The option to shop from stores or from websites has been around for years. But, in this age where social media is highly popular, it’s time that brands like you focus on leveraging these social media platforms.
Social media doesn’t only allow you to create posts about your brand. In fact, your consumers are also posting about you and showing how they are using your products.
When you leverage this user-generated content, you give your audience a picture of how your product will fit their lifestyles. On top of it, if these posts are shoppable, then this audience can place their orders as soon as they realize the need for your product.
If you’re wondering what exactly is the meaning of shoppable images, and how it is beneficial for you, then keep on reading as here we will tell you all about shoppable images.
What are shoppable images?
By definition shoppable images are a type of rich media. They are high-quality images that
show one or multiple annotated products.
In simple terms, shoppable images are a type of visual merchandise that allows brands to tag their products in the images.
Brands have the option to create clickable hotspots on the images and tag product specifications, price, purchase link, and CTA.
When visitors click on those hotspots, tagged product details appear on the screen or they are taken to linked pages.
What are the benefits of shoppable images?
Shoppable images are a boon to the industry and, if used wisely, they can benefit you a lot. Here are some ways you can benefit from shoppable images:
Appears on the users’ social media feeds
Social media users are attracted to what appears on their social media feeds. It’s a good thing for brands that they can convert their engaging social posts into shoppable images.
When customers see these posts while scrolling, they are not only attracted but can also make immediate purchases simply by following the attached link.
Helps leverage celebrity influencers
Social media is full of celebrities who are influencing their audience in a lot of ways. You can leverage their reach and partner with them to showcase your products.
When customers see their favorite celebrity influencer endorsing a product, they immediately trust the product and develop an urge to get their hands on that product as well, thus helping
drive sales.
Makes the shopping journey short and convenient
If you choose to make your products’ high-resolution social media photos shoppable, you help the customers shop conveniently.
You allow your customers to shop for your products directly from the social media platform without leaving the page. It removes the barriers such as abandoned carts that come with complex purchase journeys and checkout processes.
This streamlined process allows the customers to make the purchase as and when they realize the need for your product. This, in turn, helps improve conversion rate and promotes growth.
Strengthens user engagement
Shoppable images often show how your products are being used by customers. These images act as an inspiration for your potential customers.
These customers get to know about the multiple ways of using your products. Besides, today’s generation is highly image-obsessed. So, when you display your products in form of these high-quality images on social media, you make this generation stop scrolling down.
The tags and links of the images also help as they immediately give the details about the products. All of this together holds the attention of the visitors and increases the engagement rate.
Fits the evolving digital shopping experience
With ever-growing customer expectations, shoppable images help set examples.
For example, as a clothing brand, you can demonstrate how a particular product will look on people of different body types and skin tones. Or a furniture brand can showcase their products being displayed in different styles and serve different purposes.
This allows the customers to experience the product in many ways and also inspires them on how they can benefit from a certain product.
How to create shoppable images?
To create shoppable images, you need certain tools and software solutions. Here are the top five tools that can help you make images shoppable:
1. Idukki
Idukki is a visual user-generated content platform that helps you leverage content created by your users.
It pulls user-generated content from social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin using hashtags, or mentions and curates them into an embeddable social wall.
This wall can be embedded on any page of the website or in emails and on social ads. You can link the products showcased in the user images to their respective product pages to inspire more sales.
2. Spott
Spott helps you make your images interactive and helps you integrate information into your content.
It allows you to drag-and-drop images into the platform, and create hotspots on the images by adding various types of media such as informative cards, video links, or PDF files.
You can customize the look and feel of these hotspots so that they resemble your brand and publish the content on your social media or embed them on your website.
3. Taggshop
Taggshop helps you drive conversions using user-generated content. It tracks and collects user-generated content from social media platforms, and allows you to tag products to them to make them shoppable.
You can use this tool to highlight your products showcased in the pictures and create “shop the look” galleries. You can insert hotspots to the pictures and customize your galleries by adding themes, designs, filters, and styles.
4. Syndeca
Syndeca is a visual commerce solution that helps you create shoppable brand galleries and shoppable user-generated content.
It allows you to integrate detailed product information in the images and add shop-now buttons.
This tool allows social and email sharing of the shoppable images. Besides, it has built-in tracking and analytics capabilities to help you understand the performance of your images.
What are the types of shoppable media?
The type of shoppable media you choose mainly depends on the type of target audience you have. There are four common options that you can choose from:
Shoppable social posts
Shoppable social posts can be published on social media platforms such as Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and Facebook.
These posts appear on the feed of the users just like any other post, only consumers can see product details and directly place their orders from these shoppable posts.
Shoppable videos
Considering the popularity of video content, making videos shoppable only makes sense. However, instead of long-form videos, focus on short-form videos as when there’s too much information, viewers quickly lose interest.
You can demonstrate your products in your videos and insert multiple call-to-action buttons that viewers can use to place their orders.
Shoppable UGC
User-generated content (UGC) is the key to gaining the trust of the audience as it acts as the social proof of the business and its products and services.
Besides, nowadays, consumers trust what other consumers have to say about the brand more than branded ads. So, you can feature shoppable UGC on your own social feeds or web pages to promote sales.
Conclusion
Consumers are losing interest in what the brands have to say about themselves. On the other hand, social media content is gaining popularity with each passing day.
It only makes sense that you, as a brand, start leveraging the content your consumers are posting on social media and make it shoppable to generate more sales.
The ease of placing orders via shoppable media is also an advantage for you as well as your customers.