We all know about the popularity of E-commerce is with everybody. People love the convenience of making purchases online and receiving their orders a few days later at their door. Many e-commerce businesses, just like any other business, want to market their brand to as many people as possible, so they’ll create commercials for television, physical ads for print media, such as magazines, and even video ads, as seen on YouTube.
Even with all these ways to advertise for their brand, e-commerce businesses are also going to be marketing themselves and their brands on social media, such as Twitter and Facebook. Unfortunately, even though e-commerce businesses have been using social media for years, there hasn’t been much to show for it. But now, Twitter and Facebook are engaging in high-profile tests to bring the shopping experience directly into social streams.
Even though there are many third-party vendors who off ways to plug e-commerce into the social media environment, it’s now time for the big boys to step up and take control of their own social media outlets. Facebook and Twitter are working to create a more seamless experience by experimenting with a Buy button that will give consumers the ability to complete purchases with a click or two. The nice thing is that the user will never have to leave the social network.
There will be, of course, some concerns on these efforts made by the social media giants. Would you want to shop in the same place you go to connect with friends and other people? Would you really hit the “Buy” button while you’re going through posts about what your friends are doing, or current events? At this point, we don’t really know if people will do this yet.
We will probably know more answers when 2015 rolls out. This particular market will be a great place for people make their move to using social media as an e-commerce purchasing possibility.
To find out more about how social media is performing their tests with the in-feed Buy buttons and other experiments, check out Martin Beck’s Marketing Land post entitled, Special Report: Will People Ever Buy Through Social Media?