Social Media
Our social media marketing coverage addresses management tools, educational courses, platform tips, social analytics, and strategies for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and more. We’ve interviewed merchants who rely on social media traffic, and vendors who provide specialized services.
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Social Media
In Social Media Era, Nine Techniques to Improve Conversion Rates
June 21, 2010 • Pamela Hazelton
With the ever-growing popularity of social media, online sweepstakes and contests, just how important is the actual conversion rate of an online store going to be in the future? In simple terms, the conversion rate is a measure of the number of unique visitors (potential customers) tha...
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Social Media
Ecommerce News Around the Web for June 11, 2010
June 11, 2010 • Paul Chaney
"Ecommerce News Around the Web" is our weekly review of articles, blog posts and other news items that could interest ecommerce merchants. Shop.org and NRF Weigh in on Boucher Privacy Bill - Shop.org Online privacy is a hot topic these days, both among consumers and in Washington. Con...
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Social Media
Social Commerce Spotlight: Payvment, a Facebook Storefront Provider
June 8, 2010 • Paul Chaney
Social commerce, the use of social media in the context of ecommerce, is becoming commonplace. Over the next few weeks, Practical Ecommerce will examine ecommerce platforms and applications that allow merchants to take advantage of this new trend. In this installment, we will discuss ...
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Social Media
The PEC Review: Twitalyzer Offers Analytics for your Twitter Accounts
June 7, 2010 • Armando Roggio
As more online retailers invest marketing dollars and time into social marketing, it is becoming increasingly important to measure the return on that investment. As with any concerted marketing effort, social marketing has real costs in terms of hourly labor expenses for time spent twe...
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Social Media
The PEC Review: TwitPic, for Sharing Photos on Twitter
June 1, 2010 • Armando Roggio
Social media marketing is one of the most potent new promotional trends available to ecommerce businesses. Services like Twitter allow you to build two-way relationships with your customers wherein you can get nearly instant feedback about your product offerings and promotions, and gain...
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Social Media
6 Facebook Apps to Enhance Your Company’s Fan Page
May 26, 2010 • Paul Chaney
It was only a few years ago that businesses realized they needed a website. Now, everyone seems to be coming to the same conclusion about Facebook, and the best way for a business to establish a presence there is via a Fan page. We typically think of Facebook Fan pages as being a conv...
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Social Media
Ecommerce News Around the Web for May 21, 2010
May 21, 2010 • Paul Chaney
"Ecommerce News Around the Web" is our weekly review of articles, blog posts and other news items that could interest ecommerce merchants. Symantec Set to Acquire VeriSign Security Business - Symantec Symantec has apparently signed an agreement to acquire VeriSign’s security busines...
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Social Media
Practical eCommerce Extends Presence within Social Media
May 18, 2010 • Paul Chaney
Practical eCommerce recently hired me to help the company build a strong presence inside the social media universe. My initial efforts have been focused on building a solid foundation of participation inside Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Even though we are just getting started (or re...
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Social Media
Facebook Limits Fan Pages and Introduces Community Pages
April 20, 2010 • Paul Chaney
Facebook Fan pages are changing. This is due to the Facebook's desire to ensure that only individuals and organizations with official permission to do so create such pages. To replace those Fan pages created by, well, fans, Facebook has now introduced what it is referring to as Communit...
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Social Media
The PeC Review: Firefox TwitterBar Add-on
April 19, 2010 • Armando Roggio
Social media is one of the most cost effective ways that an online merchant can attract new customers and build relationships with existing ones. In social media, the aim is to become generally interested in your customers, including what they do and how they feel about the world. That...
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Social Media
Social Media: The Mississippi Gift Company Uses Multiple Channels
March 23, 2010 • Paul Chaney
Editor's Note: Each month we highlight how an ecommerce business uses social media. This is the second of the series. I hail from the great state of Mississippi. Not only is my native state noted for its arts and culture, it is also the home of a very successful, long-standing ecommerc...
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Social Media
Social Media: OTC Sports Uses Facebook, Twitter to Engage Like-minded Consumers
February 23, 2010 • Paul Chaney
Editor's Note: This is the first in series of interviews with ecommerce merchants on their use of social media. OTC Sports is a family-run specialty dealer of premium baseball and softball equipment. It targets serious, tournament-level ballplayers. We spoke with the owner, Jeff LeRic...
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Social Media
Ecommerce News Around the Web for February 5, 2010
February 5, 2010 • Paul Chaney
"Ecommerce News Around the Web" is our weekly review of articles, blog posts and other news items that could interest ecommerce merchants. 11 Outstanding Online Resources for Web Developers - Mashable A web developer's job is almost never done. You are always looking for ways to impr...
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Social Media
Accessibility and Social Media
January 21, 2010 • Joseph C. Dolson
Social media can be a terrific way to share information with your customers, provide them with crucial support, and otherwise communicate with them. But almost all social media sites have accessibility problems. Though they are fairly accessible as a group, they do have a variety of i...
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Social Media
The PEC Review: The Social Media Marketing Book
January 18, 2010 • Armando Roggio
Some 70 percent of shoppers trust consumer opinions posted online. Facebook has more than 350 million users. By some estimates, Twitter will have 26 million users by the end of this year. And YouTube is the third most popular website on the Internet, bar none. Social media cannot be ig...
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Social Media
Social Media Webinar Sparks Hundreds of Questions
January 14, 2010 • Armando Roggio
There was news this week that Pepsi planned to forgo a Super Bowl Ad in favor of investing $2 million into social media marketing. With so much focus on connecting to customers via social communities, it was little wonder that attendees to the Practical Ecommerce "Social Media 201: Ho...
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Social Media
Facebook, Twitter Help Online Food Store Extend Its Reach
January 13, 2010 • Paul Chaney
Bill and Louise Bowers are ecommerce merchants and owners of Classic Golden Pecans, a specialty products company located in Lafayette, Louisiana, the heart of Cajun country. Classic Golden Pecans sells pecans, candied pecans and confectionary items native to the region. Customers includ...
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Social Media
‘New Community Rules’ Is An Introduction to Social Media Marketing
November 16, 2009 • Armando Roggio
An increasing number of online retailers are recognizing that it is possible to earn more money and have happier customers simply by engaging those customers in authentic and personal ways. When an industry is in its infancy (such as ecommerce was just a few years ago) it is possible t...
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Social Media
Ecommerce Know-How: Consider YouTube Promoted Video
October 7, 2009 • Armando Roggio
YouTube Promoted Video lets ecommerce merchants combine the power of television commercials with pay-per-click (PPC) marketing. Internet video is one of the fastest growing media forms in the world. From June to August 2009, American Internet video consumption grew from 19.4 billion to...
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Social Media
Book Excerpt: Niche Online Communities Can Benefit Your Business
September 24, 2009 • Paul Chaney
Editor's Note: Paul Chaney is a longtime contributor to Practical eCommerce. He's an expert in social media marketing and he's written extensively on how ecommerce firms can best utilize social media to grow sales. Chaney is also the author of a new book on social media called The Digi...
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Social Media
Book Excerpt: Social Media Helps Overcome Consumer Skepticism
September 10, 2009 • Paul Chaney
Editor's Note: Paul Chaney is a longtime contributor to Practical eCommerce. He's an expert in social media marketing and he's written extensively on how ecommerce firms can best utilize social media to grow sales. Chaney is also the author of a new book on social media called The Digi...
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Social Media
PeC Traffic Report: Generate Buzz and Traffic With Contest Marketing
August 11, 2009 • Armando Roggio
Ecommerce marketers can use contests to boost traffic and improve sales. If I guaranteed you an additional $10,000 in annual sales just for reading this article and posting a comment, would you do it? What about if I said you had a 1-in-100 chance of getting an additional $10,000 in a...
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Social Media
Ecommerce Know-How: Use Twitter to Build a Community of Loyal Customers
June 9, 2009 • Armando Roggio
Microblogging site Twitter has the potential to be a powerful marketing and brand-building tool for ecommerce businesses interested in engaging their customers and being part of a community. But successful marketing on Twitter, or any microblogging site, requires more than just posting ...
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Social Media
The PeC Review: Tinker Sorts Your Twitter Tweets for Brand-Safe Marketing
May 27, 2009 • Armando Roggio
Tinker sorts and organizes Twitter.com tweets around brands, products, and other topics or events. This potentially gives ecommerce businesses a new, brand-safe way to market via social media and a means of monitoring popular trends. Tinker allows users to create so-called events based...
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Social Media
The PeC Review: Share This Makes Adding Social Media a Breeze
May 14, 2009 • Armando Roggio
Share This is a JavaScript-based widget that merchants can easily be embedded on their websites, allowing visitors to email web content to friends, send links as text messages, or post the content to a couple dozen social sharing sites like Facebook, MySpace, or Digg. Each week, "The P...
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Social Media
Quick Query: Comodo CEO on Hiring a Social Media Officer
April 16, 2009 • PEC Staff
There's much talk about social media sites and there's also talk of how companies can use social media for marketing purposes. One company doing just that is Comodo, a firm that provides online security solutions. Comodo has recently created a “social media officer” job position and Com...
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Social Media
The PeC Review: Elgg Lets Any Business Create an Online Community
March 17, 2009 • Armando Roggio
Elgg is an open source platform to power any kind of social media community, and it is a tool that online merchants can use to help develop a loyal flow of site traffic. Social media communities similar to Facebook and MySpace are extremely popular. For example, eMarketer, a marketin...
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Social Media
Ecommerce Know-How: Use Facebook, LinkedIn to Promote Your Store
February 23, 2009 • Armando Roggio
Online communities like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Tangle allow members to join groups, post content, and respond to other's activity. While some marketers have tried to exploit the media, there are positive ways for online merchants to participate in linking networks and build stronger re...
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Social Media
Social Media: Listening is the New Marketing
February 18, 2009 • Paul Chaney
Marketers are known for talking, not listening. That is not to suggest we have not used tools like focus groups, user surveys or other research instruments in the past. It's just that, in the era of the participatory web, listening is not an option; it is a mandate. It provides great ...
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Social Media
Ecommerce Know-How: Social Media as a Marketing Tool
February 9, 2009 • Armando Roggio
An integrated social media marketing strategy can help you and your ecommerce site increase brand visibility, improve customer loyalty, and gain important insights about the markets you serve. And with the dramatic growth in social media traffic, ecommerce merchants would be smart to in...
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