 Yeah, okay, so where's the energy? Guys, can we hear it again for all the panelists out here? I was just thinking that possibly how do we lighten up this particular Session on social commerce, so I'm gonna properly try to do an act, but if it goes wrong then please excuse me Yeah, you know He's social commerce one trillion dollar economy. Oh, yeah Okay in 2025 and already it's five hundred billion worth of it and 373 of that comes from China We're going to the nation wants to know Today I'm going to ask the four of us That how can we do social commerce and how can we excel from here? So the whole session is about kind of really decoding what social commerce is and what it entails forum marketers and the entire marketing community I think she's already done the introduction for all of you, but I would like to start with exploring What are what is who's your favorite personally personally favorite influencer that you follow on social platforms and Why specifically so maybe we can start with Okay, sure, I mean he's not on social media, but I follow Warren Buffet since like 15 years or so because Finances what I need content on so that right and because of my voice probably for an actor Current interest it keeps changing so as a new mother all all the top mommy and parenting bloggers Influencers on Instagram. I follow them and since you asked me this question It was a kind of a reflection for me because I don't even remember the handles because they're right there on my feed I just I just know their content and their faces so Something to reflect on because they're all similar content and I take a lot of value from these content Yeah, I mean the whole idea of discoverability on social is amazing right with specially the people whom we follow If I what about you? So I actually was never even on social media of Purely because of earlier the only thing that comes on my feet is all the Bollywood paparazzi I've ended up following the likes of Bayani, and I don't know We need to keep a tab on that but in the personal space for me Right We can come back to your poor work. Yeah Now I do recollect I really enjoy reading what she writes about her podcast. So that's something that I Personally enjoy very much. Yeah, right cool. As I said, I mean coming back to the subject on social commas I said that this whole opportunity is so Unprecedented right and somewhere most of the markets are just scratching the surface We look at obviously we spoke about China and the kind of innovation that's coming through out there We see Livestreams where like you know millions and millions of dollars of transactions are happening Then we see a lot of innovation that comes through from SEA market specifically more into kind of really identifying certain communities and selling effectively out there, right? So more of like kocs who are actually become sellers as such And then we have also seen from the data that comes through from UK and US is that a lot of Influencers have actually now gone ahead and become sellers online for brands, right? I mean there are marketplaces where influencers can actually catch up on a certain brief and And create like you know content which is end-to-end commerce led and I think that's on the rise But specifically on India what we've seen is that we as a marketing community has been really grappling to really find out How we can scale and win on social commerce? So let's try to decode that but firstly more importantly social commerce could mean a lot of things for a lot of people, right? I mean their definition itself could be varied So maybe it'll be good to understand and decode. What is social commerce? So maybe I can start with you Anushree, what do you think social commerce is? I would categorize that as social commerce and it what it is not I would like to emphasize very specifically on that because many marketers make the assumption or presumption that it's performance and or you know content that is linked to your direct advice So that is not social commerce that is specifically performance driven So we really need to be sure what social commerce is and what it is not to therefore identify Whether it is really relevant for your category and therefore deep dive into it and also Understand whether social commerce really makes sense for your category or not, right? Right. If I thought would you describe social commerce if someone some layman comes in and ask you what is social commerce? How would you describe that? Social commerce is a shop opportunity. Okay, so it's where people are looking to shop and Along with the daily content that they consume brands are giving them an opportunity to come and shop so for me that is purely social commerce and Coming from a brand which is usually content and storytelling driven We use a lot of our content and storytelling to drive all our stories On our IG handles and we've actually realized and noticed that a lot of traffic that comes to us We have the highest conversion to the movies in terms of even session length Coming in from our IG handles. Wow. Okay. So for me, it's basically Good content that you give them to consume and offer shopping as an opportunity So if I can say it's shopping experience content let shopping experience for you. Okay, Kulvar You are something unique in this panel, right? I mean you are a finance Influencer and I can see in the previous panel as well. We had finance influencers There's something that's going on here What do you think in your world is social commerce? So basically I feel when a creator or an influencer Shares his or her personal experience of using a product or a service That's what social commerce is for me and I'm particularly very against People who are selling anything on the internet or create a cell selling anything on the internet So whenever we collaborate with the brand or we walk with the brand we mostly it's FinTech or EdTech brand So we have apps so we use the product and If we like it if we use it on a daily or weekly monthly basis or whatever the product is and then Share the experience because we want to connect with the audience and tell our real stories That's where the conversions are also really high So so as a creator if you're sharing your true experience with the audience they connect with you So that is kind of social commerce for me Perfect up who are your views, please pretty much what everybody touched upon right where the entire journey of discovering a product or a brand or a service to To be convinced about it and then finally being it to be able to shop within the same ecosystem or that same platform is Social commerce right the the easiest example of it that comes to my mind is the shop now feature that meta You know platform sort of enable That's like the easiest example. There are obviously more Evolved examples of what companies and brands have been doing and doing very well outside of India I'm still to see some really stand out examples, and I'm hoping one of my brands also sort of Is able to crack it? Do it well here in India Okay, so you you interestingly mentioned that a post on social media having a shop now tag on to it Would that be classified as a social commerce for you in my mind? Yes, okay? In the purest definition because is the checkout happening on the platform not necessarily, right? But eventually I'm hoping that the products on the platforms will get there where the entire shopping journey Happens on that so let me ask that because that's an interesting space right and when we talk about like platforms like meta I mean they they are kind of really pushing the whole brand collapse piece so hard Right and there are two aspects out there one is you actually go ahead and Create content as a brand and then you add shop ability as one of the functions on it And that leads to a social commerce angle or you you also have an option to kind of really look at certain ads Okay, and add shop ability to it. So which of that is social commerce and which of that is not So where the brands are the creators? Absolutely, I think that's that's really important because just Fact for the fact that you are selling online on a social platform that doesn't classify as social commerce So what I'm hearing from the panelist is that there is discoverability. There is shop ability. There is creator and there is this whole mix of an end-to-end integration where the the the piece where we are talking about creators we're talking about the whole commerce angle and also More importantly the social channels right so these could be in forms of like live commerce It could be in forms of in-app shopping experiences could be community commerce And and that's exactly what the whole involvement of social commerce as a space is What I would also love to kind of really understand from you guys is Have you guys been part of any social commerce campaigns or you've been privy to that Which which has been really a standout and has Created like a massive shift in in the outcomes that you're going after so probably if I do you want to give a view on that The brand is heavily content driven We actually had a seven-day Carnival for kids online and we had a live a puppet show and on IG live And it was it was amazing to see the kind of engagement that we we got the engagement levels were really really good Wave wave way more than what we expected. We actually created our own finger puppets that were designed by us and You know the kind of calls that our CX team actually got Asking for puppets and even even the clothes that was shown as part of the puppet show So we didn't expect people to actually call in and ask for those things, but we actually saw that happen We've seen a similar kind of response even when we've had shows on on Mintha studio Which is a fantastic platform, which I'm not sure any brands are actually exploring But we've been working very actively with them and we've done a few M lives with them as well But you know what I strongly feel is that the content that you use on these lives Needs to be relevant. Okay, so if it's going to be purely an influencer just showing your products all the time and say You need to buy this you need to buy this that's not the kind of content that we're looking for It needs to have a story driving it So relevancy is more important as well So just just for background bestseller Retails fashion brands like Jack and Jones vero moda selected and only And we do try to stay ahead of the curve So we we have been dabbling with social commerce and live commerce Over the last and over the last 12 months or so, right? So we we've been running different pilots to see how it works And arrive at our own metrics in terms of you know, what is considered as good performance? What are the best practices and how do we iterate from there, right? So we have also tried Social commerce it's been it's been you know, it's been encouraging for the women's wear brand Which is very more than only we're hoping to try that for Jack and Jones and for selected as well Tell us a little more about that campaign that you did for only in vero moda, right? So what what kind of came out of it? What were the outcomes? Was it a campaign so I in case in case of if I see that the whole experience was fulfilling But in your case, what was the experience that you I think it was You know because it's it was something that had just about started right and we did want to sort of try it out and see You know, what are the learnings in there? I think the very elementary learning that came for us was the fact that you know You need to also aid the consumers or the viewers or people who are engaging with the With the commerce piece it is a simple thing as a conversion tool, right? Like give them a flash discount which can only be accessed and can then trigger the purchase The other thing was also for us to have more realistic expectations From the outcomes that we could expect out of the activity, right? typically for You know typically for any any Sale campaigns or any performance campaigns or any brand campaigns that we do also, right? You want to increase your frequency and people will typically transact with you if they're seeing you at the frequency So having that expectation that you know, you see one live commerce session or a social session And then you are converting was also something that we had to calibrate right, right You have been a part of I mean you have been an influencer yourself, right? And a brand creator and you have had I think more than 50 collabs with different brands across categories You've seen the space a lot. You have come across one stand-up Execution on social commerce which kind of says this is gold standard And I would want to double-click on that because in the previous panel we heard about the importance of the three C's I would like to bring in another concept of three hours, which is reach relevance and resonance. So often marketers fall for this concept that the more number of followers the more reach which is actually untrue in today's scenario, so I Would like to share this example, and I know many of us might be familiar about this influencer Ari With millions of followers launched her own collection and could not even manage to get 36 buy-ins for her product This is an example of how when you just like if I spoke about that this is my product and come and buy it even with Someone with crazy number of followers may not be able to sell so Again double-clicking on relevance in resonance is your Content really resonating with your audience As an influencer and also as a brand so as a brand that you're Teaming up with influencers or as a brand that you are reaching out to your core audiences Take care that you are really harnessing on your reach your relevance and your resonance and not just going by the numbers alone because Today more than ever, you know, we see Micro-influencers with niche following and with really no numbers giving a much better ROI than really big Influencers and sometimes even celebrities Interesting, that's the new RRR in social commerce Convert, I mean we have been talking about like you know some of the examples and mostly it's in the space of Fashion wear and like no retail normally what you see and and and I've seen examples in Beauty personal care, etc. And all that do you think this whole play of social commerce is Category specific or it kind of really goes ahead to categories beyond the Beauty personal care fashion, etc. No for for sure. It goes beyond so I give an example I'm not sure if we can classify it as social commerce commerce, but one of the most successful Brand collapse that we did was with a fintech brand where I personally use their product for a month and then Documented it and then made like a real and a YouTube video on that So that drove the maximum conversions as compared to the other club because the people could see how the app was being used how the entire experience was because in most of The let's say fintech or at tech products. They usually have a website or an app It's not a physical right product that you can immediately sell So it's either downloading an app or doing certain activities that how you drive Success there, right? So there I feel people sharing their personal experience and documenting that in real time works really well because we see most of the people just doing like a Quick integration in a video right that really people miss that out Right, so if we can document the journey showing how you're using the product that works fantastically with people and they Know that I'm using it and I'm not just promoting it for the sake of it or for the monies Right interesting any any views from the other panelists on categories specific on social commerce Definitely think that certain categories and segments lend and have higher chances of This new way of reaching out to consumers working for them, right? Beauty safe, you know Nika does it they have a separate live stream pretty much all through the year they've got You know beauty influences or women who are trying out different looks and creating looks right where you need to educate the customer as to How do you build a certain look likewise? Mintra is doing M live right which is again a constant ongoing activity where people sort of put Styles and looks together and it's more again educational So beauty definitely fashion retail definitely Whenever there is need to educate consumers or have You know have have have demonstration of the product those categories would definitely lend themselves better Isn't that true for all categories you need to educate for every category, right? like you say beauty, but then if I talk about let's say a Product like a small case people need to be aware how the product needs to be used and that's also a long-term demonstration I personally the tracking mechanisms will be different right how the content will be created will be different, but a lot of Products have started doing long-term collaborations where they are showing the entire journey of using the product as well So, I mean I feel all products in the beginning need some sort of education on how it's supposed to be used Products which are new in the category or you're trying to introduce an Absolutely new category in itself. That's where you need a lot of education So when you speak about fintech as well because we are warming up the audience to use this right? We are not used to even thinking about our finances let alone Trying out an app. So hence it really works for this new category of fintech But if you look at FMCG like I don't need to be educated how to use my toothbrush and toothpaste So the brand can be still big and if they're really coming out with a new category or a new variant not category I don't need influencers to talk about anything. That's new or needs some education. That's Absolutely and and what role does communities have to play in social commerce specifically If I thought I know that you run NG as well. Okay in those areas And I'm sure you have been part of like building communities out here So we'd love to know both of your thoughts as to what's the role of communities and social Building communities really helps In fact when we launched Edumama the whole thought was to create a you know a mommy community that that resonates the same philosophy of the brand that talks and Truly believe believes in sustainability. So we actually started reaching out to moms regular moms You know who were following or other were interested in in Conservation sustainability and you know what designated the same philosophy and we realized that over a period of time We were able to connect quite a few moms and in less than a year I think we we built a small community of almost 80 80 moms across the country Even in tier two and tier three cities What is important is how you reach out to these people and how how do you actually filter? So, you know building a community is very easy But like she said, I mean honestly mentioned relevance. Is it is it relevant to your brand? Is it is it you know, does it make sense to have these people associate with you? Right adding any value to have them on board. That is the most important thing absolutely To add on to what if I spoke about building communities is again very important But again is very category specific so from a personal example, I lead a community of new mothers We have around 200 mothers across India and this aspect of social commerce takes a different role here because The members are micro influencers because I've established a rapport Establish credentials within the group not for what I do in life But just by being by sharing this same bond of being mother So when somebody would buy something and they would share that okay, you know I bought this for my baby and everybody would ask okay Where did you buy it and then one link and then we joke about it that okay? You know this product is going to go out of stock on Amazon because everyone is going to buy it so It it's the same concept of influencers, but at a much micro level, but it's more authentic far higher chances of conversion Because you know you personally know who is buying that and rather than believing or seeing some content that okay This may or may not work I trust this person in my close secret group and communities other way to go and Like the panelists here have conquered it really depends on the category So if it really fits your category, then that's something that we shouldn't or the marketers shouldn't ignore But also harnessing it just creating a WhatsApp group for the sake of it wouldn't work There has to be constant engagement and no hard product selling also I know brands have made their communities and they create the safe space just to share and that is what Members would really value absolutely. No, I mean We all know communities are important and how social is kind of really getting into it and like you know, there's so many Plugs that have been pulled across from there and we see that the conversions that are happening from that angle is amazing Bringing it back to the influencers or the creators who actually creating content and driving social commerce Do you think there is a differentiation between someone who is an influencer? Okay, and it's like purely posting and creating content and there's someone who is actually going ahead and selling content online Right. So for example in case when I pop into your D2C site, I saw you guys have launched the new range of Metternity where right and alias featuring on it But tomorrow if you have to do a live commerce event, would you take a big influencer out there or you'll actually put in? someone Who is actually more sales oriented and like you know driving? Real conversions at that very moment itself. I'm like I mentioned earlier I think I mean the whole purpose of having live commerce at this stage It's really nascent in India and I mean at least from our standpoint whenever we do have, you know Like commerce sessions. It's more about creating You know awareness for the brand So we normally pick up certain topics and we talk about those topics in our live sessions So it's not purely conversion driven. It's more about creating an awareness So I'll just give you a very small example last season. We launched something called a green denim Which is very new in the kids work category. So the denim does not use or other There's zero wastage of water So, you know, we pick up things like these and then we kind of create a story around it build content around And that's what we use in our live conversations, right? Apurva if you have to select an influencer to do live commerce for again Like, you know, one of the things that you mentioned but you want to do another session or another live commerce event What attributes would you go after? For certain scale and have a fair bit of distribution in the country. So reach does become an important parameter For us to do that exercise also, right? Having said that if if I have to break down the activity and focus on a certain Certain region or certain part of the country then I would probably be looking at regional influencers So reach at a pan India level reach if it's a region specific campaign Their usual health metrics whether it's engagement and what's the audience, you know, what's the followers split etc So those would be the basic health Checkup that we would probably be doing What would also be really important and what my team and I have a whole lot of Gen Z's and millennials in my team They do a vibe check Nice interesting. Yeah, so that that influencer has to match the brand vibe And I put the longest time didn't understand it was a very ephemeral thing why check but yeah, then eventually I got a hang of it So it essentially means whether that influencer through the content that they have been creating Match with the brand DNA and the ethos and whatever it is that the brand is trying to do, right? So yeah, so we do a vibe check as well. Okay, great. That's that's interesting. I like the word vibe check We are over time by two minutes already. So I like to close the panel But before I close I strongly believe that we as an Indian marketing community has lot to kind of uncover on Social commerce so if you have to again leave the room with one tip where The marketing community can start their social commerce journey. What would that be? Maybe we can start with if I keep pushing the fact that the content should be relevant So if you don't have relevant content, you're never going to be able to drive over anything with consumers. Perfect So I spoke about the three hours and I concur with if our content communities and Never forget your reach relevance and resonance all the three put together and not in isolation perfect I think differentiation between Influencer marketing and Performance marketing needs to be more clear when the brands discuss this or make budgets or reach out to create us because At a lot in a lot of talks that we have it's very blurry and it just wastes a lot of time on both sides So that needs to be clear key where where are you headed which direction and that should be clear? Yes My suggestion is try You never know when it's an idea whose time has come and when the time has come you should be prepared You should have your learnings and then you're ready to sort of fire Cool. Thanks. Thanks. That's great. I mean I'll just like to close it with this I mean we all know about retail therapy right and when you speak to some of the behavioral experts They say that at any point of time when you do some shopping, okay? there is some kind of a dopamine released and they call it retail dopamine and Marry that with the power of social right? I mean today we all live our lives around the social platforms and Validation is an important element in in everybody's life actually and that you're getting from social So the power of retail and the power of social combined together is is superb It's amazing and I strongly feel that in India We haven't seen too many social commerce campaigns or like, you know things that have scaled But it's it's a space that we all are kind of really watching closely as Purva said we should try and I strongly feel that the next level of innovation In this space is going to come from India. So with that I close the panel. Thank you guys