Jason Caston > Making Money via Social Media

The initial rise of social commerce, in my opinion, was a result of the social aspect of shopping.

Shopping, in itself, has always been a social activity, whether it was people shopping together, a parent with a group of kids in tow, a spouse shopping for their entire family, or someone getting sales tips from a friend about products or services they are looking for. Social Media made the shopping process more social because, as we are able to shop offline or online, we can share our experiences with our social networks.

Take a look at these key statistics:

• 70% of marketers have been successful in gaining new customers via social networks.
• 57% of users trust more in the opinion of his/her contacts than in what the brand has to say about its product or service.
• 47% of social networks users state that Facebook has had a bigger impact on their decision to buy than any other social network.

The early phase of social commerce was led by users sharing their shopping experiences with their networks and companies providing social features to enhance the shopping experience. Enhancement included adding Social Media Sharing buttons to products or on eReceipts so people could easily share these things. Amazon.com was one of the initial online stores to provide these features. Key networks that these Sharing features initially resonated on were Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Another example were offline stores providing Social Media advertising inside of their stores or on receipts, letting customers know that these stores were active in the Social Media space. Once people connected to these companies online, they would receive incentives such as online coupons and early sale notifications. The sharing of web links to online store’s coupons or websites was the key driver of early social commerce.

Fast-forward to the current phase of social commerce, and the actual social networks are leading it. Certain social networks see the benefits, engagement-wise and financially, of making the eCommerce process easier for consumers and sellers.

Here are some of the key advancements in social commerce:

Twitter Offers

When users see a Twitter Offer in their timeline, they can add the offer to their credit or debit card in just a few taps and redeem them in real-time by using the card at the store. Because the offer is tied to their card, redemption is seamless and easy. There are no coupons to redeem at the point of purchase. After the purchase, the cash-back savings appear on their card statement within a few days.

With Twitter Offers, advertisers will be able to attribute redemptions directly to their campaigns on Twitter. That way, they can effectively measure the ROI from their promotions, even when redemption happens offline. Additionally, we make it easy for merchants to get up and running. Because they can use their existing payment network, there’s no change to the consumer purchase process, no employee training, and no new hardware or software to install. By leveraging Twitter’s robust targeting capabilities, advertisers can tailor their promotions and campaigns to the right audience all while optimizing for performance.

After users add a Twitter Offer to their credit or debit card, that card information will be encrypted and safely stored to make it easier for them to claim other offers or make future purchases on Twitter. This option also gives users the ability to remove this information from their account at anytime.

Facebook Offers Button

On your Facebook Fan page, you can click the “Create an Offer” option to create an online offer that sends people to a preset website to redeem the offer. As you build the offer, you will be able to see exactly how it looks on users’ screens. You choose a title for your offer, a description of your offer, upload or choose an image for people to see, choose a start and expiration date, how many people can claim this offer, and the website you are sending people to claim the offer on. Once you have completed these steps, you click “Create Offer.”

Facebook Buy button

With this feature, people on desktops or mobile devices can click the “Buy” call-to-action button on ads and Page posts to purchase a product directly from a business without leaving Facebook. Facebook built this feature with privacy in mind, and they have taken steps to help make the payment experience safe and secure. None of the credit or debit card information people share with Facebook when completing a transaction will be shared with other advertisers. Plus, people can select whether or not they would like to save their payment information for future purchases.

YouTube Fan Funding

YouTube has a new feature called “YouTube Fan Funding” that allows viewers to send voluntary payments to support the channels they love. As long as your channel is in good standing, you are a partner, you have an AdSense account associated with your YouTube Channel, and you have activated the feature in the creator studio channel section of your YouTube account, you’re good to go. The money from your account is deposited into an associated Google Wallet account, which is Google’s online payment feature.

Vimeo Tip Jar

Vimeo Tip Jar enables Vimeo Plus and PRO members to receive small cash payments from people who like their videos. It’s a simple three-step process to enable Tip Jar. Step 1, Join Vimeo Plus or Vimeo PRO. Tip Jar is available only to Plus and PRO members. Step 2, Once you’ve signed up, connect your PayPal account. Step 3, Turn on Tip Jar for individual videos, or all of them.

Snapcash

A vast majority of Snapchat users never log out of Snapchat. SnapCash is built upon the Square Cash platform. The sender and the recipient, however, are not associated with an email address, but a Snapchat ID.

SnapCash is really a wonderful integration of the Square Cash platform that utilizes the Debit Card network to simply send cash. The process to associate a Snapchat ID with SnapCash is almost precisely the same as Square Cash:

• Once the sender registers a debit card associated with SnapCash, the sender simply types in a recipient’s SnapChat ID for a stated amount.
• The recipient will receive the message as a new notification and will either register a debit card to receive the funds or accept the transaction into a previously registered debit card.

There are two key social commerce options quickly arising. One is social shopping and the other is social payments.

The social payments option has seen much success in China with a number of chat/communication platforms integrated with payments. The key to making social buying a popular option will be to build great experiences around those buttons because simply placing buttons on social pages will not change habits. Currently, people do not associate social networks with shopping. They are more comfortable with leaving the social networks and going to the seller’s website to purchase in a secure environment.

If the previously mentioned social networks, and others, can create a cohesive online experience that integrates our online connections opinions/recommendations, a secure shopping process that keeps our financial information safe, and a shopping method that doesn’t feel like it’s more complex than a few clicks, social commerce will become wildly popular, especially via mobile devices seeing we are always connected.

To learn more about this topic and others get your copy of Social Connections TODAY!

Read more from Jason on his blog ichurchmethod.com

About Jason Caston

Jason Caston (@jasoncaston) is speaker, trainer, programmer and author of The iChurch Method Series (ichurchmethod.com). Additionally, he is also the Internet Church, Digital Platform, Internet Church and Innovation specialist for churches.

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