Livestreaming was an existing trend that gained newfound relevance during the pandemic. Over the past few months, nearly all of the major US social networks have expanded their services and introduced new livestreaming opportunities, many of which are aimed at boosting commerce on the platforms.

Testing the social commerce waters: YouTube began beta-testing live shopping in February and has since hosted live shopping events featuring small businesses and sponsored influencer streams as social media platforms race to launch live shopping features ahead of the holiday shopping rush. Live shopping and other social commerce features are major drivers of revenue in eastern markets.

Retail social commerce is already a multibillion dollar industry in the US, having earned $26.97 billion in sales in 2020. That figure will more than double by 2023, when we predict retail social commerce earnings will hit $56.17 billion.

Creator economy crescendo: Amazon is quickly building out areas of its business that center on influencers, as the walls between social media and ecommerce erode and creators' roles in those spaces start to blend together.

Live means live. The nature of live video means that content cannot exactly be approved in advance or edited after the fact. For these reasons, brands are at the mercy of the talent and technology once the stream goes live. Audience interactions can be harmful. Live chats are an essential part of livestreaming.

Digital commerce platform provider Avionos, for instance, was a Gold sponsor of Adobe’s Summit. Sponsoring these partner-hosted events has been the traditional way Avionos goes to market, according to Challin Meink, director of marketing.

NTWRK pushes live shopping in the US: The livestream-centric mobile marketplace is competing with giants like Amazon and Facebook as US companies emulate China and struggle to succeed in the fledgeling livestreaming ecommerce space.

For instance, both new and legacy social and ecommerce platforms are scrambling to accommodate the new trend of live streaming commerce videos (“live commerce”), wherein retailers and key opinion leaders (KOLs)—China’s term for influencers—interact with their audiences directly via video, and products are on sale in real time.

Live Shopping. Facebook officially debuted live in-app shopping on its core platform in November, partnering with retailer Anne Klein for a series of holiday shopping livestreaming events. The launch has been a long time coming—Facebook first teased the feature during its Facebook Shop rollout in May. (In August, it also launched live shopping on Instagram.).

On today's episode, we discuss how advertisers are adjusting as the pandemic eases in the US, whether Facebook Live Shopping can get off the ground, online shopping's deceleration, if faster delivery can really help retailers compete with Amazon, what to make of Snapchat's fourth-generation augmented reality glasses, and how much time we really have to enjoy life. Tune in to the discussion with eMarketer senior analyst Sara M. Watson, analyst Daniel Keyes, and analyst at Insider Intelligence Blake Droesch.

Even if live shopping takes off in the US, it may not be hosted by social platforms. Walmart experimented with livestreaming on TikTok, for instance, but then built a dedicated site to host live shopping. In China, live shopping has been hosted by large commerce sites, such as Taobao Live and JD Live. Potential Wild Cards in Our Forecast.

Here’s how marketers can navigate Q3 2021’s product, commerce, and monetization changes on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and Twitter.

“Many of the country's most popular ecommerce platforms are heavily integrated with the most popular social networks, boasting innovative services like Mini Programs and live streaming commerce. These and other services frequently offer the best deals on products, and they make social buying extremely engaging and convenient.”.

Facebook Live: Updates to Facebook’s live video service include bringing back “Live With,” which allows users to add a guest speaker to their video regardless of where they are, as well as integration with Facebook Events. Users will be able to mark events as online-only, and creators and businesses will be able to charge guests for access to their events on Facebook Live.

Livestreaming “live commerce.” Uniting each of the previous entries, as well as legacy giants like Alibaba’s Taobao, JD.com, and newer up-and-coming competitors from the entertainment side like Douyin (the China version of TikTok) and Kuaishou, is the hot new trend of promoting ecommerce live via digital video.

Singles’ Day is a must-see for tech watchers, as many of China’s digital giants have used past events to highlight retail tech, including virtual reality (VR) shopping, QR code payments, and livestreaming commerce. A few years ago, Alibaba introduced a Pokémon Go-like game called "Catch the Cat," which featured a virtual cat who drew shoppers to brick-and-mortar stores where they could earn points.

JD.com also partnered with museums to offer live streamed tours, which then lead guests to online gift shops. Most recently, the country's major mobile messaging app WeChat launched Minishop, which enables merchants to set up an online store without relying on third-party developers.

The social platforms hosted live stream fundraisers, such as TikTok’s #OneCommunity LIVE, benefiting health, education and other charities. Influencers started selling sponsored live streams on Instagram and elsewhere.

As COVID-19 shut down most brick-and-mortar stores in China, many businesses integrated with short-form video platforms (as well as Alibaba’s live ecommerce channel Taobao Live, which lives under its C2C platform Taobao) to conduct live streaming commerce. Digital Video Time Spent.

As with every other aspect of our lives, COVID-19 is impacting social media usage and advertising. Some of those changes, along with other important ad product launches, will continue to affect advertisers once the pandemic ends.