July 7, 2011
Putting the Social into Social Commerce
By Ralph Risk, Marketing Director, EMEA
Last week was an interesting one for social media. MySpace sold for $35 Million. Google announced Google+, which aims to change the way we interact with the web. And in other news, Facebook continued to dominate.
From an investment and channel optimization perspective, social media and social commerce are confusing territories for most businesses. We recently conducted research in partnership with Havas Media Social amongst a representative sample of U.K. social networkers on Lightspeed Research’s MySurvey U.K. panel. Our research in the U.K. market suggests that social media can drive incremental value.
Social media offers businesses the chance to incentivise consumers. Forty percent of those who received a special offer on Facebook redeemed it. Deals also can attract followers and gain online recommendations rapidly, with 55% stating that they would ‘check in’ in return for special deals and discounts. Interestingly – and a big opportunity for the behavioural advertising industry – 70% of respondents agreed that they would be more likely to buy things through social media if they were targeted to them directly on the basis of past behaviour.
The vast majority (89%) of U.K. social networkers surveyed have yet to make a purchase directly through a social network. What’s more, 44% of this apathetic majority indicated that they were not yet interested in doing so – a statistic that is bound to make social marketers jump up and take notice.
Yet our research also uncovered key insights that U.K. businesses can use to their advantage. Exclusivity is key for direct social media store ventures, with 25% saying that they would purchase a product on Facebook if it wasn’t available anywhere else, and 11% desiring products available only to ‘fans’ of the brand.
The influence of friends and recommendations is important. Fifty-three percent of consumers were more likely to research brands if a friend made a recommendation or a ‘like’, and almost one fifth (17%) stated that a friend’s recommendation would impact upon their future purchasing decision.
For more results from the study, please read our release Social Commerce: Almost Half of Consumers are Not Convinced.
Category:Technology News
Posted on July 7, 2011
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