Emerging Holiday Trends: Social Shopping

Posted by Cristina Lucero, Research Associate

Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone, but many people still have shopping lists to finalize.  Getting every last gift on that list can be an easier and more enjoyable process thanks to social media, which is currently changing the shopping experience.  Social networks enable shoppers to leverage friends for holiday ideas, opinions and shopping tips.  This social shopping experience, powered by friends, presents tremendous opportunity for retailers during the holidays.  Below are a few tips to optimize the social shopping experience for your brand’s potential customers:

• Enable Your Customers to Tell You What They Think: Encourage shoppers to share, talk about and “Like” products; these social actions will show in your customers’ friends’  Facebook News Feeds, aiding in creating brand awareness and driving traffic back to your site or Facebook Fan Page.  By embracing word-of-mouth, you can tap into your customers’ friends, who may have similar interests.
• Consider Paid Media:  Shoppers are scouring the social networks for product reviews and opinions before they buy.  Consider engaging these searchers with paid ads.  For instance, Twitter Promoted Tweets allow your brand to serve ads to shoppers that are using Twitter Search to seek out product reviews/opinions.
• Promote Your Deals/Offers:  Use your Facebook and Twitter pages to distribute offers; your fans will be paying attention to the best time to buy.  For instance, social is a particularly effective channel for flash sales.  Consider promoting a short flash sale via your Twitter feed.
• Engage in Two-Way Dialogue: One of the easiest ways for shoppers to communicate with a brand is through the brand’s social pages.  Be sure to quickly answer questions and alleviate any issues before your customers decide to talk negatively about your brand via social; this negative content could influence the customers’ friends not to buy your product.

Performics Social Shopping Study Infographic October 2011

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Comments

[Social Shopping]

The ease of social shopping comes from the easy access most people have to the internet and the social networks that have popped up everywhere.The fun is that people seem to enjoy the social interaction with people they’d otherwise not be able to stay in such close contact with if not for the internet. The benefit comes from getting recommendations about buying decisions from people you know and trust.