Integrating Social media in Ecommerce Report (PDF)
Social media undoubtedly has a presence in eCommerce. If you spent any amount of time in social media you will find that conversations around brands, companies, and services happen all the time.
New research indicates that more than 75% of consumers trust peer recommendations of products and services, while less than 15% trust paid advertising. The opportunity to tap into this trusted form of communication to market your e-commerce business is huge, so it’s important to think beyond your immediate network and find creative ways to encourage fans to spread the message about your business.
One important aspect of integrating social media into eCommerce is giving your customer or potential customer the ability to easily share your products. We recommend the below services for all eCommerce driven websites:
- Integrate Facebook Like button into each product page and category
- Provide easy way for someone to share via email
- Integrate Twitter share
- Integrate Facebook share button
- If your target market is younger integrate MySpace
- Integrate social bookmarking sites such as De.Lecious.us
While integrating social media with your e-commerce presence may be free, it may still come at a price: your valuable time. Maintaining multiple online presences, pages and feeds can be extremely time consuming. Fortunately, with the right e-commerce platform, you can easily integrate—and automate—these efforts to save time.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Social media has made your average user sophisticated enough to know the difference between “customer care” and PR. Corporations that try to confuse the two could confuse customers, and potentially suffer even more in the long run.
Customer service isn’t a silo; it requires excellence across multiple channels and still excludes non-social media consumers. (Shayon, 2010)
Some American companies that have been early adopters in the space have witnessed measurable benefits. One such case is Frank Eliason’s turnaround at Comcast. Another example is at the end of FY 2009-2010, Dell’s ‘chief blogger’ Lionel Menchaca announced that Dell is not only servicing customers through social media but made revenues of the tune of $6.5 million, double the preceding year. (Nandi, 2010).
If you are considering building an eCommerce website one element of your plan should include how you will provide customer relations within social media.
Special Report
We’ve put together a special report on the social media and eCommerce. You can find the report and a quick video presentation here at eCommerce Social Media Web Design.