According to a study conducted by The E-tailing Group (an e-commerce consulting firm) and PowerReviews (an online customer review firm), Twitter and Facebook have undoubtedly seized the highest adoption rate in the realm of social media marketing, while customer reviews hold the highest ranking for a boost in increased customer engagement and sales.

This has caused numerous retailers and businessmen to rev up their social media marketing in the past 6 months by adopting Twitter and Facebook into their strategies. Out of the 117 respondents in the survey, three-quarters of them admitted to have accelerated their commitment and use of social media in the past half year.

The report dubbed “Community and Social Media Study” was released at an opportune time when companies were looking for breakthroughs that might help them shake off the effects of the economic crunch or the recession if you like, by cutting expenses. Social media marketing has been looked at as a very affordable way to promote various companies’ services and products compared to the basic online advertizing.

Considering that Facebook passed the 300 million mark [of registered members] towards the demise of last year, the customer base potential for retailers wishing to get their brand out there is so diverse.

The report goes on to reveal that 5 out of 10 social media tools reviewed in the study have been implemented by over 50% of retailers and brands in the market. It comes as no shock that the Facebook Fan Page tops the list having an 86% adoption rate.

Although the bulk of marketers prefer using Twitter and Facebook to promote their products, there are other equally good social media that can be implemented in marketing strategies. They include blogs and user or consumer reviews which have a 55% adoption rate by marketers and also viral videos which have been implemented by 50%.

“The intricate combination of social and community networking within e-commerce has reached a near-optimum level and thus is a benchmark that we will be monitoring yearly,” remarked the president of e-tailing group, Lauren Freedman. “Customer engagement in businesses has reached a critical mass and their involvement [via social and community media] or lack of, thereof can mark success or failure.”

What Continues Fueling The Already Stepped-up Pace?

It is a known fact that the chief reason of implementing social media marketing is to boost sales volume. Other than that, avid research discovered that there are three other reasons merchants have embraced this mode of marketing.

# 1 – All merchants want to be seen as trendy and current in their online presence – not obsolete using traditional marketing techniques such as promotional emails.

# 2 – Merchants fear that their clientele may ‘abandon ship’ and go to other e-commerce sites that are more socially engaging.

# 3 – Some want to clear their brand products or services especially if they are being degraded or spoken ill of by consumers or malicious competitors already on the social media sites like Twitter.

Freedman, in a statement predicts that the above named motivators which propelled the final wave of social media adoption will continue to do so in years to come.

Source: e-Tailing Group

Bookmark and Share This Post

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Ask backflip blinklist BlogBookmark Bloglines BlogMarks Blogsvine BuddyMarks BUMPzee! CiteULike co.mments Connotea del.icio.us

Digg diigo DotNetKicks DropJack dzone Facebook Fark Faves Feed Me Links Friendsite folkd.com Furl Google

Hugg Jamespot Jeqq Kaboodle kirtsy linkaGoGo LinkedIn LinksMarker Ma.gnolia Mister Wong Mixx MySpace MyWeb

Netvouz Newsvine oneview OnlyWire PlugIM Propeller Reddit Rojo Segnalo Shoutwire Simpy Slashdot Sphere

Sphinn Spurl Squidoo StumbleUpon Technorati ThisNext Twitter Webride Windows Live Worlds Movies Yahoo!

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML: 

 If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

More »