Social media have become quite a big internet tool for everyone. It’s now an understatement to define social networks as chatting platforms because they have developed to become so many things. Social networks are search engines, advertising media, and even ecommerce platforms.

Many social networks, including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, have introduced business accounts and Shopping features to encourage ecommerce activities. The newest member of the league is Twitter. And recently, the social network announced its partnership with Shopify to solidify its interest in social commerce.

This article will examine the Twitter Sales Channel and its benefits for merchants. Also, I will give you its installation guide. Make sure you read to the end.

What’s the Twitter Sales Channel?

The Twitter sales channel is a tool for linking a Shopify store to a Twitter professional account. This tool lets merchants onboard their products from their online store to Twitter. It makes it easier to turn your followers on Twitter into buyers.

As mentioned earlier, the tool was created due to the partnership between Twitter and Shopify. It came as one of the new features introduced under the Shopify Summer Edition updates. Followers can enter your store by clicking a product in your Twitter shop catalog.

Ecommerce on Twitter before Twitter Sales Channel

Twitter Sales Channel is one of Twitter’s shopping tools. For quite a long time, since 2015, to be precise, Twitter has been working on bringing social commerce to the platform. They experimented with the likes of the “Buy Now” button, product collections, and product pages.

Twitter didn’t push on for some reason until 2021, when they unveiled some shopping tools alongside their professional accounts. These tools include:

  • Location Spotlight

Location spotlight lets businesses display their working hours, location, and contact information on their professional accounts. People who found your business on the platform don’t have to ask for your business location or contact details. They can always find this info on your profile page. This feature is only available to U.K., U.S, Canada, and Australia businesses.

  • Shop Spotlight

With shop spotlight, businesses could advertise products on their profile page. Interested buyers could purchase this product by clicking the “shop on website” button or using the reminder feature to set a reminder. This tool is also only available to some qualifying accounts.

  • Twitter Shopping Manager

The Twitter Shopping Manager houses the Twitter Shop, Shop Module, and Live Shopping tool. Twitter Shops enables merchants to display 50 products that can be accessed via a button on the profile page. The Shop Module piloted Twitter Shop. It’s a limited version of Twitter Shop and only allows merchants to display five products at a go. The live shopping tool helps businesses and merchants to sell from their Walmart stores while having live streams with their followers on Twitter.

How Twitter Sales Channel Works

Twitter sales channel makes it easier for Shopify merchants to connect their ecommerce store to their professional Twitter account. All they need to do is to install this app on their Shopify website, and their catalog will automatically sync to the social platform. Any changes they make on their Shopify store catalog will automatically change on Twitter.

For now, a merchant could use either Twitter Shop or Shop Spotlight to promote products from their Shopify store on Twitter. The Spotlight displays only five products and fifty products with Shop. When a person clicks on one of the products, they are taken to the product page on your Shopify ecommerce website, where they can proceed to purchase.

The transactions will take place on your Shopify store, and the buyer can pay using Shop pay or any other checkout options. Twitter is not to handle the checkouts or the delivery.

Twitter is a social platform where many professional and business-related discussions occur. They believe that with this partnership, merchants could initiate conversations about their products and tell fans that they can get these products by checking their profile page.

Benefits of Twitter Sales Channel

  • Increased Sales

People are usually on Twitter for serious business. They use the platform to relate to their mentor, follow their influencers, or check a brand they like. This is a favorable environment for ecommerce. Twitter sales channel will help you seize the opportunity and makes money from your Tweets.

  • Brand Awareness

If you’re a Shopify merchant based in the U.S and yet to have a professional account on Twitter, you should go and get one now. As you advertise your products on the platform, people will get to know you and your business. You can even grow a community here for your business, where you gather new customers and educate people about your niche and how your products can be the solutions to their problems.

  • Expand ads campaign options

Maybe you never see the need for a Twitter ads campaign; you can now add it to your advertising tools, now that you can board your Shopify products onto the platform. Using an ads campaign, you can meet people who need your product and are searching for it. These people are likely to convert.

Requirements for Shopify-Twitter integration

The Shopify merchants must be U.S based and sell physical products. It’s also crucial that they have a Twitter professional account.

How to use Twitter Sales Channel

  • App Installation

Getting things done on Shopify’s store is straightforward. You can include this app in your store from your Shopify admin. Navigate to Sales Channel, and click the plus (+) sign to add one. Find the Twitter Sales channel on the new page and click add to install. You can also take a different route by searching for the app on the Shopify app store or clicking here to eliminate the stress. Click Add app and enter your store’s login details to install it.

  • Create a product set, name it, and add the products to the collection

  • Choose the method of display: Shop spotlight or Twitter shop.

  • Publish the products to your profile

Closing thoughts

This is not the first time the ecommerce giant would engage in this kind of partnership. They have done this with Meta (Facebook and Instagram), TikTok, and Pinterest, so we can only expect the best from the partnership with Twitter. Besides, the reviews on the app so far have been nothing but fantastic. We only hope they extend this tool to other merchants in other parts of the world.