Success in Social Commerce - Term Paper Example

Success in Social Commerce Introduction At the present, the use of the internet has become very common in almost every walk of life. Now people widely use the Internet to carry out different activities of daily life. Normally, they use the internet for shopping, banking and entertainment. But these days a new trend has appeared that is known as social media. And now people more and more using this social media to share their ideas, make friends, and for various other activities. In this scenario, social networks are believed to the most attractive social media. Many people use social networks to communicate with their family members and stay in touch with their friends. By seeing the growing reputation of these social networks among public, now business organizations are also choosing social media to sell, purchase, attract advertise their products and services. In this scenario, social commerce is the field which involves conducting e-commerce tasks through social media (Schultz, Schwepker, & Jr, 2012; Wu, Ye, Yang, & Wang, 2009; Wang, Pedreschi, Song, & Giannotti, 2011). This paper presents an analysis of social commerce. The basic purpose of this research is to discuss how business organizations can take benefits of social commerce. This paper will also outline the basic principles that need to be followed by the business organizations in launching a successful social commerce program. Social Commerce: An overview In the past few years, the internet has given birth to a large number of new disciplines. In this scenario, e-commerce, e-business and now social commerce are some of the well-known and widely used internet supported business tools. At the present, the majority of business organizations makes use of these internet technologies for running as well as improving their business capabilities. In addition, social commerce has emerged an attractive e-commerce trend that is quickly catching the attention of the majority of business organizations by developing modern and innovative business models for carrying out traditional e-commerce activities. In view of the fact that the social commerce is composed of various other technologies such as Web 2.0, social media marketing and ecommerce hence different people and organizations understand and use it for different purposes. Without a doubt, in the past few years, social commerce (or simply s-commerce) has turned out to be a very popular and attractive platform which has not only changed but also improved the way that existing e-commerce and traditional marketing tasks are being performed by the business organizations (Turban, Bolloju, & Liang, 2010; Kim & Srivastava, 2007; Chen, Lai, Goh, & Daud, 2013). In simple words, social commerce is the process of carrying out traditional e-commerce activities through social networks as well as by making use of social software tools (for instance, Twitter and Facebook). In this scenario, it can be acknowledged as an area that comes under the domain of e- commerce that specifically focuses on the use of social media (“the online media that is used for social communications and interactions and user participation to assist in the buying and selling and other shopping of products and services over the internet”). Since 2007, the trend of using these social networks has increased to a massive extent. In fact, a large number of business organizations have created pages or business accounts on Facebook (it is estimated that more than 350,000 accounts were created in May 2010). In the same way, thousands of business organizations have created their accounts or pages on a number of well-known social networks such as Second Life, MySpace, LinkedIn, and other social networks. In fact, a large number of teenage firms are creating considerable income through social commerce. In the same way, other similar technologies such as Web 2.0 are effectively used by the business organizations. Some of the well-known Web 2.0 technologies include discussion forums, wikis, micro blogs and blogs (Turban, Bolloju, & Liang, 2010; Kim & Srivastava, 2007; Chen, Lai, Goh, & Daud, 2013). In this scenario, the business organizations use these technologies for gathering product feedbacks, customers’ responses, testimonials and reviews, and new product concepts and ideas, and for making use of target marketing new ideas (such as customized event shopping). So, the effective use of these technologies help business organizations improve their awareness on the subject of the negative and positive effects and reputations of consumers to brands, shopping and product experiences. A number of researches and survey have demonstrated that more than 60% of US people already make use of the social media for business related tasks as a minimum once a week, as well as the amount of this usage is always increasing with the passage of time (Turban, Bolloju, & Liang, 2010; Kim & Srivastava, 2007; Chen, Lai, Goh, & Daud, 2013). Without a doubt, social media is changing everything about the way people live and communicate within society in a number of areas of life comprising the communications that occur across e-commerce and sellers-buyers. In this scenario, YouTube is one of the most popular social networks that are widely used for video sharing. In May 2010, YouTube attained more than 5.2 billion users daily, which are almost double of the joint viewers of prime-time TV watchers in the three main US TV channels. In the same way, social media is playing a significant role in the business sector. For instance, some of the large size business organizations like that Starbucks and Dell Computer agreed considerable improvements in their marketing capabilities and increases in their sales because of the use of social media. The research has shown that social media support business organizations and individuals with a variety of modern and innovative platforms for collaboration, communication and trading. That’s why top social networking firms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are catching the attention of a large number of individuals and business organizations very quickly, constantly incorporating new and modern features and functionalities that improve e-commerce (Turban, Bolloju, & Liang, 2010; Kim & Srivastava, 2007; Chen, Lai, Goh, & Daud, 2013). In this scenario, social commerce is believed to be a revolution directed presently by Facebook (a well-known social networking company which successfully attained more than 500 million users in 2010, and which offers a large number of tools and techniques to support a wide variety of business functions. Additionally, different business organizations can make use of the capabilities offered by the s-commerce to fit into place people in a number of processes which support not simply in building and maintaining interactive win-win association with customers, scenario, workers and retailers and suppliers, however also in improving the capability of the in-house processes of a business organization (Turban, Bolloju, & Liang, 2010; Kim & Srivastava, 2007; Chen, Lai, Goh, & Daud, 2013). Business processes in Social Commerce At the present, the majority of business organizations are engaged in social commerce. Given below are some of the possible scenarios which they have adopted to make use of the s-commerce: The majority of business organizations have adopted social commerce for getting the memberships of public social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, Second Life and LinkedIn by carrying out a number of tasks such as: advertisement, information sharing ,market research (for instance collecting customers’ feedback and response on certain products and services), to build and run product and brand awareness and promotion campaigns, getting advice, recruitment of employees and conduct collaboration and communication (Turban, Bolloju, & Liang, 2010; Kim & Srivastava, 2007; Chen, Lai, Goh, & Daud, 2013). Some of the business organizations have created and maintained in-house social networks completely for their human resources and alumni (for instance Oracle’s Connect) (Turban, Bolloju, & Liang, 2010; Kim & Srivastava, 2007; Chen, Lai, Goh, & Daud, 2013). Some of the business organizations have created and maintained different kinds of enterprise-owned social networks exclusively for their business partners and customers (for instance Starbucks’ Mystarbucksidea.com) (Turban, Bolloju, & Liang, 2010; Kim & Srivastava, 2007; Chen, Lai, Goh, & Daud, 2013). One of the most important purposes of implementing social commerce is for the improvement of an organizations’ existing e-commerce application platforms for instance B2C (business-to-consumer), email and B2B (business-to-business), customer relationship management (CRM) and sell side shops by incorporating a wide variety of functionalities and features normally available in s-commerce and by integrating social software for instance wikis, blogs and discussion boards to existing IT and e-commerce applications (such as in e-supply chains) (Turban, Bolloju, & Liang, 2010; Kim & Srivastava, 2007; Chen, Lai, Goh, & Daud, 2013). Some of the business organizations use social commerce to build tools or provide services for developing and maintaining social commerce activities. In this scenario, what is changing currently is that ecommerce tasks that business organizations performed through their existing website (for instance a well-known marketing campaign the Coke Show) is currently can also be run using the public social networks, as well as users at social networks can get a straight connection to the business Web sites (Turban, Bolloju, & Liang, 2010; Kim & Srivastava, 2007; Chen, Lai, Goh, & Daud, 2013). Successful Adoption of Social Commerce Without a doubt, every technology is invented to provide benefits to mankind. However, the success and failure of a technology heavily rely on the way it is being used. In the same way, social commerce provides a large number of benefits if it is utilized effectively. A number of researches have been conducted to determine the steps required to integrate social commerce into business. In this scenario, (Johnson, 2012) discuss some of the important steps that need to be followed in order to take benefit of social commerce. These steps are outlined below: Establish ROI goals effectively Every business organization has different goals and objectives. In this scenario, the organizations develop different strategies to achieve different goals and objectives. In the same way, the objectives for integrating social networks such as Facebook and its part in supporting an overall business strategy will vary from organization to organization. In this scenario, in order to make the implementation of a social commerce a success, business organizations must consider what role Facebook integration can play into overall business strategy. In many cases, the majority of business organizations believes that they can track the success of their social commerce program by tracking sales accomplished on Facebook or compute their “similar to” calculate, however in this way they cannot measure the influence. In this scenario, for the implementation of a successful social commerce program a business organization must clearly identify and implement business goals, objectives, and program metrics. Additionally, these metrics can include (Johnson, 2012; Chaney, 2013; Mehra, 2012): The number of all the imitations Total number of target customers The new data points confined Implementing and determining the progress of loyalty program Visitors coming from social networks Measurements of customer attitude and behaviors The overall income produced from deals on social networks In addition, a business organization must make sure to outline clear goals and objectives and implementation of strategies to achieve these goals. Put into operation an on- and off social network Strategy The presence of a business on Facebook means having a storefront integrated inside the Facebook picture. Without a doubt, this approach has attained the considerable attention of the business firms and remains under research paradigm of the social commerce up to now, however there is another similar practice known as off-Facebook, which brings a direct as well as the superior prospect for the majority of internet based businesses. In this scenario, off-Facebook is used to illustrate the use of Facebook data to get an analysis of attributes and features of a business organization own website(s) as well as mobile environment(s). Hence, by controlling Facebook data from Facebook approaches as well as the open graph at the back of the view of their own settings, suppliers and retailers can distribute targeted, personal understanding all the way through all touch points (Johnson, 2012; Chaney, 2013; Mehra, 2012). Set Social Networks' data to work For the implementation of a successful social commerce program business firms must discover the chances and ways they can get the desired value. In fact, social networks contain huge amount of data which can be used without paying any fees. Hence, a business organization must make use of this data effectively by applying some business intelligence tools and techniques to derive some interesting patterns. In addition, on the basis of this analysis business executives can take effective decisions (Johnson, 2012; Chaney, 2013; Mehra, 2012). Don’t develop another Silo While developing a social commerce program, a business organization must take into consideration all the touch points similar to customers do. In fact, customers anticipate themselves to be capable of moving smoothly between a business website, social network and mobile apps and have a feeling of a consistent experience. In the past, the majority of business organizations took ineffective steps and one of the most inappropriate steps involved outsourcing Facebook store construction to a new development firm, which resulted in an incoherent feeling for customers as well as left retailers with no access to precious and useful Facebook data or be in charge of the customer experience. Hence, in place of developing a new silo or dealing with social commerce platform as a secondary project, confirm a firm’s s-commerce program incorporates the entire data collected through social networks all the way through the firm and establish connection between all the available touch points. As discussed the biggest advantage of social networks is their capability of offer open and easy access to a large number of customers and their data. Hence, in this scenario, a business organization must ensure that it has the required technology and techniques to make effective use of this huge dataset. In addition, the business organization has the capability to make use of it to make valuable decisions that can play a significant role in increasing sales across the firm and customers’ feelings. Moreover, the successful integration of social commerce with an organization’s existing programs, tools, and processes will result in superior consistency for consumers as well as higher visibility for the company (Johnson, 2012; Chaney, 2013; Mehra, 2012). Build Social Design The presentation of a steady core feeling is crucial for an organization’s brand. In this scenario, a firm should make sure that it is following a social network’s “social by design” rules to fit into place a large number of visitors as well as make experiences more individual with established strategy. In this scenario, “social by design” rules are based on the following principles (Johnson, 2012; Chaney, 2013; Mehra, 2012): Users first, content second: An organization should mainly focus on people. In this scenario, they should greet them, regulate their experience in order that it is applicable, and then pay attention to what products and content a firm should deliver in order to meet users’ expectations. Data sharing should be easier and faster: Without a doubt, a large number of users and visitors visiting social services and features on a Facebook store and corporate website can convince their relatives, colleagues and friends to begin appealing through the timeline, news feed and thicker. In addition, the business organizations should allow their customers to judge offered products with an aspect for instance post purchase sharing, which can increase the chance a friend will be convinced. A few can activate many: The business organizations must make communications frivolous and straightforward. In addition, they should make it simple for their users and customers to comment on, like, and share this information on the subject of content and products with Facebook’s social plug-ins. Have control and iterate frequently With the developments and improvements in social commerce the need for changes will also increase. In this scenario, the business organizations should make sure that they have the tools and techniques inside the firm to iterate frequently as well as share fresh experiences devoid of making use of a large number of resources paying attention to customary e-commerce touch points. Additionally, provide the marketers and merchandisers with high quality tools to keep an eye on usage, develop and monitor campaigns, test new strategies and attain market rapidly. In addition, keep an eye on Facebook Insights with the purpose of determining action and analyzing patterns in demographic data and commitment and identifying where to optimize social communications. Moreover, also keep an eye on competitors’ strategies. In fact, be in front of the competition with an incorporated mechanism, obtain the advantages of first-mover benefit, and put into practice knowledge across business channels (Johnson, 2012; Chaney, 2013; Mehra, 2012). Conclusion The use of social media for carrying out business activities has become very common in the past few years. In view of the fact that the majority of people use social networks to stay in touch, communicate and share ideas with friends, colleagues and family members. Hence, the business organizations have started taking benefit of social networks’ increasing popularity. The use of social networks for conducting e-commerce related tasks comes under the domain of social commerce. This paper has presented a detailed analysis of social commerce. This paper has shown that the majority of business organizations is adopting social commerce. For the successful adoption of social commerce business organizations need to follow certain steps. In these steps planning for clear objectives is the most important step. This paper has also discussed the ways business organizations can make their social commerce program a success. References sChaney, P. (2013, January 13). Successful Social Commerce Companies? Not the Ones You Think. Retrieved April 10, 2013, from SocialMediaToday.com: http://socialmediatoday.com/paul-chaney/1152931/successful-social-commerce-companies-not-ones-you-think Chen, Y. Y., Lai, F. W., Goh, K. N., & Daud, S. C. (2013). The effect of integrating social plugins into e-commerce website: a study on online consumer behaviour. ICUIMC '13 Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Ubiquitous Information Management and Communication (p. 16). Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia: ACM. Johnson, B. (2012). 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