Social commerce only works when it goes native

Posted on Published by Antony Mayfield

Fred Wilson shares a powerful insight about social media and e-commerce – or social commerce, as its often known:

When users start in a social system that is divorced from the e-commerce platform, I believe the conversion rates are significantly lower, often by an order of magnitude or more. This, to me, suggests that the overhead of multiple systems reduces the effectiveness of the experience for users and is suboptimal.

Fred’s perspective is born from his experience of working with lots of ecommerce and social start ups. (more…)

The state of social commerce: notes for Social Media Influence 2012

Posted on Published by Antony Mayfield

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Image: Hiut Denim jeans tell a tale with their on “history tags”…

Tomorrow I’ll be on a panel at the ever-brilliant Social Media Influence about social commerce. Often at conferences I will publish notes and slides as I go on stage or slightly afterwards, but this time I thought I would post my notes and thoughts up early. Any thoughts, additions and criticisms would be very welcome…

Does the term stand up?

First up, what is it? Our working definition of social commerce at Brilliant Noise is:

Social commerce is the use of social media in business, specifically relating to customer acquisition and new commercial models made possible by social media. In terms of customer acquisition, the opportunity is seen as either:

  • Direct: Customers making purchases in social media spaces, repsonding to promotions or using tools to guide purchase decisions.
  • Advocacy: Customers recommending a service to their friends / social networks.

    (more…)