Social Commerce Truths

loudbounce Șocial commerce fact or fiction? Everyone agrees – social commerce is the next big ecommerce revolution. But it's not happening overnight. Both retailers and customers have been slow to adapt to the changing landscape. Online Retailers Data Points 566 讓 28 Nov + Dec 2011 ranging from Big Brands to Niche Sites for each retailer: audience size, marketing strategies Retailer Audience Size Önline retailers have widely differing audience sizes on Facebook and Twitter. What's even more interesting is that audience size isn't strongly correlated with revenue – smaller retailers often have larger audiences than the big boys. 200 160 120 80 40 <10k 10k-100k 100k-.5M .5M-1M 1M-2M 2M-5M 5M-10M >10M Ranges of Audience Size building your social audience! Commerce on Facebook Enabling customers to purchase directly from a Facebook page would seem like an obvious win. But only a small number of online retailers display a product catalog on their Facebook pages. Even fewer enable in-Facebook purchasing. Feature Products 17% Retailers with catalogues on Facebook Pages ... Enable Checkout 4% Only 23% of those ( 4% total ) enabled checkout on Facebook How frequently are calls to action used on social properties? Find "socially appropriate" ways to ask for the sale. As every good salesperson knows, you have to ask for the sale. Online retailers are great at this in paid advertis- ing and email marketing, but aren't great at tactfully making the ask in social media. 0% 1% Always Always 29% 26% Frequently Frequently 44% 49% 27% 24% Never Never Rarely Rarely Facebook Twitter Deals Do posts include special offers? Very few retailers are promoting deals that are exclusive to the social channel. Such social-only deals can be especially powerful to build audience and drive revenue due to their virality, but can have technical overhead. 23% Feature Deals on Twitter 29% f Exclusive content and Feature Deals offers can create an on Facebook immediate community Curated Content Build a community around your brand that is larger than the products you sell. How well do retailers share the spotlight? Retailers are used to promoting their products. But social media requires participating in a community that is larger than just what you sell. Many retailers haven't yet found their voice in this larger community. Facebook Twitter 65-66% 34-35% Posted about only 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% Curate content their own content from other businesses Social Media Tools Are retailers using tools made for business? While most retailers spend large chunks of change on ecommerce and email marketing software, most haven't yet begun to employ sophisticated social media marketing tools. Watch for this to change in coming years. 91% 7% 3% Free / Cheap Mid-tier Enterprise Sophisticated retailers are running social with the same tools as Mom & Pop. So what gives? Consumers don't trust social media yet. Social media is still maturing. 55% of consumers are "uncomfortable" providing their credit information on social sites. (source: Harris Interactive) Just like traditional ecommerce in late 1990's, it takes time to build consumer trust. Retailers haven't learned to act like "people." Retailers overwhelmingly act like "stores" instead of building a personality around their brands. Social media requires personality- not just special offers - to build a following and build trust. Retailers need strategies for social media. Social media should complement existing storefronts rather than replacing them. Without a clear goal of how social media enhances existing online retail, retailers are left to post just about anything... Engagement Mid East & Africa leads the way with active twitter users Latin America with 55% is just behind America with 59% of active users f on 33% * Tweet Mid East & Africa has the smallest number of active Asia pacific has 204 million users with 26% registered G+ users, it is ahead of Europe with just 48 million active users and 18% of registered accounts using G+ users with just 7.49 MILLION but has the highest % of registered users that are active on YouTube at 31% You Tube Number of Sampled Retailers