The rise of social media has changed the way that businesses interact with their customers. In recent years, social payments have become an increasingly popular option for businesses looking to improve their customer experience. Social payments offer a simple and secure way to pay through popular sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. With social payments, businesses can benefit from increased brand visibility, improved customer loyalty, and faster payment processing times.

Social payments have revolutionized how we shop, pay, and receive money. By enabling customers to make payments directly within a social platform, businesses now have an efficient, cost-effective, and secure way to accept payments. With social commerce, businesses can leverage the power of social media to reach new customers and encourage them to purchase products or services.

Social Payments Help You Connect with Your Customers

First, it was shopping malls. Then, it was superstores. Now, it’s social media.

Businesses that hope to thrive have always been told to meet their customers where they are. There aren’t gas pumps outside of the nail salon or dog groomers in the hospital parking lot. And finding your customers is both easier and more difficult than it has ever been before.

It’s more difficult because people don’t gather to shop like they used to. They want convenience.

But it’s also easier to meet your customers where they are when you are online. The geographical boundaries of a business can be almost non-existent, especially if you aren’t angling for a global reach. And even then, it’s easier than ever before to find solutions to those barriers, too.

Social payments and social commerce create a “doorway” into your business that is just three inches from their face. They carry you in their pockets, purses, and passenger seats.

Your brand can attract customers without spending a dime on advertising if you know how to market and format your business for online and social media shoppers. Social commerce can help you achieve steady audience growth and authentic customer engagement, both of which can help you create sustainable business growth, as well as improve brand sentiment and recognition.

And online C2B (consumer to business) payment technologies can even create access to your brand for people without traditional bank accounts and credit cards.

By offering your products and services for sale on social platforms and enabling social payment options, you’re removing so much friction from the online shopping process and creating a great connection with your customers – all without ever having to rent a retail space, have a cashier staffing your front register, or paying someone to demonstrate your product in a department store.

Offering social payments can also give you valuable customer insights. Customers can use your social pages to browse products, learn about your brand and its mission, complete a purchase, and leave a review – all without much interruption to their daily recreational scrolling. Meeting your customers on their level with social payments means they are more likely to engage with your brand and share everything they liked (and disliked) about the experience so you can then improve or embrace your process and tout it to other prospects.

Social Commerce and Payments Improve SEO Efforts

The more popular your brand is across social platforms, the more valuable it is to search engines, too. SEO is an ever-changing game, and it’s easy to let things slip. But creating a buzz on social media around your nearly frictionless payments and shopping experience can boost your pages’ rankings on Google and other top search sites.

Boost Average Order Value and Long-Term Brand Sentiment

Customers are no longer waiting around to hear about the “hidden perks” of your brand. They want to know the final price, any benefits, sales, discounts, or other perks up front. The used car salesman mentality doesn’t even work for car salesmen anymore.

Your customers are savvy and informed. And by conducting your business and your payments through social media, you can share all the features, benefits, and perks of your brand offerings in one place.

And with consumer research showing that more than 70% of people prefer purchasing from brands that are aligned with their values, you can use that same social media space to show the heart and mission of your brand.

Social Payments and More: What the Future Holds

The social commerce market is expected to reach more than $600 billion by 2027. From shoppable social media ads to live TikTok and Instagram Story experiences, the social media market is one big digital shopping center now. And social payments can be extremely beneficial for your business, in more ways than those we talked about above.

And the more accommodating you can be with your approach, offerings, and payments, the easier it will be to reach more prospects and customers who are already in the digital neighborhood, so to speak.

ReliaFund offers an all-in-one ACH, and credit card payment processing solution that can be integrated with cloud applications and more.