Social networking sites are nonetheless the best sites contributed by our technology into building and strengthening human relationships regardless of the distance. With the number of social sites that are growing extensively, social networking sites are now becoming a part of our everyday experience.
Compared to e-commerce sites, social networking sites are about five times more visited than online retail sites. And based from Nielsen study, around 64% of overall computer users with internet connections use their computers to integrate to social media sites while 47% who own smartphones are also doing the same.
Furthermore, as the number of social networking sites continues to increase, more sites are also getting into e-commerce adapting to the movements of consumers in which there is a potential for a large market. This goes to say that where people converge, that’s the best place to market.
However, there are questions about using social media sites for e-commerce specifically about the viability of using networking site’s platform in advertising. Are people who intend to converge socially also have the interest to purchase? Actually, based from study of the trends on Google Analytics, there is really the market potential within the social networking platforms.
How’s that possible?
Social networking sites integrating with e-commerce sites is already happening these days and a lot of major social media sites are already into it.
For example, Amazon which is the major e-commerce store in the world has allowed Twitter users to view products right on Twitter’s platform and you are now capable of adding items to your Amazon wishlist without necessarily getting away from the Twitter’s page.
Facebook also has an extra window for Amazon products which automatically appear with different products everytime but you have the option to turn this off. Pinterest is also a social site where a lot of Amazon and eBay products are featured and offers a great way of choice via the descriptions posted by the members.
Literally, lots of the social media giants are now earning revenues by allowing e-commerce sites to directly sell on their platforms while attracting more advertisers to join in. Though some people feel that this is not necessary, still, we have the choice. Today, more and more people are buying products coming from Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook and this information was derived from Google Analytics Social Reporting stats.
Alexa which is an independent web traffic analytical and ranking site categorized various sites including social media sites by their popularity. It gathers information based from the Alexa analytical tools that online business owners embedded on their websites as well as from websites that utilize Alexa’s traffic utility tools.
Below is the data coming from eBizMBA site with Alexa’s ranking and number of visitors on monthly basis for each site.
Note: The ranking only pertains to the social media sites.
Top 10 Major Social Networking Sites With Great Potentials for E-Commerce (as of Dec.2014)
1. Facebook – More than 900,000,000 unique visitors per month. Alexa Rank – # 2
2. Twitter – 310,000,000/month. Alexa Rank – #8
3. LinkedIn – 255,000,000/month. Alexa Rank – #9
4. Pinterest – 250,000,000/month. Alexa Rank – #26
5. Google+ – 120,000,000/month. Alexa Rank – NA
6. Tumblr – 110,000,000/month. Alexa Rank – #34
7. Instagram – 100,000,000/month. Alexa Rank – # 36
8. VK – 80,000,000/month. Alexa Rank – #21
9. Flickr – 65,000,000/month. Alexa Rank – # 91
10. Meetup – 40,000,000/month. Alexa Rank – # 296
With millions of people meeting up on major networking sites, turning these sites into partly e-commercial sites seems useful enough. As a lot of people don’t know where to find the things they want, they can now find it within their favorite hangouts. Now, not only the developers of online games will be earning revenues but also the corporate e-commerce giants that are slowly but surely gaining momentum over major social media platforms.