Deloitte’s “Technology, Media, and Telecommunications 2023 Predictions” report examines some of the global technology trends that are likely to make a difference in the coming year. Many technologies are discussed there. We have chosen to focus on the growth of social shopping.
Deloitte predicts that the social commerce market will surpass $1 trillion next year, with more than two billion people using online social platforms to make purchases. It is a market that is growing faster than traditional e-commerce.
The success of influencers on social media and their ability to entice people to spend money, especially Gen Z consumers, is a big driver of this growth. As Deloitte notes, Gen Z is the largest generational cohort in the world, accounting for over 30% of the global population. According to the firm, most members of this generation of digital natives tend to be “all social, all online, all the time.”
The Power of Gen Z Habits
The report notes, “Going forward, Gen Zers are expected to continue to have a strong presence online. They will continue to receive hyper-targeted, personalized ads for the products they want and need, directly from the influencers they already know and love. »
Jana Arbanas, vice president of Deloitte, believes that the combination of influencers, algorithms and Gen Z’s propensity to buy items online is contributing to the digital shopping boom.
According to her, companies that invest in influencer marketing benefit from lower cost campaigns, targeted advertising and increased sales. She believes brands can use algorithms’ knowledge of what’s relevant to shoppers to sell more products more effectively.
Combining algorithms and influencers
“Brands can take advantage of these algorithms, algorithms that know customers, their interests and needs, and ensure that brands match complementary interests with consumers,” Jana Arbanas told ZDNET.
Historically, advertisers had to build ad campaigns for a wide range of consumers, and those campaigns could be expensive to implement. But with the help of an influencer promoting a product to their hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers, ad campaigns are cheaper — and more specific.
“In the past, people invested in very expensive, very produced advertisements. It was not very agile, and it was very general, for a large population”, underlines Jana Arbanas. “Conversely now, with social media, you can very quickly create a series of campaigns in moments. And you don’t even have to create the content; your influencer does this on your behalf. »
Most digital experiences should be considered “buyable”
Deloitte predicts that features pioneered by social media will soon find their way elsewhere: available on social media platforms will likely be possible with other online services as well,” the firm predicts. Like maybe watching a cooking show on streaming services and then adding the ingredients to your basket.
Source: ZDNet.com