Learn/Social-Commerce-and-Social-Marketing-101
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What is Social Commerce?
Most people know that e-commerce refers to buying and selling on the Web. But now there’s something new: social commerce. What is social commerce, exactly, and why are people getting into it?
Social Commerce: Where Friends Sell to Friends
Social commerce refers to online sales coupled with popular social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter and blogging platforms like Blogger and WordPress. It’s really just good old word-of-mouth taken to the digital realm.
Merchants advertise on these social media platforms much as they do anywhere – by buying ads. And they get an additional boost when people spread a marketing message via actions such as “liking” a product or company on Facebook, or retweeting a pitch on Twitter.
In effect, people who like and tweet are endorsing the product or company to their friends and acquaintances – and research shows that people trust their friends’ recommendations more than impersonal advertising messages.
Some blogs are very popular, so an endorsement or mention by a blogger can reach thousands of people. One blogger, Ree Drummond, is so popular – her blog is followed by about a million people - that products she’s mentioned on her blog, {{{2}}} (visit), have received a sudden boost in sales.
Social Commerce Extends Your Reach
You can reach a lot of people through Facebook and Twitter, which between them have more than a half-billion users. Blogs reach even more. With these huge – and growing – numbers, it’s easy to see why social media is such a boon for business. It allows merchants to reach markets that would not have been available to them otherwise, and to do so at lightning speed. Social media participation costs nothing except the investment of time to keep up with posts, updates and tweets.
But there’s a significant caveat you should be aware of: Social commerce is word-of-mouth advertising, and while that can be the best kind of publicity a business can get, it can also be the worst. Be aware that bad news travels just as quickly as good news in this realm, so maintaining a high degree of customer satisfaction is imperative.
Make sure you respond to customers quickly and consistently. If you’re criticized, or have a difficult interaction, remember that the world is watching to see how you respond. For more tips on using social media well, read Reputation Management: Neutralize the Bad with the Good.
Whether you're a novice social media user or a seasoned veteran, there are ways to make it work for you and your brand. Here's a look at how to use all three social media platforms within your overall marketing plan.
Get started with Twitter by finding and following friends, colleagues and other people you know. They’ll often follow you back. Unlike LinkedIn or Facebook, where people often feel they should connect only if they really know each other, people connect readily on Twitter.
You can search for topics aligned with your business to find interesting people to follow. Twitter allows you to search tweets by location, topic and keywords, making it easy to find people who tweet about subjects that are relevant to your business. If you follow these people, they may follow you back readily, in line with Twitter etiquette.
On Twitter, you should interact with people on a personal level, not just around business. People often share personal tidbits, and you should feel free to respond. Engage people by posting links to interesting finds on the Web. Ask questions and solicit advice, and feel free to offer answers and advice to others. Make sure the bulk of your tweets relate to your brand or your industry.
Notice how Ritual Coffee retweets others' tweets, and addresses people directly, in a very personal way. They even welcome a competitor! This makes the Ritual Coffee seem warm and real, rather than like a big, cold brand.
Once you've established a solid following, you can toss in links to your website. Not all the time, and not even every other tweet – just often enough to keep your business and its offerings fresh in people's minds. You can use your Twitter stream to announce company news, contests, promotions and any other event related to you and your company.
Do put the link to your website in your Twitter profile so when people check you out, they can click it to find out more about what you do.
AboutUs recommends that you CamelCase your domain name to make your brand easier to recognize. In the above example, the link would be easier to read as http://RitualRoasters.com, and the Twitter handle as @RitualRoasters. Don't you agree?
You can use Facebook for social commerce much the same way you do Twitter, but you have the benefit of having your own fan page for your business. People can “like” your page and become fans. You should still interact with your audience the same way – post engaging links, start conversations, ask questions, announce promotions and so on.
Facebook offers a few perks you won’t find on Twitter. You can purchase ads that target your desired demographic by displaying in the sidebar when your prospective customers log in to their profiles. The ads will take them directly to your fan page when users click them. These are great because Facebook gives you quite a bit of freedom in choosing users you want to target, based on age, location, keywords and interests.
Facebook also allows you to customize your page so that people who are new to your brand – those who haven’t liked your page yet – will see a greeting that’s different from what your fans see. To learn how to use this feature, read A Facebook Landing Page Engages New Visitors and How To Create a Facebook Landing Page. (If you don’t know HTML, don't worry - you can also create a Facebook landing page without HTML.)
Facebook offers several ways of selling your products right on their platform, so your fans never have to leave your page to buy something from you. You can use Facebook Marketplace to sell directly. Or you can integrate an application from a third-party company to run a store on Facebook, and have all the technical aspects taken care of for you.
Below, you can see a snapshot of a Facebook store enabled by technology from Vendio, the company I work for.
Company Website and Blog
Facebook and Twitter limit the number of characters available for a status update or tweet. Your company blog, however, offers you free rein to say as much as you want about whatever you're trying to promote.
You can say something brief on Twitter or Facebook, and add a link to a blog post where you offer more extensive information. You can also add badges to your website and to your blog so people can go straight to your social presence. For example, let’s say you decide to promote a special deal solely to people who like you on Facebook. You can blog about that offer, and people can click immediately to your Facebook page. You can also promote that special on Twitter and on your site’s home page, linking to your Facebook page in both places.
Your social media presences, blog and website can all work together to create the kind of buzz and exposure you need to succeed in social commerce. So get cracking!