Shaping the Next Era of Commerce With the Power of Community

The way people shop has fundamentally changed. In addition to visiting physical stores, people now want to connect with businesses through social media in an authentic way. They want to feel connected to brand stories or values and seek out relevant product recommendations, whether it’s through ads, creators or communities they trust before making a purchase.

This new way of social shopping not only helps people connect with businesses they love (55% of social media users who said they discovered a product through this channel stated they made an online purchase as a result) but also unlocks new economic opportunities for businesses of all sizes. Today 85% of large companies and 57% of small companies sell on social commerce platforms, and they have a strong reason to invest—social commerce is projected to bring in $1.2 trillion by 2025.¹

As social commerce gains traction, several brands use our tools such as Shops, Live Shopping, Drops, Reels and more to build stronger, more authentic relationships with their customers and drive growth.

Luca + Danni unlocks growth with the power of community.

Luca + Danni is a family-owned jewelry company that has tapped into the power of community to unlock growth in new ways.

After losing his younger brother Danny to cancer, founder Fred Magnanami launched Luca + Danni with the goal of fulfilling his dream of reinventing the family’s jewelry business and providing people with handcrafted items featuring meaningful messages that speak to universally-lived experiences.

Fred first realized that community would play an important role in his business when he launched one of his first products, a modified infinity bracelet with the words “Embrace the Journey,” meant to affirm people of better days to come. People were so moved by the message and the brand’s story that they got the symbol tattooed and shared what the product meant to them on Luca + Danni’s Facebook page.

Now Fred is leaning into the power of immersive experiences like Live Shopping to strengthen the bond with his community. Over the holiday season, Fred hosted several live shopping sessions and provided viewers with a better understanding of what the brand stands for, the meaning of individual products, insight into how products are manufactured and answered their questions in real time. This helped the brand and shoppers come together to build a relationship beyond just a transaction. By clearly telling the brand’s story through shoppable content, Luca + Danni reached a much larger audience, with their biggest Live Shopping stream receiving 6.7 million views.

“For us commerce is about building a community,” Fred said. “Beyond just making a purchase, people want to have an authentic connection to your brand and storytelling through content allows us to get even closer to our customer. With new experiences like Live Shopping, we’re able to hear from our customers in real time and make products that reflect them. This community approach to commerce is more than just listening to our customers, it’s resulting in growth for our business—in Q4 2021 we generated $864,000 in sales through Shops.” —Fred Magnanimi, founder Luca + Danni

Madhappy builds a community of creators to reach customers where they are.

Madhappy was founded by 4 friends with a simple but impactful vision: promote optimism and mental health while offering streetwear that doesn’t have the stigma of exclusivity or negativity. Today their brand purpose comes to life at the intersection of creators, community and commerce through product collections, content and experiences centered around mental health. From their content platform (The Local Optimist) to their podcast (The Madhappy Podcast), the brand has worked hard to normalize talking about mental health in popular culture.

In winter of 2021, Madhappy launched their Outdoors collection (featuring hoodies, puffer jackets and snowboards), centered around the positive effects that spending time outdoors can benefit your mental health.

To launch the collection, Madhappy used drops on Instagram to build hype and awareness through a community of creators with similar values. Fans of the brand were able to sign up to be notified as soon as the collection was available for purchase right on Instagram.

Madhappy also hosted a weekend trip in Aspen for over 50 creators and built an immersive experience, including a combination of outdoors and mental health-related activities—from yoga to skiing to guided meditations. The brand brought in meditation / sound bowl experts Jesse Israel and Jackie Cantwell to lead daily wellness sessions, invited guests to visit Aspen's Remède Spa and gave each guest a copy of The Madhappy Journal to document their thoughts freely.

Guests of Madhappy were also given the full product collection and documented the weekend on their Instagram profiles. There were no posting obligations for any guest of the trip, yet the 360-degree experience garnered lots of organic content from everyone involved. By product tagging in their posts and stories, the creators helped drive awareness for collection drop.

By tapping into a community of friends to amplify their message, Madhappy fans were eager to support the brand and make a purchase, resulting in impressive, first-day sales figures that were among the company's best since it launched in 2017.

“Creating a positive community is the core of what Madhappy stands for. With Shops and Drops, we’re able to effectively tell our brand story, reach our customers where they are and make it easy for them to make a purchase. Our belief is that the future of social shopping is community shopping, and we’re able to unlock the power of creators, community and commerce with Shops.” —Ravi Shah, senior brand manager, Madhappy