The Internet is like a shopping mall on Boxing Day. It is filled with people looking for the right product at the best price with the most positive recommendations—except the Internet is being visited by over 2 billion people globally. How can you stand out in this noisy space? Well, implementing social media as part of your existing marketing plan is a start.

You can effectively increase brand awareness, reach out to prospective customers and receive instant feedback, all through social media. There’s a lot of opportunity for your customers to not only interact with your brand, but also to share your brand message to their networks. Social media is effective, but it’s also efficient as it is considerably less expensive than traditional marketing tactics. Similar to any project, there is time required when investing in social media but there are a lot of great free tools that help you save money. 

This infographic by Wix will show you the advantages of social and emphasizes the reasoning behind making it part of your business strategy. Thanks Wix for sharing!

Source:http://www.wix.com/blog/2012/02/why-your-business-must-go-social/

The State of Social Commerce

What do Amazon, eBay and Etsy have in common? Two words: Social commerce. Why is it so awesome? Customers can relate to each other and want to hear opinions on products. With 90% of purchases subject to social influence, peer opinions heavily factor in to purchasing decisions. Social media has made it easier than ever to enable your customers to share information on your products and influence their peers. 

What’s the impact? Pampers opened a Facebook store and sold 1,000 diapers in only an hour. Groupon generated $11 M in one-day of sales for Gap through an email coupon. Is social commerce part of your business plan?