Creators Are Weighing Meta and YouTube for Social Commerce

Meta

Social commerce is not new to Meta, meaning that brands, creators and consumers are likely to already be active there, removing 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 many active Meta users reaching a fort advertising platform to do so. The bad news is that there is a lot of competition for the attention of those users. In addition, setting up the shop on Meta is, as any experienced Meta Business Manager user would expect, very complicated.

Meta integrates with existing ecommerce platforms such as ShopifyChannelAdvisor and BigCommerce, but businesses can also create a store directly with Meta Commerce Manager. Building a new or adding an existing product catalog is necessary, as is having a website for your business, which is not a requirement for TikTok Shop. For each transaction, Meta charges a processing fee, which ranges from 2.9% to 3.49% depending on the type of transaction.

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. If the ban goes into effect, those creators will have to prioritize their existing presence on Instagram, lean on Reels and drive social commerce through affiliate marketing platforms such as LTKand also directly with retailers such as Amazon, Target and Walmart.

YouTube

As for YouTube, it’s fair to say that for many brands, creating enough content to maintain an active presence on YouTube is already a challenge. Most of us sincerely know how the platform is (too) often used as an archive of TV spots and various content from old campaigns.

However, for the creators, it is the opposite. YouTube’s community of creators has effectively changed the media landscape, turning influencers into their own successful brands and media businesses.