What's on deck for Social Commerce and Gen Z Influencers?!! 🤳🛍️🎬⏩
What's on deck for Social Commerce and Gen Z Influencers?!! 🤳🛍️🎬⏩
Part One is all about What We Know in our two-part trend report.
WELCOME to $5.vc, your source of differentiated startup intel!
* We break down the new market indicators & behavioral consumer trends we're tracking, then figure out the unlock to growth & revenue.
** Follow our new Twitter for upcoming OPEN DMs / Q&As. 👍
ICYMI in the last 10 weeks we covered:
Search Engines are in such a mood.…
Niche Interests make Nice Friends. addafriend.com is here!
Linkedin dropped the ball, Link-in-Bio is coming in hot!
Hyper-Casual Social Casino SMS Text Gaming is FIRE!
Post-Purchase Branded Customer Experiences prints money!
NFT-based Artwork AND Fractional Investing!
THIS WEEK’S DOPE NEW STARTUP IDEA COVERS:
* Gen Z Influencers + Social Commerce + Livestreaming 🔥
WHAT WE KNOW:
* The Market Indicators & Behavioral Consumer Trends we've identified.
>> [ when it comes to gen z, tiktok puts the smackdown on IG! ]
More Gen Zers now use TikTok than Instagram in the US
- thanks insider! https://twitter.com/intelinsider
After astronomical user growth in 2019 and 2020, TikTok will reach a pivotal milestone with respect to its youngest users. By the end of this year, the video app will have a larger number of Gen Z users in the US than that of Instagram. And it will surpass Snapchat in terms of total users by 2023, according to our latest social user forecast.
This year in the US, TikTok will have 37.3 million Gen Z users (born between 1997 and 2012) who access their accounts at least once per month. For comparison, Instagram will have 33.3 million users within the same demographic.
>> [ gen z is all about the authentic inspo commerce experience! ]
Gen Z And The Rise Of Social Commerce
- thanks christoph! https://twitter.com/chriskastenholz
The majority (97%) of Gen Z consumers say they now use social media as their top source of shopping inspiration; 65% say they use social media to find entertaining content; and 61% of them are specifically interested in watching more video content. Brands that want to capture this audience’s attention need to prioritize authentic, organic content rather than the more polished output they became accustomed to producing for millennials.
Social commerce platforms for Gen Z include Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest. In fact, the hashtag #tiktokmademebuyit has upwards of 2.3 billion views on TikTok, and #amazonfinds has more than 6.7 billion views. According to one Gen Z report, nearly 30% of this group say an easy checkout process is important to them in making a purchase. Brands need to consider a more seamless experience — from discovery to checkout — by minimizing distractions and being careful to avoid directing consumers away from the page.
>> [ douyin sets the mold for tiktok! bye-bye fb & insta! ]
How in-app shopping could change TikTok for marketers
- thanks nina! https://twitter.com/ninagoetzen
There are a few reasons TikTok is likely to follow Douyin over Facebook or Instagram. One, TikTok is a younger platform with fewer ad products than Facebook or Instagram—ecommerce could become its niche, rather than just one facet of a larger, more bloated app.
Douyin has also paved the way with its $72.44 billion GMV, proving that short-video social commerce can be a successful model. Finally, TikTok has already taken cues from Douyin in ecommerce-related areas, such as its livestream shopping feature, making it all the more likely it’ll continue to expand in the space.
>> [ influencers & livestreaming make for a killer pairing! ]
What's old is new: Brands craving connection with consumers turn to livestreaming
- thanks maria! https://twitter.com/mariamonteros_
Livestream shopping in China is already a multibillion-dollar market, and in the U.S., experts expect the industry's growth to take off, reaching up to $6 billion this year and $25 billion by 2023, according to Coresight Research.
Gen Z and millennial cohorts had the highest livestreaming usage rate worldwide in 2020, according to data from Euromonitor. In China, millennials used livestreaming the most at 41.9%, and in the U.S., Gen Zers used it the most at 21.5%.
"Influencers, they understand their community," Bogliari said, which makes the viewing experience feel more personalized, and could then lead to higher conversion rates. He added that influencers make livestream shopping "more relatable and appear less commercial."
Influencers do, in fact, affect the purchasing decision of many Gen Zers. Almost half of them purchased something based on an influencer's recommendation, according to a 2020 study from Kantar.
>> [ marketers double-down big on influencers for 2021! ]
Creators are becoming a serious business for brands
- thanks emarketer! https://twitter.com/emarketer
Most brands today have incorporated influencer marketing into their media plans, and many intend to allocate even more funds to the tactic this year.
“Social commerce in particular has made influencers very powerful,” said Stacy DeBroff, founder and CEO of influencer marketing platform Influence Central. “Then there are the new platforms, like Clubhouse or TikTok. They haven’t figured out their ad strategy yet, so brands are realizing that influencers are their best conduits for reaching those audiences.”
In a March 2021 survey by influencer marketing platform Linqia, 68% of US marketers said they were planning to use TikTok for influencer marketing, up from just 16% in February 2020. That made TikTok the third most popular format measured, behind only Instagram (93%) and Instagram Stories (83%). The share of marketers who planned to use Twitch also more than doubled, going from 5% to 13% in the same time frame.
THE DOPE IDEA & THE BRAND EXECUTION:
* Taking the idea and amplifying that into tactical action.
See you next week for the second half of our two-part report.
We’ll discuss on how to position ourselves as a new player in the Gen Z Influencers + Social Commerce + Livestreaming space — and get into the development of the Brand IP, securing a legit Domain Name, then making it Internet LIVE.