Social commerce is the new engine of e-commerce growth, with social and creator storefronts becoming widespread. In 2025, product discovery, brand engagement, lead generation, and purchases all flow seamlessly. This is because social commerce has become an essential avenue for brands to connect with their audience and grow. Statistics show that 17% of all online sales in the US happen directly on social platforms, with social commerce sales projected to top $80 billion by the end of 2025.
The landscape is evolving fast, with the likes of Instagram Checkout, TikTok Shop, Shopify, and live shopping events changing how people buy. Hostinger survey revealed that 82% customers use social media platforms for discovery and research before buying. While these benefits make social commerce appealing, it also comes with challenges. For instance, a brand might plan and invest heavily in a specific platform, only for another to take off. In that case, the brand would have to decide whether they can take on another platform they didn’t budget for.
Five Social Commerce Challenges
While brands can now maintain a presence on many platforms based on their target audience, being active alone is not a sufficient strategy for success. A requirement for success is a strategy that delivers value while managing common challenges. Small and large business teams may struggle with algorithms, content, and business demands.
Many brands focus on paid advertising as a solution. Without innovative strategies to maximize the impact, ads alone cannot produce strong results. Brands must leverage analytics, creativity, and planning to overcome every hurdle. These are five key challenges brands face with social commerce this 2025.
Algorithm Shifts
There was a period when social media posts were displayed in the order they came in. During that period, visibility was fair and predictable, giving each brand an equal chance to appear in followers’ feeds. No post lost due to inactivity or posting too late. Brands had equal opportunities, and content strategies were executed with certainty.
Today, social media platforms operate differently. Platform algorithms now govern what people see. These algorithms often shift without notice, making it difficult for marketers to maintain content visibility. For example, the algorithm may prefer reels visibility today, live content, carousels, or static images in the next period. This unpredictability is a persistent challenge in social commerce, making it difficult for marketers to adapt.
Over the years, Facebook has tested several algorithm changes to decide what shows up in people’s feeds. At a point, the platform leaned heavily toward public and viral video content because those formats were trending. To counter that shift, Facebook later adjusted its system to prioritize posts from friends and family. As a result, content from brands and publishers appeared less frequently, making it harder for businesses to reach their followers organically.
Another significant challenge is how the algorithm rewards frequency and popularity. Brands that fail to maintain a consistent posting rhythm disappear from followers’ feeds. Only content from larger or more popular brands gains traction. This results in a situation where smaller brands with quality content struggle for visibility. Maintaining consistency can strain resources, especially for teams managing many social media platforms.
The demand for real-time data tracking further worsens the situation. Brands rely on data for predictions, but reduced engagement can lead to flawed insights and leave the brand in a more reactive than proactive state. Even when data is available, the number of metrics across many platforms can be overwhelming. Marketing teams may struggle with identifying performance metrics, and this wastes time, leading to confusion and misplaced priorities.
The collective effect of algorithm shifts increases competition amongst saturated feeds. Posts that gain traction also have unpredictable lifespans, making long-term planning difficult. Marketing teams also face the challenge of staying relevant and creative while navigating inconsistent reach, visibility, and engagement. The constant algorithm change creates difficulties for marketing teams. It makes it difficult to stand out above competitors and maintain a sustainable marketing strategy. Brands can address these uncertainties by varying the content they produce and the platforms they use.
Burnouts
Regularly releasing high-quality social media content is one of the most significant challenges for marketing teams today. Strong content offers visibility and engagement, but maintaining this output day after day can be overwhelming. Teams often experience fatigue and creative blocks due to the intensity of creative demands, such as filming, visual production, generating new ideas, and content editing. In 2025, research found that 52% of creators had experienced burnout in their careers, and nearly 37% had considered quitting the industry entirely.
The continuous pressure to keep pace with audience expectations and algorithms may lead to unwanted results, rushed production, and eventual burnout. Marketing teams may lose focus on strategy and originality while trying to keep up with the content demands. This imbalance strains resources, reduces efficiency, and affects performance. Content production may become more reactive than strategic, leading to repetitive ideas, reduced engagement, and inconsistent messaging. The lack of a proper content plan worsens these challenges.
Without a clear roadmap or structured content schedule, teams are forced into reactive cycles. They will keep trying to fill content gaps with whatever is available rather than developing strategic plans to support brand goals. User-generated content (UGC), which is rarely maximized, can also pose a challenge. UGC relieves creative pressure, but obtaining necessary permissions and ensuring brand alignment wastes time and effort. Also, adopting centralized tools may be challenging, as integrating them into workflows can be resource-intensive and complex, especially for smaller teams.
The challenge revolves around balance. The teams must deliver new, engaging content consistently while managing limited time and resources. Lack of sustainable processes increases the risk of burnout. The resultant effect is declining engagement, reduced innovation, and lower overall performance. The lack of a consistent process can increase creator burnout. It can also result in reduced innovation, declining engagement, and lower overall performance.
Conclusively, the struggle to produce consistently without burnout covers another issue in digital marketing: the constant tension between quality, human capacity, and consistency. There is an increase in demand for high-frequency and short-form content. This depicts that managing creative workload remains one of the most critical operational challenges for modern brands. Most especially in social commerce, where visibility directly affects growth and sales.
ROI Analysis
A common problem in social commerce is showing businesses that it is actually valuable. According to Sprout Social research, most marketers use social platforms primarily to boost visibility, with 8 in 10 naming brand awareness as their top objective. About 65% also said that building and engaging their community was a significant focus.
This trend is consistent with earlier findings from Social Media Examiner’s 2018 report. In that study, 87% of marketers said the most significant advantage they saw from social media was greater exposure for their business. In contrast, only just over half (53%) reported that social media directly contributed to sales.
However, indicators such as likes, comments, engagement, and shares, which are often used, cannot be directly linked to revenue or sales, which are measurable outcomes. The distinction between broader business systems and social media platforms makes it difficult to track the consumer marketing journey. Journey from engagement to conversion, which leads to several marketing teams struggling to prove the actual impact of social commerce.
This distinction can fuel doubt among executives, who may perceive social media as cost-incurring rather than a driver of business growth. Discrepancies between sales and marketing teams further complicate measurement. This results in inconsistent success definitions and scattered reports. Many teams track metrics without making the connection. They track impressions and funnels without connecting them to purchases or lead generation. Without this linkage, establishing a cause for specific campaign results may prove challenging.
Data scattering adds another layer of complexity. Combining and integrating analytics across multiple platforms with web or CRM data can be technically demanding. Diverse tools and inconsistent data formats prevent in-depth analysis, making it challenging to present unified insights that clearly prove ROI. Also, pressure to produce regular reports can lead to the presentation of surface-level data that lacks relevance. This further limits the ability to demonstrate social media impact on brand perception, sales pipeline, or customer loyalty.
Finally, social media credibility is restricted in broader business discussions due to the inability to measure and prove ROI. To address this, sales and marketing objectives need to be aligned. It also involves establishing clear performance indicators and integrating data across all platforms to demonstrate measurable outcomes. Brands will continue to face the challenge of demonstrating social commerce value this 2025. It can only be resolved when marketers can interpret engagements into the measurable outcome provided.
Managing Brand Crisis
In today’s dynamic digital world, a single negative post can result in a major brand crisis within hours. A misinterpreted campaign or a dissatisfied customer can spread rapidly across social platforms. This deals a significant blow to a brand’s reputation, destroying the built credibility and trust. The issue is not preventing negative feedback but failing to manage the situation effectively before it escalates. Social commerce brands can’t afford to make mistakes, no matter how small, because they often have significant consequences.
Social media teams always face pressure to respond in a timely, consistent, professional tone. The lack of established escalation protocols or community management guidelines can lead to inconsistent responses. This can increase confusion and backlash. Many teams struggle to manage the situation effectively when comments flood platforms simultaneously. They face the failure of balance, balancing brand protection with empathy.
Tracking public opinions adds another layer of complexity. There may be thousands of comments, shares, and mentions daily. Identifying genuine issues out of this may prove challenging and overwhelming. Manual tracking delays allow negative sentiment to grow unchecked. Even with proper social tools in place, analyzing the data correctly, identifying key concerns, and determining the appropriate response may prove difficult.
Honesty during crises is another challenge. There has to be clear communication without magnifying the issue or appearing defensive. This kind of decision requires careful consideration. Inconsistent communication across departments can worsen the situation and prolong the damage to the reputation. Brands need to maintain customer trust while admitting their mistakes. It is a situation that demands a careful combination of tone, timing, and strategic insight.
Overall, the real challenge is minimizing the crisis’s impact. Negative feedback is inescapable in social commerce. Failure to manage it thoughtfully can worsen its consequences. Brands must operate in an environment where audience perception can change rapidly. Silence or an inconsistent reply may exacerbate the situation. Proper crisis management requires planning and flexibility. This, in combination with the capacity to act with control and understanding. Finally, ensuring the brand reputation remains protected even in the face of errors.
Social Trends
Paying attention to feature updates regularly and upcoming social media platforms has become a difficult task for marketers in 2025. The constant stream of upgrades and new tools leaves marketing teams struggling to adapt. Content constantly changes, leaving older content outdated. From short-form video platforms to AI-driven creator tools, new formats require continuous experimentation and learning to succeed in social commerce.
This uncertainty creates pressure to explore without defined parameters. Surprise launches of new apps or features disrupt content strategies, forcing marketers to learn. The lack of adequate preparation time leaves many brands struggling to keep content consistent while adding new formats to existing workflows.
Allocation of resources is another challenge. Trying out newly emerging platforms can drain resources. Yet ignoring them could risk valuable growth opportunities. Marketing teams must carefully decide on their focus without clear, measurable success metrics. This makes innovation both risky and rewarding.
Skill shortages worsen the situation. Advancement in technology brings with them a demand for growth. Social teams must keep learning to master new algorithms, tools, and audience behaviour. Smaller teams may face a challenge here because they lack the capacity to fully explore emerging platforms. This makes them more reactive than proactive.
Assessing whether a new platform fits a brand’s identity is difficult. Trend adoption may spark growth, but chasing every new feature may weaken messaging and confuse the audience. Brands must be able to differentiate a fleeting hype from meaningful innovation. This distinction becomes harder as platforms evolve rapidly.
Ultimately, challenges such as staying ahead of trends reflect the uncertainties of social platforms. To maintain relevance this 2025, quick decision-making, experimentation, and agility are critical. Social commerce brands’ difficulties do not lie in spotting trends but sustaining growth. Sustaining growth, brand identity, and engagement with the ongoing digital transformations.
Future Growth of Social Commerce
According to Activate, Social commerce may become a requirement for brand success. The number of businesses that use social commerce will continue to grow. This makes it essential for brand growth. Virtual reality and augmented reality are expected to provide a better shopping experience.
Furthermore, forecasting will predict social commerce over time and use analytics to tailor marketing campaigns. Chatbots are also expected to improve and become a tool for creating a customized consumer experience. Artificial intelligence has diverse uses. This will aid the data analysis for marketing purposes.
Conclusion
Social commerce offers many benefits to brands, but 2025 is drawing more attention to its challenges. Challenges include algorithm shifts, burnouts, social trends, and managing brand crises. Managing these challenges demands expertise and foresight. OneQ Digital helps brands overcome these obstacles. With proven strategies to optimize social platforms, maintain engagement, and maximize ROIs. OneQ has executive reviews of turning social commerce challenges into growth opportunities. We also help to improve brand impact, visibility, and relevance across every platform. Visit our website to learn more about our services.
