to drive consumers throughout the purchasing funnel, letting users discover, save and purchase content directly through the platform. Instagram Checkout, a feature that went live last year, is one such feature that makes shopping on the platform easier than before: previously, brands had to link out to an external website to complete a purchase—a barrier that risked losing a sale by prompting users to save the purchase for later (and possible forget to go through with it).

Approach Shoppable Video as a Storytelling Opportunity

Shoppable video offers a potential revenue stream for brands, but it can also be a compelling storytelling medium in its own right, helping to build the story behind a brand or explain product benefits in a captivating way. This means that before you invest in shoppable content, you’ll want to consider what your goals are and what types of creative experiences you want to offer with the medium.

“Whenever investing in a new channel, brands must ask themselves if their target audience is there and if it makes sense for them to be in that space,” says Heather Hosey, VP Client Engagement at MediaMonks. “For example, some luxury brands may be concerned with whether channels that increase accessibility, like shoppable video, video cheapens the brand. They might turn to social to approach an audience that skews a little younger but will wonder how they can elevate that experience.”

Approaching the creative experience with a sense of purpose is critical to ensuring the channel is both effective but also compelling for the brand. Too often, we’ve seen marketers treat mobile video as a smaller TV screen, often featuring cutdowns of TVC’s and linear film. This approach flies in the face of what makes mobile—let alone social content found there—so special in the first place: its potential to spark interaction and collaboration, two characteristics that have contributed to the meteoric rise in platforms like TikTok.

In exploring the creative potential of stories to build authentic connection between brands and their audiences, MediaMonks partnered with Facebook and 72andSunny to build an installation of 12 mechanically moving monitors at Facebook Beach at Cannes last year. Each monitor features best-in-class use of the medium; visitors to the installation could control the display by bringing the monitors together into a cohesive whole, showcasing Stories’ power to change perspective and disrupt—two uses of mobile video that we’d love to see brands lean into more.

Consider Shoppable Video’s Role Within the Overall Customer Experience

Like anything else, it’s important to note that social doesn’t exist in a vacuum: it’s just one ingredient that sits within the wider context of the brand’s overall marketing strategy. For example, Misty Gant, SVP USA at our influencer activation team IMA, notes that brands that don’t have a strategy in place might find themselves looking at abandoned carts—but that doesn’t mean the content, which consumers might come across at the top of the funnel, wasn’t valuable.

“It’s very important from an analytical standpoint, because you have the data,” Gant says. “Back in the day, through flipping through a magazine or watching a commercial, you couldn’t quantify who purchased from that ad.” But through shoppable content, you get a better sense of who’s tapping through, what they tapped next, what was the bounce rate and more—data that can be essential to understanding the path to purchase. “A good marketeer is always looking at that kind of data,” says Gant. “You want to see what’s working but also what the problems are, to figure out where in your ecosystem you can better support and work with that.”

Hosey agrees that taking a holistic view of the overall customer experience is critical to success with shoppable content. “For CPG brands in particular, it can be a challenge to determine where that link will actually send the user,” says Hosey. “If you don’t typically support buying direct, how do you choose which retailer to connect users with?” Hosey notes that establishing an exclusive deal with a retail partner opens up all sorts of new questions about a campaign that brands must consider—for example, how long the promotion will run for.

Brands should also consider how a shoppable campaign remains cohesive with their existing creative. For the launch of L’Oreal’s Unbelieva-brow, we began with the brand’s existing global campaign and assets as inspiration for a social-first video campaign—this time, targeting millennial consumers in Italy. The strategy was built around a handful of influencers that knew their audiences best, catering to a diverse group of interests and segments—beauty-oriented, sporty, travel-focused and an on-the-go actress—allowing the brand to tell relatable stories about the product’s durability throughout the many situations someone might run into throughout the day.

Shoppable content is an excellent way for brands to play to video’s strengths in helping consumers discover brands and learn about their products. Connecting directly with consumers and prompting them to pause and consider content, shoppable video offers a more authentic way to engage with consumers at any point of the funnel—prompting a sale or simply driving initial awareness—provided that brands are strategic in their approach.