Social commerce is changing how people discover, buy and earn. Direct selling may be better positioned for that shift than we think.
For more than 100 years, direct selling has been built on one fundamental belief: people trust people.
Someone tells you about a product. They share their personal experience. They demonstrate it. They answer questions. Eventually, you decide to buy. Those behaviors have always been at the heart of our channel.
Now the rest of commerce is rapidly reorganizing around that same idea.
The difference is that those behaviors are increasingly powered by creators, content, algorithms and frictionless commerce—and they are happening at a scale and speed we could not have imagined even a few years ago. That’s why I don’t think social commerce should be viewed simply as another sales channel or influencer marketing as just another tactic. Something much more fundamental is happening.
Social commerce is changing how people discover products; who they trust; where they buy; and how they monetize their influence. That represents a significant challenge to direct selling as we currently operate. But if we respond correctly, it may also represent one of our biggest opportunities in years.
From Search to Discovery
Think about how ecommerce traditionally worked. You identified a need; searched for a solution; visited websites; read reviews; checked Amazon; watched videos; and ultimately made a purchase. Even when that process felt relatively seamless, each step usually happened in a different place.
Social commerce collapses those steps.
Today, you can be scrolling through a feed with no intention of buying anything when a creator introduces a product that solves a problem you have. You watch the video; read comments; view another piece of content; and purchase without ever leaving the platform.
Discovery, influence, trust and transaction have become part of the same experience. The distance between “I just discovered this” and “I just bought this” can now be measured in seconds.
Underneath that is another important shift: we’ve moved from search to discovery. We don’t always go shopping anymore. Shopping comes to us.
That distinction matters because social commerce isn’t simply ecommerce driven by social media. I think of it as the convergence of four things: content, creators, community and commerce. Content drives discovery. Creators provide influence and authenticity. Community supplies social proof and trust. Commerce removes friction from the transaction.
For direct selling, the question is no longer whether social commerce will have an impact. The question is what role we want to play in it.
The Opportunity Is Changing, Too
The disruption isn’t limited to how customers shop. It is also changing how people think about earning additional income.
Consider a 27-year-old entrepreneur. Historically, direct selling might have been one of the first opportunities that person considered. They could join a company; learn the products and compensation plan; build a contact list; recruit; sell and eventually develop a network.
Today, that same person has another option. They can choose a product they already love, create content around it and allow an algorithm to find an audience. They can earn commissions and potentially represent multiple brands without ever building a traditional team.
I’m not arguing that one opportunity is better than the other. Both have audiences, and both are valid. But we should be asking ourselves which experience feels more native to today’s 27- or 30-year-old looking for additional income.
For a while, direct selling competed for those entrepreneurs with the gig economy. Now we are increasingly competing with the entire creator economy.
That means we need to expand how we think about the distributor opportunity. A creator-first entrepreneur may need different onboarding, content education, social selling skills, creator analytics, AI tools and a simpler path to earning commissions. Someone may begin by loving a product, then sharing it, creating content and earning commissions. Later, that person may decide to build an organization—or they may not.
We need to make room for both.
When the Algorithm Becomes Distribution
Perhaps the biggest technological change in this equation is the algorithm.
Historically, direct selling expanded through personal relationships and networks. Social commerce introduces another form of distribution. Someone creates relevant content, and the algorithm can place it in front of an audience exponentially larger than that person’s existing network.
A distributor with 500 followers can potentially reach hundreds of thousands of people. Someone who isn’t at the top of a traditional leadership organization but is exceptionally good at creating content can suddenly generate millions of views.
For decades, we’ve taught people how to network and expand their reach. Technology can now participate in that process. That doesn’t make relationships less important. It changes the mechanism through which those relationships can begin.
And this is where the story gets much more interesting for direct selling.
Brands today are investing enormous resources trying to acquire creators, affiliates, user-generated content, word of mouth and community. We already have those things. For decades, we’ve built networks of people who use products, recommend them, tell stories and create communities around them. That’s social commerce. We just didn’t call it that.
Turn the Field into a Creator Network
The opportunity now is to stop treating content creation as a collection of random activities and begin viewing it as a strategic capability.
Most direct selling companies already have distributors who are naturally good at creating content. Identify them. Help them improve. Teach them how algorithms work and what makes content relevant. Activate them around product launches, programs and customer acquisition initiatives. Use analytics to understand which content is performing and—with permission—use corporate media dollars to amplify what is already working.
Not everyone needs to become a creator.
But imagine a company with 100,000 distributors identifying even 1,000 or 5,000 people who excel at it. That becomes a distributed media network capable of producing the volume and velocity of content today’s platforms reward.
Corporate’s role should be to create leverage around that network. Build the technology. Provide the storefronts, tools, analytics, training, fulfillment and compliance support. Take difficult operational work off the distributor’s plate.
The field’s role remains much closer to what it has always been: create the stories, demonstrations and recommendations; build audiences; recruit; create community.
Companies shouldn’t be competing with their distributors for customers. They should be making their distributors more competitive for the customers already on these platforms.
Treat Social Commerce Like Commerce
That requires one more shift inside the corporate organization.
If social commerce is immediately assigned to the social media team, I think we’ve misunderstood what it is. Social media is primarily a communication and community-building capability. Social commerce is a commercial capability.
It touches sales, marketing, technology, operations, fulfillment, compliance, compensation and field leadership. Ideally, someone within the organization wakes up every day thinking about how to grow it as a commercial channel rather than treating it as another content initiative.
Companies don’t need a two-year transformation plan before getting started. This is moving far too quickly for that.
Choose a platform. Select a small group of hero products rather than moving the entire portfolio at once. Identify an initial group of distributors who can become creators. Establish clear attribution rules. Launch, measure and learn. Once the concept begins to prove itself, expand training, amplification, technology and infrastructure.
The most important thing is to start.
Protect the Advantage, Not the Old Model
I don’t believe the greatest risk to direct selling is social commerce. I believe the greater risk is that we spend so much energy and time protecting our old business model that we don’t take the leadership position we can claim in this new social commerce world.
We already possess many of the competitive advantages this new model requires. We have the people. We have the stories. We have the communities. We have recommendations and demonstrations. We pioneered many of the behaviors social commerce is now scaling through technology.
The fundamentals haven’t disappeared. People are still selling to people. Products are still being demonstrated. Stories and recommendations still influence purchasing decisions. Entrepreneurs are still earning commissions, and community still matters.
The what hasn’t changed nearly as much as the how and the where.
Our challenge now is to combine the best of direct selling with the best of social commerce. If we can do that, we won’t simply be reacting to the next evolution of commerce.
We’ll have an opportunity to help lead it.
WAYNE MOOREHEAD has deep experience in marketing and brand strategy. He has applied his expertise and passion to help companies (from startups to Fortune 100) define, communicate and activate their brands. Wayne’s rare blend of experience and success has shaped his philosophy on effective growth strategies, and he believes the future of the channel will blend the best of direct selling with the best of direct-to-consumer. Wayne is the recently appointed SVP of Strategy and Innovation for Herbalife.
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