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What is the impact of social media on e-commerce?

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Question added by Lina Samer , Digital Media Graphic Designer , iDirection
Date Posted: 2016/08/17
Ghada Eweda
by Ghada Eweda , Medical sales hospital representative , Pfizer pharmaceutical Plc.

Great Question . Certainly, everyday more and more businesses are making the switch over to social media. Businesses that have made the switch over to these social media network platforms have already acquired many benefits. Some of these benefits include higher influence and awareness with your brand, and growth in engagement with consumers. With benefits there is one key thing which is trust that businesses need to have to help consumers feel comfortable purchasing from them.One important topic that has been discussed is how trust will drive social. Trust is the new social currency for any brand that wants to build a base of consumers. With having this trust it drives engagement, influence, and relationships. Businesses need to earn and this trust through the actions they do via social media platforms. This trust which can be earned can be easily taken away by being dishonest and lack of credibility.Businesses that have these types of social media networks break down the barrier that once stood between the consumer and the business. Through these networks businesses are able to build a more intimate relationship with your consumers. You’re not only able to potentially sell a product to a consumer you can seek their advice on your business. By engaging with your consumer and building this type of relationship with them you earn their trust and bring loyalty with them. Once the consumer has your trust, they are more likely to share your product to others feeling comfortable that you are the right choice in purchasing with them.Without trust your customers aren’t convinced that you can solve their needs in purchasing your product, and will look for another company to purchase from. Thankfully now with the implementation of  social media, businesses have many touchpoints to build trust with their consumers Then adding a social layer to your business once your audience is engaged can lead to increase in sales and conversions! 

Moses Nyaimwa
by Moses Nyaimwa , Renewable Energist , Solar Innovations Ltd

Thank you for the opportunity. You know what am so in love with what is happening and has been happening in the recent years.

1. mode of advertising has changed we used to advertise more on papers word of mouth etc now days a post is made while you are seated in your room and there in a minute it has travelled all round the world.

2. shopping has been made easier like me i love shopping on facebook or online you dont have to wait and have a big shop to begin trading so it has brought up enterprenuers leading to start ups

3. talk of marketing you are sharing your brand with your friends who share with there friends who shares with there friends so u end upnot even spending a dumn coin.

4. twitter has been used so much by companies around here to intract with clients who can not make it to their various companies. i have a compalaint they respond fast am settled this is the world of global village thanks to social media

Rouf Bhat
by Rouf Bhat , Campaign Manager , Intellenet

Social Media is one of the most important tool in today's digital world. 70% of android users are on mobile and and like to research about products through social media. The platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn etc allow you to connect with the audience's you want. You can use social media platforms to increase your traffic, provide info about your upcoming products, latest trends and many more. I have personally used all the platforms to engage with audiences and the results have been phenomenal.

Samiullah Khan
by Samiullah Khan , IT Support Specialist , Kitopi

Thank you for the invite Miss Lina...

Impact of social media on e-commerce is just amazing... its just like everyone has got aladdin's magic lamp :p the difference is aladdin used to rub we need to click... :p

online shopping, online trasactions, online transfers, online marketing etc etc etc.... just on a click of a button and its just bcuz of Social Media...

Lannice Lategan
by Lannice Lategan , Marketing Consultant , CTU Training Solutions

 Social media is a free and effective tool that can help you connect with millions of potential customers all over the world. In this day and age, social media has a HUGE impact on eCommerceSocial media has it's metaphorical hand in a lot of different stages of eCommerce

Thank you for the invite, Lina!!

In this day and age, social media has a HUGE impact on eCommerce. Social media has it’s metaphorical hand in a lot of different stages of eCommerce. Starting from how a customer first interacts with a brand, to the checkout stage, to post-checkout, social media is a driving force. We’ll break down what we like to call the Shopper Journey to give you better insight.

To set up the example let’s bring in a hypothetical shopper -- we’ll call him Kyle. As Kyle goes through his shopper journey we’ll show how he interacts with social media at different touchpoints.

  1. Awareness: Kyle’s flipping through his Instagram feed and sees a picture of his friend at the gym. “Wow, Mike’s making me look bad,” he thinks to himself. “I didn’t know AddPants (sorry guys, not a real company) has a line of athletic wear. Summer is on the horizon, maybe a fresh set of workout gear is just the motivation I needs to get to the gym.” Kyle clicks through to the Hanes Instagram account, then on to the Hanes website.
  2. Interest: He’s greeted by a targeted message just for Instagram users that lets him know Hanes is having a sale on athletic wear this week.
    1. Behavioral Targeting is implemented at this point in the shopper journey by feeding off of social media and using it as a data point for personalization.
  3. Consideration: He notices that if he shares with his friends that he’ll get an instant coupon directly on the website. Usually he has to search multiple websites for active coupons, so this is a real time saver.
    1. This is Social Rewards at work. This incentivizes your potential customers to share our your brand in order to get a small reward. With this campaign in place, you can get your brand out in multiple networks without having to do the work yourself.
  4. Purchase: After adding the sweatpants to his cart, he reaches the checkout page and notices that he can login using his existing Facebook account. He doesn’t have to fill in any more info so checkout is a breeze.
    1. Here goes social media once again, making life simpler (round of applause). Social Login gets customers through to checkout faster, reducing your cart abandon rate, which does wonders for your conversion rates. PLUS Social Login gives you awesome actionable data that you can use for future marketing endeavors (name, email, age, birthday, gender, etc).
  5. Retention+Advocacy: 3 weeks after his order, AddPants sends Kyle an email telling him that for every friend he refers he’ll earn $20 off his next order and his friends will save $20 each as well.
    1. Social media back at it again. Setting up a campaign like this through Refer-a-Friend is a foolproof way for your customers to do the legwork of “word of mouth” online marketing. Customers like Kyle can send these referrals to his friends via social media networks, or, through email.

The power of social media is mind-blowing. It’s a marketer's best friend and a customer haven for a seamless shopping experience. Make social media work for your brand with the right tools. We’ve mentioned a lot about our platform throughout this hypothetical shopper journey (full disclosure, we’re an integrated on-site marketing platform that provides solutions for all of the situations mentioned).

Resource: AddShoppers!

Ahmad Khair Abu Tammam
by Ahmad Khair Abu Tammam , Cluster eCommerce & Digital Marketing , Oryx Rotana

It's very important for many reasons:

1- Building trust with your consumers.

2- Drive more traffic

3- Increase ROI

4- Brand awareness 

5- Create a place for people interested in your products to become engaged in conversation

Social Media has a gained a lot of importance over the last few years and continues to do so. Similarly Online sales are growing day by day . It is thus natural that they will inlfuence each other.

Most companies today have a Facebook and twitter page, many  companies even respond to customer queries and resolve them on social networking sites because it is a good medium to enagage with thier existing and prospective customers.

Companies are also using the social media platform to advertise thier product and create brand awareness. The impact of social media on ecommmerce is as of new not resulting in huge sales but in near future the percentage is bound to increase   

Lokesh Kochiparambath
by Lokesh Kochiparambath , Operations Manager , First Flight Couriers (Middle East) L.L.C

Social media plays a vital role in the development of ECommerce, especially the Internet. Internet itself is the platform for the Ecommerce companies and of course the advertisements in both internet and other social medias like visual and reading means are the sales source. The developments in the gadgets and banking made it more user friendly and round the clock activity. In short the emerging markets like India the trade is converting to ecommerce 'grocery to furniture' 'rural & urban' population used ecommerce for their choice when they are on travel, at home any time. 

Anuj Tyagi
by Anuj Tyagi , B2C and B2B eCommerce ,Portals and Digital Experience Analyst , Gulf Business Machine

Social media is categorically NOT a meaningful source of direct traffic to ecommerce websites or of direct purchase conversions on those sites. In fact, social media represented just 1.55% of all commerce traffic, and a conversion rate of less than three-quarters of one percent (.71%). In short, “social commerce” is a unicorn, at least in terms of last touch attribution(meaning that website visitors came from social directly)...It might be reasonable to conclude, therefore, that social media participation is over-hyped and disproportionately resourced for ecommerce websites. And from the perspective of “What channel were people using immediately prior to visiting the website?” that would be a viable hypothesis.Forrester Research suggests that word of mouth is part of 80% of all purchase funnels. At least some of this word of mouth is occurring via social media, with brand or product mentions spawning searches and/or direct URL entries that are included in this data. But, because social media wasn’t the final link in the chain, it gets less of the credit for the desirable consumer behavior it spurred.

Syed Muhammad OMER  yousoof
by Syed Muhammad OMER yousoof , Regional Manager Business Development , E-Square Services (Pvt) Ltd

IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON E-COMMERCE !!

This is definately an important and a critical channel that would engage customers traffic with a solid impact depending upon marketing strategy.

It requires a contineous repeatation of product awareness and simultaneously must cover most of the soical media platforms that would interest customers.

Importantly, it is a convenient way to attract attentions of buyers. 

 

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