Announcing first-of-its-kind social commerce solution in Sprout Social

Social media has always had an incredible influence over purchase decisions. Recent data tells us 78% of consumers will buy from a brand after a positive experience on social. But up until recently, the actual path to purchase has been disjointed. Someone browsing on social had to navigate to a brand’s website or go to their store, adding another step and more friction in the buyer journey—and increasing the risk of losing that sale.

Then 2020’s lockdowns, travel bans and retail closures forced consumers to alter their shopping behaviors completely, accelerating social as a serious channel for commerce. Now, social is no longer just your showroom, it’s your point of sale.

To be clear, social commerce—the buying and selling of goods or services directly within a social media platform—isn’t just a pandemic-era trend. According to research conducted by the Harris Poll, on behalf of Sprout Social, 43% of Generation Z and 49% of Millennials have purchased directly from a social media platform. On the brand side, 86% of executives say social commerce is a growing part of their marketing-driven revenue plans. And that number is expected to rise as the consumers most likely to purchase on social media—Millenials and Gen Z—have increasingly more spending power.

Social commerce is not a trend, nor is it optional for brands looking to scale and grow their business. That’s why we’re excited to announce two new integrations with social commerce leaders, Shopify and Facebook Shops. These new integrations enable you to manage your social commerce strategy and harness the power of Shopify and Facebook Shops all within Sprout’s unified platform.

Extend your storefront into social networks

Social commerce introduces a new way for customers to research, engage and purchase your products in one place. Rather than using social media mostly as an awareness channel, brands have an opportunity to transform social into a direct revenue driver. We’re leading this evolution by making it easy and scalable for you to connect with consumers at every step in their buying journey. Our first-of-its-kind, dedicated integrations with Shopify and Facebook Shops help you easily launch and accelerate your entry to social commerce.

Buyer expectations have dramatically increased and today’s consumer expects a seamless purchase experience in one place, so businesses must adapt. Our fully integrated social commerce platform will enable Sprout customers to unite their commerce and social workflows. This results in a streamlined shopping experience for customers, and an easy-to-use experience for their team members behind the scenes.

Ryan Barretto
President, Sprout Social

With Shopify and Facebook Shops in Sprout, you can deliver a rich customer care experience and provide personalized interactions throughout the entire purchasing cycle–from discovery to sale and beyond.

Share products with integrated catalogs

You’re missing out on a highly engaged audience if you’re not selling on social media. Consumers already show their interest in your products by following your page or engaging with your content. Removing extra steps between their discovery and checkout creates efficiencies for them, leading to more sales for you.

By connecting your product catalogs from Shopify and Facebook Shops to Sprout, you can quickly send links to your products and meet customers’ needs.

Pro tip: Product catalogs are available in both Compose and the Smart Inbox. You can schedule product links into your content for upcoming campaigns, or respond to someone’s message by sending them a direct product link.

Personalize your conversations with engaged customers

With more purchases happening on social media, customers also expect you to support them on those same networks. Your team needs to have the right context, and quick access to the right information, in order to help customers in their moment of need (on their channels of choice).

We eliminate the need to go digging for answers across multiple tools by giving you the right information to respond to commerce questions within Sprout. As you reply to someone, you’ll automatically see their commerce information like order history, shipping status and more. Combined with your other CRM and helpdesk integrations in Sprout, you’ll get a complete view of who you’re talking to and help them even faster.

Pro tip: When you’re replying to a message, look through that person’s conversation history and ticket history with integrations like Zendesk. You’ll get a better understanding of how they’ve been helped and how they responded in previous interactions.

Paving the way for a social commerce future

These new integrations are just the start to what you can do with social commerce. Through continued partnerships and innovation, our goal is to set you up with the tools you need to capitalize on emerging social commerce trends. Have an idea for how you’d like social commerce to evolve? Send us a note—we read every piece of feedback. We can’t wait to see how social commerce in Sprout can transform your business. See commerce in Sprout right away by connecting your commerce store, or if you’re new to Sprout, get started for free with a 30-day trial.