2020 will be remembered for a lot of things. One of them, positively, will be the year that live streaming and commerce took off. Known by differing terms - “social commerce”, “live commerce” and to older people in the room, essentially an interactive version of QVC on your phone.
Inspired by the explosion of streaming x shopping mashup apps in Asia, the west is catching up with a combination of startups like NTWRK and OOOOO aiming to become the de-facto live commerce apps, and all social networks adding functionality to allow influencers to directly sell their favourite make-up or fashion.
With a COVID-induced downturn on the high-street, brands are investing in their future by pivoting away from reliance on the physical and dipping their toes into the live commerce space. One of the UK’s biggest mobile networks, Three, has recently launched a new, daily interactive livestream called Three Live - powered by Monterosa and Brightcove - to help power its Direct-To-Consumer (D2C) channel.
Hosted by talent selected from the best in-store experts and broadcast four times daily, the service gives viewers an engaging way to learn more about Three’s products and services, ask questions directly to the host as well as take part in fun interactivity including topical polls and quiz questions. Visitors to the Three website are alerted by a Monterosa Touchbug™️ in the lower corner of the site when the show is live: tapped, the experience opens up in situ without taking traffic away.
By putting human presence back into the online journey, and by allowing viewers to interact directly with them, Three have created a new channel to provide advice and support, demo new products and promote their latest offers.
Key Takeaways for brands considering trying live social commerce
Stream Location: Live Streams can take place in more than one location at a time - but your own channels allow you to own the data and avoid commission
Talent Selection: Sourcing “Grassroots” talent or finding influencers will usually feel more authentic than polished TV shopping presenters. Of course, sales data will quickly expose the best performing talent.
Move Fast: Rapidly iterating the proposition will be key to finding a fit with the audience - and so adopting tools that allow quick changes, activating new features and dynamically changing the functionality will be key
Be ready to scale: If you have more than one country, language or brand, choosing tools which allow you to replicate quickly will also be a priority
Check out Three Live here: http://www.three.co.uk/three-live.
Monterosa / Interaction Cloud is the Real-time Engagement Platform that allows Live Commerce to be easily dropped into your digital products, at scale and across multiple languages; offering new and exciting opportunities for D2C brands to acquire and convert visitors into customers.
