Social Selling in 2025: Effective Strategies to Boost Your Business

Learn what social selling is and discover 10 practical strategies to connect with customers and drive sales on social.

About 5.22 billion people use social media today. That's 64% of everyone on Earth as of October 2024, and the average person uses nearly seven different social media platforms every month.

People now depend on social media channels when they shop. They use these platforms to research products, read reviews, and get recommendations from friends and influencers.

For businesses, this means social selling—making sales through social media—is important. Brands need to create strategies that help them stand out in busy social media feeds, and build real connections with potential customers.

This article will show you practical ways to use social platforms effectively so your business can succeed.

What is social selling?

Social selling means using social media to grow your brand, connect with customers, and make sales. About 94.5% of internet users worldwide are on social media each month, making these platforms perfect for finding new prospects.

Social selling is about connecting with possible customers by communicating with them honestly and sharing helpful information. Your content, ads, and conversations can make them feel valuable and build a personal connection to your brand. The best social sellers understand that you can’t rely on generalized messaging anymore, you have to meet people where they spend time online. 

Popular social selling platforms include:

• Facebook: Used by 20.6% of online shoppers for purchasing decisions
• Instagram: Preferred by 11.8% of American consumers for shopping
• YouTube: Used by 10.7% of US shoppers when making buying decisions
• TikTok: Preferred by 58% of TikTok users for online shopping 
• LinkedIn: Used by salespeople to leverage their personal brand and reach decision-makers 

Most businesses have to log in to each social network separately to manage their social ads. All of these platforms integrate with Shopify, so you can:

• Run all your social campaigns in one place
• Publish content easily
• Sync your products
• See all your performance data together

The benefits of social selling

Builds trust

When customers hear from real people they admire, they listen. With 74% of shoppers making decisions based on influencer recommendations, authentic voices create powerful connections.

Imagine a sustainable candle brand partnering with respected eco-lifestyle influencers. These collaborations provide potential customers with genuine reviews and experiences they can relate to, naturally building trust in both your products and brand values without feeling like traditional advertising.

Targets the right customers

Social media helps you understand who your customers really are. It shows you how they shop and what they like. Shopify takes this further with customer relationship management (CRM) and social selling tools that gather this information in one place. 

For example, if people are looking at a certain dress in your online store, you can quickly make ads for that dress on social media. Shopify's App Pixels make sure these ads reach people who are most likely to buy, helping you get more sales from your ad spend.

Create direct paths to purchase

Social media lets customers buy from you with just a few taps. When someone sees a product they like in their feed, they can buy it right away without leaving the app. This makes shopping easier and faster for your customers. 

With Shopify's social selling features, you can tag products in your posts, create shoppable videos, and run live shopping events. Turn casual scrolling into sales by removing the barriers between seeing something interesting and buying it. 

Social selling examples

Today's top brands know that selling through social media is a must for success. Let's look at the following case studies on how brands use Shopify to boost their sales through social media strategies.

Lalo

Baby brand Lalo used Shopify Collabs to make working with social media creators much easier. This simple change tripled their sales from influencers in just six months.

Here’s how Collabs made Lalo's social approach work so well:

• Made it easy to send products to influencers
• Simplified tracking of results
• Attracted many social media creators who wanted to work with the brand
• Used trusted voices to show parents why their products are worth buying

Lalo also expanded their social strategy by using Shopify Collective to connect with other brands like PlanToys, making it easy to sell complementary products to their social followers, which drove a 16% increase in average order value. 

👉 Read Lalo’s story

WOLFpak

"Social media spreads the word about our brand instantly across the world," says WOLFpak founder Michael Henderson. His backpack company put significant money into social media ads and carefully tracked where their customers were coming from.

WOLFpak's social selling plan included:

• Looking at sales data to find where to focus their efforts
• Spending heavily on social media advertising
• Understanding that news about their products travels fast online
• Using Shopify's Managed Markets to make global shopping easier

WOLFpak knew they needed to fix problems with international shipping to keep their social momentum going. By using Shopify's tools, they eliminated surprise fees and long shipping times that frustrated customers. This improvement helped them grow global sales by 433% in just 18 months.

👉 Read WOLFpak’s story.

BÉIS

Travel bag company BÉIS, founded by actress Shay Mitchell, built on her existing YouTube following where she shared travel tips. They focused on connecting online buzz with real-world experiences.

Their popup shops drove major social media growth with Shopify:

• Added 2,500 new followers per event
• Generated 2.5 million social media views each time
• Created customers who spent 20% more over the long term
• Bridged the gap between online shopping and in-store experiences

During Black Friday sales, BÉIS created online "doorbusters" that brought 60,000 people to their virtual waiting room. This single event added 5,200 followers and created nearly three million views and 55,000 interactions on social media.

BÉIS also used Shopify apps with AI to personalize shopping based on customer behavior. This worked extremely well—40% of their Black Friday shoppers made multiple purchases.

👉 Read BÉIS story.

10 tips for effective social selling

Social media sites have many ways to sell things, but you need to know how to use them well. Here's how to use social media selling tools and connect them with Shopify to sell more products.

1. Find the right ecommerce platform 

Use an ecommerce platform with a unified data model—like Shopify—to power your social selling.

When all your store information and customer actions are in one system, you can easily see who's interested, what they're buying, and how well your marketing works—whether on social media or elsewhere. This helps sales teams and marketers improve their social selling efforts. 

Centralized information helps you quickly improve your campaigns (e.g., by offering specific products to your best customers) and keep your inventory and messages the same across all platforms, making shopping easier for your social media customers.

2. Run targeted ad campaigns

When you sell on social media, the difference between success and failure comes down to finding your target audience. You don’t want to just hope your ideal customer will stumble across your products. You want to place relevant content in front of the people more likely to purchase.

Shopify Audiences uses anonymous data from all Shopify stores to help you find the people most likely to buy your products. It can help you get up to two times more conversions from your retargeting ads and cut customer acquisition costs by up to 50% when used with platforms like Meta, Google, TikTok, Pinterest, and Snapchat. 

Here’s how to use it:

1. Find new customers: Shopify Audiences creates custom lists built from millions of commerce insights. These lists help you target people similar to your best customers.
2. Spend money wisely: The tool includes benchmarks to compare your ad performance to similar stores in your industry. This helps you see which platforms work best so you can adjust your budget accordingly.
3. Improve your retargeting: Shopify Audiences can create Retargeting Boost lists that help you get twice as many orders for every dollar spent on retargeting compared to regular methods.

3. Personalize social content with first-party data

As privacy rules get stricter, you can't just rely on information from other companies. Your own customer data, information collected directly from people who visit your store, helps you build better relationships and make shopping more personal.

Start using Shopify's data collection tools like pixels and attribution reports. They’ll track important metrics, such as how often someone visits your site and which products they look at.

Use what you learn to create better ads and posts. For example, if people often add a product to their cart but don't buy it, show them an Instagram ad with a customer review to get them interested again.

With better information about your shoppers, you can send more personalized outreach and identify pain points that prevent them from buying. If someone buys a sports drink, you can later show them related products like shaker bottles or workout clothes on social media.

4. Sell through influencers 

Influencer marketing is when brands team up with popular social media personalities to promote their products. These thought leader figures have built communities of followers who trust their opinions and recommendations.

Shoppers often ignore traditional ads but pay attention to people they follow online. When someone they trust recommends a product, they're more likely to buy it.

Shopify Collabs is a tool that makes influencer marketing much easier. With it, you can: 

• Find the right influencers: Search for creators who match your brand's style and values. For example, if you sell outdoor gear, you can find influencers who post about hiking and camping.
• Offer special deals: Create unique discount codes or commission rates for each influencer. This gives them something special to share with their followers.
• Track what works: See exactly how many sales each influencer brings in. This helps you gauge which partnerships are worth continuing.
• Focus on relationships: Spend less time on paperwork and more time building genuine connections with your influencer partners.

5. Create shoppable posts

Social media has evolved from simply connecting people to enabling powerful sales opportunities. Shoppable posts let customers discover and buy products without leaving their favorite platforms. 

Facebook

You can tag products from your Facebook Shop in your business page posts, just like tagging a friend on your personal page. This allows people to shop directly from your updates.

How it works:

1. Upload a photo or video
2. Tag up to five products from your shop
3. Customers can click and buy without leaving Facebook

Instagram

After setting up your shop on Instagram, you can add product tags to posts and Stories. When someone taps these tags, they'll see the product's price and description, and can buy it directly through Instagram or visit your website.

TikTok

Adding product links to TikTok videos works like tagging products in Instagram Reels. This feature lets you showcase items from your TikTok Shop directly in your videos.

6. Run live shopping events

Live shopping events are online broadcasts in which sellers show off products in real time. They happen on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube. Viewers can ask questions, see products being used, and buy items right away.

To run a good live shopping experience:

1. Pick your platform: Choose TikTok (younger audiences), Instagram (existing followers), or YouTube (detailed demos).
2. Plan your content: Feature bestsellers or new items within a cohesive theme.
3. Promote beforehand: Announce 3-5 days early with details about special offers.
4. Engage viewers: Answer questions, invite guests, and demonstrate products.
5. Simplify purchasing: Use popup shopping links or pinned URLs.
6. Follow up: Share highlights and send reminders to viewers.

💡 Example: A makeup brand goes live with a beauty influencer who shows how to create a holiday makeup look using their new products. Viewers can click on popup links to buy the products while watching. The brand gets immediate sales and new followers.

7. Encourage user-generated content

User-generated content (UGC) is content (e.g., posts, photos, videos, and reviews) created by customers or fans instead of the brand. It's typically shared on customers’ social media profiles and can be reshared by the brand. 

People trust real customer experiences more than ads, which is why this type of social proof works. It’s also free, high-trust marketing material you can leverage to show your products in real life, not staged shoots. 

Some ways to encourage UGC include:

1. Create a branded hashtag: Develop a unique hashtag for customers to use when posting about your products.
2. Run social contests: Offer prizes for best product photos or customer experiences.
3. Request reviews and unboxings: Send follow-up emails asking customers to share their experiences.
4. Partner with micro-influencers: Work with smaller influencers who have engaged audiences.

For example, an outdoor gear company created #MyOutdoorAdventure for customers to share photos of their trips featuring the brand's equipment. The company reposts the best images on its Instagram and website, showing real-world product use while building community among outdoor enthusiasts.

8. Co-market and sell other brands’ products

Teaming up with other businesses that sell related products is a smart way to grow. When brands work together to market their products, both can reach new customers and offer more complete solutions without extra costs.

Shopify Collective is a simple way for you to sell products from other Shopify stores on your website—and for them to sell your products too. If you sell healthy snacks, team up with stores that sell things like reusable water bottles or eco-friendly containers. Your products go well together!

Make sales-focused videos and posts on Instagram or TikTok showing how all the products work together. For example, show how your snacks and your partner's containers make the perfect lunch kit. Pay attention to which partner products your customers like best, then make more social posts about those popular items.

9. Ensure data accuracy

When people block tracking or use privacy settings, it can be hard to know if your ads are working. Server-to-server connections solve this problem by sending information directly between your store and ad platforms without relying on browsers.

Server Pixels create a direct link between your Shopify store and advertising platforms like Facebook or Google. This means you still get accurate information about how your ads perform, even when browser tracking is blocked.

This helps your social selling by:

• Connecting Shopify directly to ad platforms: Your store sends customer information straight to places like Meta or Google, avoiding browser blocks.
• Better recognizing your customers: When someone logs into your store, you can track them across different devices and browsing sessions. This helps you show them more relevant ads as they move around online.
• Spending your ad money more wisely: With more reliable data, you know which social media ads actually work. No more guessing or wasting money on campaigns that might not be performing as shown.

10. Improve attribution 

It's important to know which social platforms are bringing in real sales. Without clear tracking, you could waste money on channels that look busy but don't drive purchases.

Shopify's measurement and attribution tools show you exactly where your orders come from. This gives you a fair, accurate view of which social channels are actually leading to sales.

Track whether someone bought after seeing your TikTok ad, Instagram post, or email newsletter, and put your money where it works. For example, If you see that 40% of your sales come from Instagram Stories, you can spend more there and less on platforms that aren't performing well.

As people's online habits change, your strategy should too. Regular checks of your attribution reports help you spot new trends and adjust quickly.

Unite your social sales channels with Shopify

To sell well on social media, you need all your tools in one place. Shopify is the only platform that lets you manage all your social selling from a single dashboard. 

Social selling FAQ

What are the 5 C's of social selling?

The five C's of social selling are Content, Conversation, Connection, Collaboration, and Conversion. These guide how you should share helpful information, talk with customers, build real relationships, work with partners, and turn likes into sales.

What is an example of social selling?

A good example of social selling is when a clothing brand posts videos on Instagram where viewers can tap on products to buy them without leaving the app. Another example is how BÉIS used its founder's travel videos to build a following that later became paying customers.

What are the 4 pillars of social selling?

The four pillars of social selling are having a professional brand look, finding the right customers, building relationships, and providing value. These basics help you look trustworthy, target the right people, make real connections, and share content that helps solve problems.

What are examples of social strategies?

Good social strategies include working with influencers who share discount codes, doing live product demos where people can buy right away, asking customers to share photos with your hashtag, and making posts where products are easy to buy. Another strategy is teaming up with other brands that sell products that go well with yours.

What is social selling in B2B?

B2B social selling is a sales strategy where sales professionals engage with potential buyers through social listening and sharing valuable content rather than traditional cold calling, with top performers using LinkedIn Sales Navigator to optimize their Social Selling Index (SSI). Basically, sales reps turn their LinkedIn profiles into lead generation assets to support their social selling programs.