Traditionally the art of trading online successfully very much rested upon the placement of talented developers, designers and online marketing specialists; however, with the explosion that has been seen within the world of social media, the ways in which consumers shop, review products and even interact with the companies they purchase from, has been irrevocably transformed. Here we take a look at just what this means for the modern business that seeks to secure a future of boosted e-commerce trade, empowered by social media.
The power of peer to peer advocacy
Word of mouth has arguably always been the most powerful form of marketing there is, and with the unstoppable growth of social media this medium has been digitally supercharged. In fact, so powerful is it that consumer-to-consumer word of mouth has been found to generate twice as much business as compared to paid advertising (BRANDERATI 2013); its little wonder then, that this social media age has often even referred to as the Age of Advocacy and Influence.
E-Commerce becomes one with social media
As of August 2015 Salesforce.com announced the ability for their users to embed a Buy Now button within their social media communities; this, coupled with SAP’s October expansion into e-commerce alongside Jam Communities for SAP hybrids Commerce, has truly realised the ability of sophisticated embedding of e-commerce capabilities upon social media platforms.
As with many things within the social media realm, it seems to be the blue-chip giant of Facebook that is leading the way. For years Facebook has featured the business page ‘Shop Tab’ ability through the good old fashioned, yet pretty mobile unfriendly iframe. Today however, as with all things that this social media giant does, things are altogether rather different, as well as a whole lot more advanced, allowing for the actual upload of products directly onto the platform, and the integrating of payment systems to seamlessly manage the entire process.
Content, community building and solid sales funnels
Adding value to your offering, and to your target market, has always lay at the core of content marketing. Online social communicates can drive business growth, acting as an essential tool for the robust management of your sales funnel. However, whilst many advocates of merging e-commerce and social media have heralded the moves towards a singular online social/shopping destination, others disagree. These particular industry experts argue that such a move is clouding the essential information gathering that is so vital within a community (and where an image of relative impartiality is beneficial).
Beyond social eCommerce onto social customer service
As social media has become increasingly ingrained within the everyday lives of the consumer many have come to expect customer services to be naturally forthcoming upon the platforms they use day in, day out. And where complaints, and perhaps more importantly – the way such complaints are handled – can be placed upon the world’s stage the issue of solid social customer service becomes ever more important. When harnessed in the right way it can lead to companies that are considered to have outstanding service levels, as well as delivering vital savings upon traditional support mediums.
However, it seems that few are embracing social media in this way, with recent research showing that less than 30% of companies on Twitter responded to questions (Social Bakers 2015).
Social media is not only transforming the expertise required within the modern business’s IT departments, but is extending to effect customer services as well as marketing. For the company truly seeking a holistic approach to e-commerce it seems that these three once separate realms within the average business are looking set only to have more and more in common.
