Meta
Social commerce isn’t new to Meta, meaning that brands, creators, and consumers are likely to already be active there, eliminating the initial barrier to entry. Direct-to-consumer brands with streamlined product offerings have found the most success with Meta Shops to date, combining the ease of Meta Checkout and advertising with full-funnel paid social campaigns on the platform to drive sales.
The good news is that there are a lot of active Meta users to reach and a strong advertising platform to do just that. The bad news is that there’s a lot of competition for those users’ attention. Plus, setting up shop on Meta is, as any seasoned Meta Business Manager user would expect, very complicated.
Meta integrates with existing ecommerce platforms like Shopify, ChannelAdvisor, and BigCommerce, but businesses can also create a shop directly with Meta Commerce Manager. Building a new or adding an existing product catalog is required, as is having a website for your business, which is not a requirement for TikTok Shop. For every transaction, Meta charges a processing fee, ranging from 2.9% to 3.49% depending on the transaction type.
Unlike TikTok Shop, shoppable content, including video, is unlikely to reach users without a healthy advertising budget to support it.
Before TikTok, and before “content creator” became part of our social media lexicon, Instagram was the platform for influencers and tastemakers. While TikTok may have carved out a different space for creators, many of them are also active on Instagram, publishing the same content on both platforms. Should the ban go into effect, those creators should prioritize their existing presence on Instagram, leaning into Reels and driving social commerce through affiliate marketing platforms like LTK, as well as directly with retailers like Amazon, Target, and Walmart.
YouTube
In terms of YouTube, it’s fair to say that for many brands, creating enough content to maintain an active YouTube presence is already a challenge. Most of us are candidly aware of how the platform is (too) often used as an archive of TV spots and miscellaneous content from old campaigns.
However, for creators, it’s quite the opposite. YouTube’s creator community has effectively shifted the media landscape, turning influencers into their own successful brands and media enterprises.