Definition: Social commerce is selling products directly through social media platforms, where people can discover a product in a post or video and view details or buy it without searching for it elsewhere.
Also called: social shopping, shoppable posts, in-app shopping
Updated October 11, 2026
Social media marketing uses posts to send people to your website to buy. Social commerce brings part or all of the purchase into the platform: products are tagged in posts, shown with price and stock, and on some networks bought through in-app checkout.
Use the platform’s shop analytics for in-app sales. For posts that link out, tag every link with UTM parameters and compare sessions, conversion rate and revenue per platform in your own analytics.
A homeware shop connects its product catalog to Pinterest so its Pins show live prices, then posts a carousel of the same products on Instagram with a UTM-tagged link. A month later it compares revenue from each network in its store analytics.
Conversion rate is the percentage of people who completed a goal, such as a purchase, sign-up or download, out of everyone who clicked or visited from a given source.
UTM parameters are short tags added to the end of a URL (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign and more) that tell analytics tools like Google Analytics where a visit came from.
User-generated content (UGC) is any content about a brand made by people outside it, such as customers’ photos, videos, reviews and posts, rather than by the brand itself.
Influencer marketing is a brand partnering with creators, by paying them or giving them products, to promote the brand to the creator’s own audience in the creator’s own voice.
A call to action (CTA) is the part of a post or ad that tells people the one specific thing to do next, such as comment, save, visit a link, sign up or buy.
Write once, tailor each version yourself or with optional AI, and schedule to 6 networks from one calendar.