Now in this post I want to talk about Social Commerce. 

 Social Commerce is a buzz, evoking a fusion of Social Media and  E-commerce.  Social Commerce  is a subset of electronic commerce that employs social media tools to assist online buying and selling. Some examples of social commerce are user ratings and reviews, social networking tools, online stores in social networking and social shopping,as mentioned before.

On the web we find different definitions of Social Commerce, I write here some of these:

“social commerce enabling consumers to browse,view and add products to a shopping cart, within the context of a social site,like Facebook or a blog.” Fumi Matsumoto (Allurent)

“social commerce connect and foster active partecipation with customers to help improve your customer experience,includinf ratings and reviews,blogs as well as forums and communities”. (IBM)

But what are the reasons for doing Social commerce?

Fumi Matsumoto CTO of Allurent, the company market leader in powering superior online shopping experiences, in the E-commerce Times talk about social commerce, that offers 7 reasons for doing it. http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/68744.html.

I briefly write here what are these reasons that Matsumoto consider important for doing Social Commerce:

1) Your customer are increasingly spending time.                                                                                                     

2) Shopping is often a social activity and people will want to shop online in the same way.

3)Peer validation that is built into social commerce, and for many shoppers it’s important.

4)Produce discovery is more fun and encourage to impulse purchase when in a social context.

5) If we don’t have presence on social media,your competitors will take illegal the social bran mind-share.

6) Social it’s the mosre cost-effective way to capture traffic and market reach.

7)Social media gives you the ability to extract data and obtain market intelligence more effectively.

Nowadays in each moments and everywhere, we go online and in few seconds we find whatever you want and we need.  Each online consumers is comfortable with search engines and they use it to search a lot of various information.

Most of us use Internet, for example, to find information about flights and for booking online tickets. Travelers use search engines to purchase travel arrangements, 82% of online consumers buy airline tickets and 67% book overnight accommodations ( source: travel industry association of America).

People book online for a wide range of reasons: one of these is that in a busy lifestyle, they save time staying  comfortable sit down in their home and because online it’s possible to see different opinions and reviews of different users or buyers. In this way online customers have a list of advantages and disadvantages about a product or a service before and if they decide to buy.

The arrival of web 2.0 and social networks change the way of communication in the web: there is an interaction between users through a 2 way medium, where people share experience, ask questions, collaborate and participate.

Through the social network ( ex: Facebook, Twitter, My Space, You Tube) traditional word of mouth is enhanced and more convenient, experience and comments can’t be erased and unshackled from time. In these social network search meets social: all experience and opinion of users are available; good experience are amplified and bad experience remain. Listen different experiences is a way to learn, added value and for create interesting contents for new and potential online customers.

But my question is: all the companies are equipped to meet the digital consumer needs?!

Recently, IBM Global Business Services’ Media and entertainment and IBM Institute for Business Value developed a global study.

http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/bus/html/gbs-beyond-advertising.html?cntxt=a1000401

The study, titled “Beyond Advertising: choosing a strategic path to the digital consumer” indicate that we have different trends emerging lately: consumer adopt new distribution formats and the digital migration of platforms.

Nowadays, consumer adopt with high level of engagement Social Networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter but companies, for reach different segments, have to offer new tailored offers for new platforms. Now social media can be used to address both transaction and brand requirements called “brands-actional” advertising.

Digital consumers today have fast growing and quickly emerging expectations; companies have to clearly choose the right way to deliver information to them and move quickly to become more effective.