Jonathan has an extensive background in Internet technologies and interactive marketing and is a regular speaker and presenter at industry conferences and conventions.

Post-Pandemic Social Selling Spurs New Opportunities & Challenges

As social media has become more and more a part of our daily lives, direct sellers have applied their relationship-building skills to these channels in order to expand their customer connections and pivot towards a new e-commerce strategy: Social selling.

Although the direct sales industry has always had a stake in this consumer-centric approach, other businesses have been quick to adopt this model that became even more prolific amid the Covid-19 pandemic. With people prioritizing online interactions and purchases, companies had to escalate their digital transformation to compete by working within a more direct-to-consumer approach. As a result, online channels exploded with new content, driving more engagement between consumers and brands.

To build on this momentum and capitalize on this business culture shift, many current social platforms began expanding their offerings.  The user-created video market boomed with TikTok’s incredibly rapid growth, and social audio stepped onto the scene with Clubhouse. Tenured platforms like Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram began testing audio and video components.

Social channels also began to introduce ways to sell directly from their content spaces to shorten the sales funnel and encourage users to “impulse-buy”. Work-from-home software like video conferencing and live streaming became the norm for direct sellers. These changes prompted social channels to incorporate similar functionality to enhance and streamline the social selling experience. Now, large brands host live-streamed product events on social channels, interacting with consumers in a space where they can purchase that product with the click of a button. And these are just a few of the many features being offered and developed.

Essentially, social selling has gone mainstream. And this carries both opportunities and risks.

This poses a challenge for direct sellers, who have always found a niche market in the consumer-centric sales approach. Even so, taking advantage of these new social offerings also provides an opportunity to build better relationships in exciting ways for the direct selling industry. While the competition has increased, direct selling representatives have the know-how to better leverage these new tools that spur connection, interaction, loyalty and sales– this is their home turf.

While it’s very exciting, there are some additional challenges besides increased competition to keep in mind. These new features and offerings open direct sellers to increased compliance risks. How representatives utilize these channels can lead to violations of company policy, or worse, attention from regulators. Field social media needs to be monitored vigilantly to avoid regulatory issues. Up-to-date field education will also be needed to reduce the claims, and unauthorized sellers will have to be curtailed as they find innovative ways to move inventory at the expense of company sales, enrollment and retention.

It’s a lot to consider, but it all can be done. The benefits of social selling in the hands of direct sellers outweighs the challenges. Like everything, it’s about having a plan, tools and techniques for effectively leveraging these new platforms and features, so the field can do what it does best: build relationships.

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Starting in China and accelerated by the pandemic in 2020, LiveStream Shopping is one of the fastest growing segments of ecommerce as retailers and brands embrace the technology that is finally adding the human element to online shopping. Much like HSN and QVC pioneered the personal, televised shopping experience, LiveStream Shopping is the uncontested and natural result of the marriage of HSN/QVC, Amazon and social media. LiveStream Shopping offers the perfect stage for influencers to deliver a fun, interactive and entertaining shopping experience online.

Plain and simple, LiveStream Shopping combines livestreaming (like Facebook, Instagram or YouTube Live) with the ability to seamlessly purchase products directly from the livestream. And because it is interactive, some platforms allow participants to speak or chat with the presenter directly as they would on any video conferencing service. As with all new and emerging technologies, the race to define or standardize the “platform” has begun. China has excelled at leveraging the power of influencers; their most successful livestream shopping events often feature celebrities, though it remains to be seen if the heavy investment in celebrities translates into brand loyalty and repeat purchasing. It is also not unusual to see live shopping events gamified with things like countdown clocks or to see Livestream Shopping events with an endless stream of hearts, smiley faces and other emojis. All that personalization has made ecommerce a far more engaging experience and dramatically reduced the chasm between online and offline shopping.

The China Digital Experience

In 2019, LiveStream Shopping accounted for nearly $70 billion of China’s retail sales, and it is expected to account for close to a half a trillion dollars by 2023! The rest of the world is taking notice. Enter Amazon LIVE and Walmart-TikTok, among numerous others. And yet, in 2019, the US accounted for only $1 billion of global LiveStream Shopping sales and the rest of the world did not fare much better.

How Can LiveStream Shopping Impact My Business?

There’s no denying that in-person selling is effective. It explains why product reviews, videos and non-shoppable livestreams have become an inseparable part of the online shopping experience. However, ecommerce still accounts for less than 20% of total global retail sales, online return rates continue to outpace their offline counterparts, and high online conversion rates remain elusive.

LiveStream Shopping is a game changer. It is engaging, fun and addresses our needs for convenience and entertainment while providing us with the assurance of a trusted influencer. During a LiveStream Shopping event, customers are treated to a live testimonial or product demo. They are engaged, can ask questions and can complete their planned or impromptu purchases during the livestream. And if that livestream runs on the retailer’s existing ecommerce platform or digital properties, the friction associated with livestreaming on social media platforms or on someone else’s Livestream Shopping platform is eliminated, thus further eroding the gap between the online and an offline experience.

Who Should Consider LiveStream Shopping?

LiveStream Shopping isn’t limited to a specific industry or category. It is a perfect fit for direct selling companies because the direct selling channel excels at personalized, influencer-based selling. Similarly, all direct to consumer, online retailers can leverage their influencers, brand ambassadors or affiliates. In fact, one could argue that the two channels are converging more today than at any other time in history. However, you don’t need legions of influencers to leverage the power of Livestream Shopping. Online retailers can also use their own sales forces to offer one-to-one or one-to-many LiveStream Shopping sessions.

How Is Livestream Shopping Different Than Social Media?

While social media sites are a great tool for connecting with existing fans and obtaining new ones, it has proven to be a difficult platform on which to seamlessly convert those interactions into sales. In fact, it is not unusual to experience conversion rates in the low single digits. Not surprisingly, like Amazon LIVE and Walmart-TikTok, it is expected that social media companies will eventually extend their livestream capabilities by allowing people to shop directly on their platforms. And therein lies the challenge for online retailers. Retailers will have to accept the additional friction of having to use multiple livestreaming platforms instead of offering LiveStream Shopping directly on their own websites and ecommerce platforms.

Last Word.

Nearly 60% of consumers surveyed said that they would rather shop online. In terms of generational preferences, only baby boomers prefer to shop in-store more than they do online and by a small margin. However, only 40% of Millennials and Gen Z prefer to shop in-store. LiveStream Shopping is one of the hottest trends in ecommerce, and its power to transform digital selling cannot be denied. Ecommerce sales continue to grow as a percentage of total global retail sales, and livestream shopping will accelerate that growth by humanizing the digital experience, further eroding if not eliminating the gap between online and offline selling.

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Written by John Lietsch and Lo Myrick, Bloo Kanoo Inc. Bloo Kanoo is a company whose mission it is to humanize ecommerce. Bloo Kanoo enables online retailers to offer LiveStream Shopping and Shoppable Video directly on their own ecommerce platforms just like Amazon LIVE and Alibaba’s Taobao. Learn more or schedule a demo today!

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In 2007, Daryl transitioned to the supplier side as the Director of Technology for ByDesign. His strategic contributions led to his appointment as President in 2015 and CEO in 2018.

How to Succeed at Social Selling

Social selling has become a hot topic in our industry over the past few years. The pandemic is driving an acceleration of companies adopting different technologies and tools to empower their field. Before COVID-19, fifty-five percent of consumers had made purchases via social media, and we know the pandemic significantly increased consumer acceptance of this trend. As social selling continues to evolve, Direct Selling companies must keep their finger on the pulse of the latest innovations and best practices to provide the right solutions for their field.

The Evolution of Social Selling for Direct Selling Companies 

In the early days of social selling, everyone was trying to figure out how to best leverage social media and online selling. Many early adopters flooded their warm market contacts with social media posts and banners. As companies have evolved the meaning of social selling, we’ve seen a wide variety of approaches; from companies doing Live Sales where they’re selling on-hand inventory, unboxing products, or other ways to engage an audience — through more simplified events, where content is automatically posted. The focus is to engage with the guests and drive traffic to their replicated website.

How can you ensure your company and Consultants are maximizing social selling? I’ve put together five tips based on what we’re seeing at companies experiencing social selling success.

Tip #1: Make it Easy for Customers to Participate, Engage, and Shop.

Today’s customers have high expectations for online shopping, and any hurdle can cause them to walk away. Your exact business model and selling approach will drive the “right” solution to enable simple shopping from your field. We have seen two fundamental approaches to “social selling” depending on if the Consultants sell from their inventory or have the product drop shipped from Corporate.

Selling Drop Ship Inventory

This is the most common scenario we see, where the focus of social selling is to drive customers to a replicated website & shopping cart to complete their purchases. In this case, it’s essential to ensure a customer-focused experience. Customers will expect your e-commerce site to include features like ratings and reviews from other customers, the option to make and save wish lists, the ability to search products by categories, and suggestions for “you might also like” products based on what they browse and buy.

Selling On-Hand Inventory

In this scenario, the Sales Consultant will be selling her inventory directly to the customer, collecting the payment for the purchase, and shipping the product. This area has evolved a lot over the past few years, with the initial focus on using a mix of tools and technologies; and, more recently, having turn-key solutions that make this a simpler process. For companies that focus on this model, the key is to consider the full user experience throughout the buying process:

1. How is awareness created for the social event? We see many companies focusing on using Facebook Live to drive awareness and an audience for an event, but this is predicated on Facebook and their evolving algorithms. When implementing outside Live Selling tools, consideration must be given to how this flows from the existing audiences (e.g., Facebook/Instagram/etc.) and how Consultants can drive an audience to the event.
2. How is an item “claimed/sold” through the live event? When a Consultant is on a Live Selling event, there must be an easy way for customers to purchase an item through the show. When companies are leveraging Facebook Live for events, we typically see them leveraging a “Comment Selling” approach – where comments are used to claim items and allow the Consultant to know who to send an invoice. With fully integrated solutions, this can be built into the actual Live Selling interface – where customers can “claim” an item in real-time without any Consultant involvement.
3. How is an item “paid for”? This is another area that we’ve seen several solutions, from using stand-alone payment solutions (e.g., Square/Stripe/etc.) to get started, to fully integrated solutions. When using a stand-alone payment solution, the Consultant typically handles the entire process — manually generating invoices based on the items claimed in an event.
4. How do the items get shipped to the end customer? When a Consultant sells from their inventory, how do these products get shipped to the purchasing customers? We’ve seen a mix of manual processes, through to fully automated in an integrated solution.
5. How does corporate maintain visibility on these sales? As on-hand sales evolve and grow, it becomes more critical to precisely see where the wholesale inventory goes and the end customers purchasing the product. This has been a big focus in our industry over the past several years and is an area that is more difficult to track without an integrated solution.

Regardless of the exact approach, the overall Customer Experience must be assessed by corporate to provide the most optimal experience for your customers. One of the best ways to gauge how your social selling and shopping experiences measure up is to experience them yourself. Sign on to a live event as a customer, participate, and shop. Doing this regularly will uncover opportunities to enhance the experience for your customers.

Tip #2: Integrate Social Selling with Back-Office Tools Available to Your Field.

Depending on the approach (drop-shipped vs. Consultant-fulfilled), there will be different tools and technologies that your Consultants will need to leverage to be successful. As you identify these tools and work to implement them, it’s crucial to make it easy for your Consultants to access these tools regardless of how tech-savvy they are.

If you are at an early stage where you’re leveraging a mix of tools (e.g., Facebook, Square, etc.), it’s essential to make it as easy as possible for your field to know the tools to use and the selling process to follow. Consider creating “Quick Links” in their Back Office to relevant tools and publishing training content on your best practices.

Tip #3: Ensure Social Promotion Marketing Content is Readily Available and Easy-to-Use.

We’ve seen a significant increase in companies focusing on and implementing easy-to-use ways for the field to share consistent and compliant social content and resources. When getting started, many software providers include simple ways to share/promote content directly from the Consultant’s Back Office — tying to their replicated site & shopping cart. As companies evolve, we see the desire to implement a stand-alone app that simplifies sharing content even further.

Providing a technology solution is predicated on having an initial set of content that you want your field to leverage and share. Collaboration between your field and marketing/sales teams is crucial here. The only way to get sustained adoption and growth is to have a solution that integrates both GREAT CONTENT with LOW FRICTION technology.

Tip #4: Talk to Your Field Before, During, and After Launching Social Selling Tools.

Social selling success doesn’t happen from the top down. As you map out social selling strategies and evaluate social selling tools, tap into your field Consultants to understand their needs, concerns, and customer insights.

Follow these four stages of adoption when launching new field tools.

1. Discovery: Engage the field to help you identify the tools needed, what Consultants are seeing in the field or are already using on their own, and what capabilities and features are on their wish lists.
2. Pre-Launch: As you select and integrate solutions, involve a few influential Consultants in the beta testing phase. In addition to helping you identify and fix issues, these Consultants will be effective ambassadors in driving the new tools’ utilization.
3. Launch: Create comprehensive training documentation with your Field Advisory Board’s input and hold training webinars to showcase the tools and how to use them. A mix of corporate staff, vendor experts, and Consultants involved in the discovery and pre-launch phases should lead the training.
4. Post-Launch: Continue to encourage use by providing ongoing user tips and success stories. Most importantly, establish a process for Consultants to share continuous feedback.

Tip #5: Understand the Financial and Resource Investments Required for Launching Social Selling Tools.

When you evaluate the solutions to empower your field, it’s essential to look at the overall costs from a corporate perspective and what your field needs to purchase. What tools are needed by the field? What are they paying monthly to run their business? Can these be consolidated into a more unified solution?

Beyond the cost components, there must be an aligned focus from corporate on implementation, from your internal technology group, customer service training, compliance, and many other parts of your business. We’ve seen the most significant impacts of social selling tools from companies that truly get behind implementing the tools they select with a big focus on training and adoption from the field. There’s no point in investing significant capital in a solution if the field isn’t going to adopt it.

Your software provider can be a valuable resource for insights and best practices to help you enhance your social selling and e-commerce capabilities. Engage them as a partner as you assess your company’s needs and evaluate options.

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3 Reasons Social Media Should Become the Lifeblood of Your Company in 2021

Many direct selling companies have mixed feelings toward social media. On the corporate side, it’s a popular channel for staying connected with distributors and their teams. But when it comes to teams performing social media marketing as brand representatives, the corporate office usually has a lot of concerns, as this is where great exposure comes and automatically puts brand consistency, compliance, and reputation at risk.

Meanwhile, the opportunities social media opens, if used wisely, significantly outweigh these risks. Here are three reasons why getting representatives involved in social media marketing is a must for direct selling companies who want to get compelling sales results.

1. This is where your end users are.

Direct selling companies have always been known for proactively reaching out to people who need them. This approach worked with family circles, at parks, and at public events. Today these places are not the most promising in terms of finding new clients, as people prefer to minimize their risks due to the pandemic and stay home. There’s a place where they have migrated, though — to the online world, and to social media in particular. And this brings us to the number one reason it’s time for your direct selling company to become active on social.

40% of respondents of the Deloitte Digital Tools in Crisis and Recovery Report confirmed they are using social media and online messaging to find information about products they need and to interact with businesses.

According to GlobalWebIndex, Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millenials use mostly Facebook (55%, 63%, and 67% correspondingly), while Gen Z is more into Instagram (67%). These two social media platforms are the most promising in terms of covering wide audiences of different age groups.

Moreover, 62% of Facebook users and 40% of Instagram users confess they spend time on social media looking for social interaction and meaningful connections.

SmartInsights predicts social media marketers will invest in “building relationships with employees, customers, and influencers to ensure our key brand messages are backed up by the voices our customers value the most” in 2021.

There’s no one better than representatives at building such connections and relationships. Marketing leaders just need to empower them with the right skill- and toolsets to start building their networks on social media.

2. It’s the way to provide a great brand experience.

When representatives start actively posting to their pages on their own, there are also risks. First, they might not be tech- and marketing-savvy enough to stick to the proper quality level of content and messaging. Second, reps who passionately believe in their products may start overpromising about their effects and this may cause legal issues.

But consistently onboarding reps on company values and messaging, educating them on social media marketing, and giving them effective tools are great ways to mitigate these risks. Activating distributors to engage in social media marketing can become the best decision in a company’s history. Not only can distributors spread their brand message to a wider audience, but they can also build a positive brand reputation through their own personal experiences.

People tend to trust other people much more than they trust brands. That’s why reps sharing their lifestyles featuring how they use your products in their daily routines is better than any paid advertising. Luckily, social media offers a wide range of tools and formats for creating such personalized content: Stories, Live Streams, IGTV—all of these are in high demand among today’s online users. Lives are even reported to be among the top trends for 2021.

In this case, it’s important that distributors remain authentic in their communication, as this is their main strength.

3. Selling on social media actually brings results.

Almost half the respondents of the Deloitte Digital Tools in Crisis and Recovery Report say their online spending has increased since the COVID-19 outbreak. According to SmartInsights, social commerce will be one of the key trends of 2021.

This is totally natural behavior as in today’s world online is the safest way to shop. Especially when you can get the look and feel of products, speak to a consultant, and make a purchase all in one place. Direct selling representatives should turn their social media pages into such places.

To achieve such growth, marketing leaders should develop a social-first habit in distributors. That means advocating the importance of social media marketing at the corporate level and educating representatives via various webinars, courses, and workshops. Also, picking the right tools to simplify social media marketing workflow is a good idea. With such support from the corporate level, representatives will catch on and become more marketing savvy and customer-centric themselves.

Marketing specialists predict the year 2021 will be the year of “people-first social media marketing”. Direct selling companies should be at the forefront of this trend, as giving personalized experiences is their strong suit.

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In 2007, Daryl transitioned to the supplier side of our industry as the Director of Technology for ByDesign. His strategic contributions led to his appointment as President in 2015 and CEO in 2018.

Daryl Wurzbacher
Social Selling Made Simple

The way that consumers interact when buying and selling products has evolved towards multi-channel forms of communication. No longer are they just purchasing an item, but they are becoming part of a community with other buyers around the world. Instead of being passive shoppers, they are actively taking part in what they buy with the ability to influence the ultimate success of the products, brands, and companies they support.  



Engaging customers is all about meeting them where they are and making it memorable. Social shopping hasn’t replaced relationship-driven or in-person sales experiences. Instead, today’s shoppers are looking to interact with brands in a way that creates an integrated and cohesive customer experience no matter how or where a customer reaches out.

Social selling is one of the fastest-growing areas in direct sales for a good reason — it works! If you have a company account for any social network (Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn), you’re passively involved in social selling already. At its core, social selling is a lead generation strategy intended to connect representatives directly with prospects via social platforms. This can be as simple as a social post with a link to buy, or more dynamic through live selling events.

The personal connection that social selling offers helps to create a positive customer experience for shoppers. The Customer Experience (“CX”), is your customers’ holistic perception of their experience with your brand and products. It is a result of every interaction a customer has with your company, from navigating the website to talking to customer service and receiving the product/service they bought from you.

When you build your social selling strategy, start with the ideal Customer Experience, and then work backwards to implement. Consumers today expect a seamless shopping experience, whether they’re face-to-face, at a home party, online from a desktop, tablet or mobile device, on social media, or a live selling platform. They want continuity in their experience that lets them sign in on one device to start an order and have their cart follow them to finish their order on another device. No customer wants to build their shopping cart from scratch if they switch devices. They want their information, like shipping, wish lists, credit card details, and saved items to sync across all their devices. Essentially, they want to buy from anywhere, on any device and have consistent, personalized experiences that culminate in secure, frictionless payments.

Three Keys to Successful Social Selling

1. Live Selling 

No longer a novelty, online selling events have quickly become a preferred way to reach, engage, and sell to busy customers.  As popularity grows, so do customer expectations. It is critical to ensure that your representatives can interact with customers, no matter where they are online. As part of your onboarding, representatives need to be trained on how to leverage social media to effectively increase their marketing reach, build relationships, and establish strong communities with their target audiences.

When it comes to live selling, social media platforms with “Reply to Buy” functionality makes the sales process easy for both customers and representatives. Additionally, investing in livestream selling capabilities, where customers can join the live event, comment, and complete buying transactions without ever having to leave the event, will add a competitive advantage for your brand.

2. Hybrid Sales

Today’s buyers are sophisticated. They expect the 24/7 convenience of e-commerce combined with personalized one-to-one relationships. Direct sellers have a distinct advantage over other distribution channels when they give representatives the tools to deliver both. Build your representative tool kit with hybrid sales in mind, giving representatives the flexibility to engage customers with an integrated mix of sales platforms, live selling options, and in-person sales that allow customers to walk out with their new favorite items.

Make it easy for your representatives to keep the focus on the customer experience. Leverage your technology to handle all the other details from inventory management to sales tax calculations and payouts for representatives.



3. Organizational Visibility

When you’re growing a successful direct sales business, you don’t have time to hassle with signing into multiple databases to bring together the information you need to identify trends and make decisions. Look for technology that will give you access to all your data, all in one place.

It is more important than ever that corporate has a holistic view of the entire organization’s operation and flow, including retail receipt visibility from the warehouse through to the end customer. This will enable you to be confident that you are in compliance with FTC regulations, compensation structure rules, and sales tax laws.

With nearly half the world’s population now active on social media, social selling is more relevant than ever. Companies that want to be ahead of the curve rather than chasing it would be smart to implement a systematic social selling practice for their organizations.

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