Manage Subscriptions · Subscribe Now · F.A.Q.'s
HOME · Friday, July 4, 2008
Marketing & Revenue Growth
Social Commerce For Social Media
Widgets and applications can help merchants monetize social media
By: Brendan Gibbons
Comments: 4
As social media expands, developers are finding ways to monetize it, making it useful for ecommerce. This is done with applications (abbreviated "apps") and widgets. Jodi McDermott, Director of Product Management for Analytics for Clearspring, a widget developing service, defines the two terms in her blog at Widgetanalytics.wordpress.com. Even though the terms "applications" and "widgets" are often used interchangeably, a widget is a program that can stand alone on any web page as long as a user has an Internet connection and a browser, while an application must be run off another platform, in this case a social media site. A widget can be an app if it is registered as a social app on a social network.
Some social media sites (Facebook for example) allow developers to program their own apps. They can do this on their own or by using development platforms like Clearspring (Clearspring.com). These apps can be customized in many different ways, and there are countless ways to use it to promote your business. Some merchants choose to create games and quizzes that relate to their business, attracting customers through entertainment. For example, Microsoft has a just-for-fun application for Facebook called Office Poke that allows users to communicate in entertaining office-related ways. Users can embezzle money from, have liquid lunch with, or throw a stapler at their "friends" who also have the app. Microsoft does not make money directly from this application, but 10,030 daily users view a link to Office2007.com, just from this app.
Recently, however, application developers and shopping carts have been working on apps that monetize these social media sites more directly than with pure entertainment and in-application advertising. These "social commerce" applications transform a profile page on a social network into an online store, complete with payment processing. Shopit, for example, is a new and prominent social commerce application with features that make it potentially viable for ecommerce merchants interested in diving into the social media scene.
Social commerce applications and widgets
Shopit is like a free hosted shopping cart for social networking platforms. Shoppers add items to their cart and go through a checkout process in the same way they would if they were using a cart, only this all takes place on a small corner of a merchant's personal or business profile page on a social networking site. This is advantageous in terms of conversion because it means a shopper can learn about a company and its products in a familiar format and buy them on the spot, without have to follow a link to an online store and search for the products there.
Shopit is by definition an application, meaning that it relies on a social media page to run. Applications like Shopit (Shopit.com) act as a storefront for merchants, selling their products directly off their MySpace or Facebook page. To put it logically, a social media app is to an online ecommerce store what a traveling salesman is to a brick-and-mortar business, bringing the products to a community of potential customers, rather than waiting for them to stop by the storefront.
Shopit also includes a viral marketing aspect. When a merchant adds Shopit as an application, or makes changes to their store, his or her existing network of "friends" is notified. In Facebook, this is done via the news feed and mini-feed functions. In this way, the application grows rapidly, said James Revell, Senior Vice President of Marketing for Shopit.
There is one problem. Shopit does not provide order management capabilities, and merchants therefore have to separately account for sales, inventory and shipping.
"Currently merchants who integrate Shopit have to manage the Shopit Store App and cart on their site independently. We are exploring the possibility of an online inventory management solution that would enable Shopit users that have a merchant shopping cart on a site to sync the two to be able to manage the inventory centrally," Revell said.
Some shopping carts are answering by creating social media software for their users that integrate with their shopping cart software, automatically updating inventory and payment information when a customer purchases an item, just as it would on their online store. These shopping cart features are geared for merchants who use the shopping carts that develop them.
Shopping cart responses
ProductCart, a licensed shopping cart, introduced its "ProductCart E-Commerce Widget for Blogs" in April 2008, according to a ProductCart press release. It provides an online storefront compatible with any web page that supports JavaScript. ProductCart users have the advantage here of using a app developed by their shopping cart software developer to automatically integrate a ProductCart-powered store with a "portable" social media widget. Merchants can choose which items from their inventory to sell on this store and change the way they are displayed by using Cascading Style Sheets.
Massimo Arrigoni, Co-founder and CEO of Early Impact, the publisher of ProductCart, uses this widget on his own blog, Productcart.blogspot.com, in the right side of the page under the heading "Ecommerce Solutions." It looks very different from Shopit, even though it serves the same purpose.
Pinnacle Cart, another licensed shopping cart, has a social media app in the works, with no release date as of yet.
"Currently in the system we offer the ability for potential customers to add products to the cart from any website including social networks," Product Development / Marketing Director Craig Fox said. "In addition we are developing widgets that will expand this functionality allowing for a more relevant presentation, the ability to search and initiate the purchase process all from within the widget."
Hosted carts are also tapping into the social media. ProStores, a hosted shopping cart owned by eBay, currently allows its users to develop an API that allows them to pull the content on their storefront to any social media site. Since is an API, a merchant interested in using this feature would have to have some development experience, according to ProStores' Senior Manager for Business Development, Michael Miller.
There are many different ways to react to social media, but social commerce apps provide a way to instantly monetize them. Some shopping cart solutions provide a solution for merchants to manage inventory centrally while still tapping into social commerce. As this trend continues, developers are sure to create solutions that allow for merchants to greater optimize their social media pages.
Blinklist | Del.icio.us | Furl | Ma.gnolia | Newsvine | Spurl | Reddit | Technorati
Published on Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Comments:
Brendan,
Great article! I feel like i learned quite a bit about this new technology!
Posted by: Clint Brinkley
Friday, May 16, 2008
Excellent, really liked this new concept of selling goods and services, as powerfull as pay per click adverts but FREE!
www.creativedgedesigns.com
Posted by: Creativedge Designs
Friday, May 23, 2008
Another interesting approach to integrate multiple channels into your e-marketing strategy. I will be adding it to my own e-commerce capability and recommending it to my clients.
www.equestrian-media.com
Posted by: Janet Helft
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Ecommerce Articles
- Browse All Articles
- Browse our complete archive of ecommerce articles.
- Accounting, Management & Legal
- Ecommerce articles related to managing a small business including ecommerce accounting, business strategy and legal considerations.
- Conversion & Usability
- Online business articles about converting web site visitors into customers and how to gauge and improve your business website's usability.
- Development & Programming
- Articles to help designers, developers and programmers create successful, search engine friendly ecommerce websites and improve existing ones.
- Hosting, Infrastructure & Software
- Articles for ecommerce businesses about ecommerce web hosting, business infrastructure, business strategy and helpful ecommerce & small business software.
- Interviews & Profiles
- Interviews with prominent ecommerce business personalities and profiles of successful online businesses.
- Inventory & Shipping
- Ecommerce articles about inventory management, ecommerce order fulfillment and product shipping considerations.
- Marketing & Revenue Growth
- Articles relating to online marketing, email marketing and using the Internet to growing your business.
- Search Engine Optimization
- Search engine optimization articles for ecommerce business owners, strategists, marketers and developers.
- Shopping Carts & Online Payments
- Articles covering ecommerce shopping cart platforms and options for choosing an online payment gateway.
- Training & Education
- Tutorials and articles providing training and education for ecommerce business owners and developers of ecommerce websites.
Search Articles
Ecommerce Community
- Ecommerce Blogs
- Read our blogs about ecommerce topics written by industry professionals.
- Community Forum
- Connect with other ecommerce professionals to trade advice and answers in our community forum.
- Podcasts
- Check out our ecommerce podcasts covering topics ranging from interviews to tutorials.
- RSS Content Feeds
- Subscribe to our RSS feeds and have fresh ecommerce content delivered to you.
Ecommerce Resources
- Free Email Newsletter
- Sign up for Ecommerce Notes, our free email newsletter for ecommerce business owners and developers.
- Ecommerce Directory
- Browse our directory of ecommerce products and services, or submit your own listing in our directory.
- Ecommerce Glossary
- Familiarize yourself with terminology or submit terms to help others with our Ecommerce Glossary.
- Events Calendar
- Find out about upcoming ecommerce events or invite other ecommerce professionals by posting your own event.
- Press Releases
- Browse ecommerce related press releases and post your own press release for distribution.
- Ecommerce Store & Back Issues
- Pick up back issues of Practical eCommerce magazine along with other merchandise from Practical Ecommerce
About Practical eCommerce
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Look at frequently asked questions regarded using our website, subscribing to our magazine and more.
- Advertising Information
- Information about advertising in Practical eCommerce magazine, on our website, or in our email newsletters.
- Editorial Sharing
- Learn about options for sharing our content with your visitors, customers or employees.
- About Us
- Learn more about Practical Ecommerce magazine and meet our staff.
- Contact Us
- Contact Practical Ecommerce at any time for more information. We'd love to hear from you.
Copyright 2007 Confluence Distribution, Inc. and Practical eCommerce.
All Rights Reserved.
Love the article Brendan! Thanks again for including Shopit. Just a point of clarification, currently Shopit offers order management on our site (shopit.com) and in our apps and as stated in the article we are exploring the possibility of an online inventory management solution that would enable Shopit users that have a merchant shopping cart on a site to sync the two to be able to manage the inventory centrally.
Posted by: James Revell
Friday, May 16, 2008