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The boom of social media sites and social apps has totally reshaped the way people socialize and is also affecting the global marketing trends significantly. With over 1.23 billion users and still growing, sites like Facebook have changed the global trends of how people communicate with each other. It also signifies that with such a huge count of users, the way of reaching out to potential customers has also increased to a great extent. This has given rise to a new trend of Electronic Commerce called ‘Social Commerce’. When Yahoo! First introduced the term social commerce, they didn’t realize that the scope of running an online business will change forever. With the emergence of mobile phones and smart devices, it has become much easier for merchants to market their products and to get across potential customers with much ease.
Usually, the process of social commerce is quite simple, in fact, it’s something we all follow everyday but perhaps don’t realize how powerful a marketing tool it is. When someone visiting an e-commerce site, shares the product with friends in their social circle, it leads to a chain of visitors dropping by the website as more and more people from their social circle visit the product page and upon liking they share the product within their own circles. This chain keeps growing relentlessly with each visit to the product page contributing towards an increased traffic on that e-commerce site.
Similarly, products shared across social circles on various social media sites are available for ratings and comments. People, who own the product or have experience of using the product, write their comments on the product page and social sites. The d valuable feedback or ‘Likes’ determine the product ratings and if this rating is shared further, it encourages more and more customers to visit the product page, which ultimately head towards a sale.
In addition to the sharing and liking of products, people also tend to maintain their wish-lists. Naturally, a wish-list is maintained so that it can be shared across friends and family so they know what you like, and eventually, they might possibly gift one of those products to you in the future. Wish-lists are also shared by people on their social networks, which inspires their friends to merchant sites. This ultimately results in increasing traffic on the merchant’s site and if it results into a sale, it’s a win-win situation for both the merchant and for the person who shared the list in the first place.
Apart from random sharing and liking, sometimes focused blogs are maintained to advertise products and are commonly known as ‘Blog Advertorials’. These article style advertorials usually describe the product features in detail. Also, to create a personal touch, advertorials contain experiences from existing customers, their feedback and recommendation about the product. Such detailed articles about the product not only grasp the attention of potential customers, but also drive traffic to the product pages. A good thing about advertorials is that people who come across them also share them within their social spheres and Being a Certified Technology Partner, Visionet Systems has also been applying the latest social commerce strategies to enhance the social presence of their clients. Application of such techniques has resulted in the direct increase of traffic on their client’s web storefronts.
Facebook is the perfect contender for socializing at an e-commerce website. Visionet has integrated Facebook for its multiple clients not only for liking and sharing with friends, but also for logging in on the site with existing Facebook accounts. This approach saves a lot of customer’s precious time as it provides them opportunity to create a new account without typing any information. Furthermore, it also provides a leverage to login without providing any credentials if they are already signed-in on Facebook. This feature not only facilitates users while using the e-commerce sites, but also attracts customers as they can create an account without any hassle.
Visionet also provides integration services for Twitter, another social networking giant. This allows users to tweet on the website, which immediately gets shared on their Twitter wall. It can be used to share a product to great number of people who have subscribers. Hence, this approach also helps route the traffic to the website. Today, online ratings and reviews have become one of the most powerful factors influencing purchasing decisions since product reviews are thought as beneficial tools for merchants and customers alike. They help businesses establish its credibility, improve their search engine visibility, and also increase online sales. They give customers a voice and help develop consumer confidence and trust that otherwise is lacking in the e-commerce marketplace.
The ratings and reviews provide customers information that makes them confident about any online purchase. The customers, without any personal gain, speak highly of a product and can do more to boost credibility of a product than almost any traditional marketing campaign. One of the biggest benefits of ratings and reviews is that your customers are telling you everything you want to know, how they feel about your brand, what they like and dislike about your products, and how you can improve their overall shopping experience. Moreover, ratings and reviews help in monitoring and improving customer service and also provide new and unique content that is packed with quality keywords that help your products rank higher and draw more traffic.
Thanks to the emerging social commerce trends, more and more traffic is being directed to e-commerce sites which are eventually contributing towards advancing the global trends, as well as encouraging new businesses to go online and driving customers to merchant’s storefronts.