As Facebook rolls out its Graph Search, relational people purchasing lead generation is quickly emerging as the new frontier for digital commerce
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ublishers, get your ecommerce act in order because it’s already time to move on.
Social commerce
is where it’s at now, adding another layer to ecommerce — the
opinions of peers. Using existing social media sites like Facebook, customers can purchase a product knowing their friends already approve or own it. This social-media- enabled shopping has been coined ‘social commerce’. In a nutshell, social commerce means using tools meant for personal connection in the context of online retail.
The most obvious place to take social commerce first would be Facebook. Companies as well as people can create pages on the Facebook network. Individuals can ‘like’ company pages, which has ignited a race for companies to collect the largest Facebook fan base. Customers who are Facebook fans of a brand are 79 per cent more likely to purchase a product than a
customer who aren’t, according to research by marketing company Vocus.
Vocus also projects that sales through social commerce will grow to represent 50 per cent of all purchases made online — a whopping US$30 billion per year.