eCommerce Giants And Their Social Media Partners

This article below was written by our friends at 16best.net.

With the rise of social media, all consumers have been adapting to the social networking platforms. They have engaged in micro-blogging, promoting content, downloading applications for their electronic devices and, overall, trying to enhance their social lives.

But beyond just using social media platforms for updating their relationship status, watching and sharing funny cat videos with their friends and family, all of the users have also found that there is another possibility when it comes to using the social media networks.

This has been the focus on an individual level.

At the organizational level, many companies haven’t quite adapted to the latest trends of using social media to promote their products and their content and the nearly infinite options that arise when it comes to marketing. And it’s incredibly easy to create something and then spread it all over the world, thanks to social media.

Either way, nowadays, spending on social media only makes up a small fraction of the budget in any business marketing strategy. According to recent research, on average, only 9% of the total companies’ budget was spent on social media. However, this number is set to increase to around 22% in just the next five years.

It’s obvious that sellers have been recognizing the power of social media and their ability to connect with their audiences. Seeing how the various social media platforms are an essential part of our daily lives, the companies had to adapt. We use social media to quickly find new information, to communicate, and more recently and more increasingly, for shopping.

According to recent studies, people around the world spend a total of over 110 billion minutes per day on social media platforms. And the top platform here is Facebook, shortly followed by YouTube.

We see every day how much impact these web-based platforms have on the economy, and of course, on the digital economy. Needless to say, in these times of digital economy, trying to set up a store and waiting for the customers to arrive is not enough anymore. Instead, all these companies have been finding new and creative ways to engage with their customers, to build relationships and create big and small communities. And the main difference has been social commerce.

With social commerce, people have increasingly seen features like user recommendations, referrals, customer ratings and reviews, and, perhaps most importantly, social shopping tools. All of these features make for a safe environment where anyone can contribute thanks to referral and positive and negative feedback and testimonials.

This is something that the eCommerce giants also noticed, which is why they started getting integrated with social media platforms and crossing a bridge. Thanks to its massive reach, we’ve seen eBay discount codes and Amazon listings pop up on our Facebook feeds.

According to a poll from the late last year, around 47.7% of users made their most recent purchase from this social media giant, which is far more than any other platform. Instagram ranked a distant second, and then there was Pinterest and the rest of the platforms.

Right now, you can take your phone and shop through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and even Tumblr, YouTube and LinkedIn. Or if you’re on the other end of the spectrum, you can also use Amazon’s new social media platform Spark and promote your content there. You can connect to other users who share stories and ideas and grow your business even more.

If you’re interested in learning more about the crossover from eCommerce to social media and vice versa, feel free to take a look at the infographic below.