This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 1st, 2008 at 7:54 am and is filed under Business Factors, Change Factors, Disruptive Factors, Economic Factors, Market Factors, Strategic Factors, Systemic Factors, social commerce. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
01 1st, 2008
Many of the conversations in 2007 were about whether social networks will become centric to conducting commerce, B2B, B2C and P2P.
While social networks continue to grow exponentially the next growth curve will be driven by the holy grail of economics“, social commerce. Social commerce may actually become the dominant development in 2008 and subsequently turn business models upside down and inside out.
One might ask why?
Simeon Simeonov writes “Consider for a minute how gargantuan the social shopping/merchandising market opportunity is: the current US retail market (excluding home and automotive) is around $4+ TRILLION/year and is supported by $150+ billion in advertising, the bulk of which still goes to TV for immersive, emotionally impactful ads. Capturing the proverbial 1% of that total market would represent over $40 billion/year in transactions which is huge!”
“So, clearly, whomever figures out how to get paid to unlock socially-driven product discovery and merchandising is going to make an astounding amount of money and have a huge impact on net culture.”
Is there consensus on this opportunity?
We recently asked the following questions aimed at adults throughout numerous social networks, “Will businesses and people conduct commerce using social networks?” We asked 2,000 of our contacts the question and received responses from 623 which created a 31% response rate as of December 31, 2007. The responses are still coming in as of the writing of this post. The responses carried many comments, some of which we will be sharing in future post, however the majority, 72%, said absolutely Yes. Obviously these responses are influenced by people who are engaged with the social web and see the opportunity.
On the other end of the spectrum
We were recently at a meeting with executives of a Fortune 500 company and the discussions were centric to the social web. The issue of social commerce was brought up and the opinions of the executives were that people wouldn’t buy things through their social network profiles and businesses wouldn’t engage is making purchases with other businesses via a social network.
When asked how many of the executives were active participants in social networks 100% answered they were not and 40% didn’t even have a profile on Linkedin. When asked how many of their employees (in excess of 20,000 employees) were active in social networks their answers were “We don’t know”.
How can business executives draw conclusions with no experience or understanding of the dynamic of the social web? The answer is they do and they will continue to, right or wrong. The awakening will come when markets move, when competition leads the movement, when executives engage with people who find satisfaction and benefit from engaging with other people, when the world shifts and an alarm ripples through the executive suites.
What are the factors that will drive social commerce?
- Consumer as communication channel: viral in its purest form just carries over a many to many channel an essentially one to many message from a business to its audience.
- Consumer as message author: recommendations and referrals are where the ‘consumer’ is already an ‘employee’ of the business, effectively working for the Marketing department and generating the message in addition to carrying it.
- Consumer as a transaction participant: where the business has found a mechanism to engage the consumer in more than just passing a message, in ‘closing the sale’, processes orders and (why not) takes PayPal payments.
- Consumer as co-creator of the product: from participation in product design R&D with feedback, ideas and recommendations, particularly where the ‘product’ is the message he spreads. Two more jobs: in the R&D and in the Production department of our business.
- Finally, consumer as Investor: already an insider of our business, he confidently buys our stock (and recommends that, too). Clever companies find ways to engage them even better in the share ownership through dedicated schemes.
There’s been a lot of progress made in 2007 in social commerce and 2008 will see new players, new technology and lots of money thrown at the solutions. Social commerce can encompass and influence a wide array of points on the purchase process, both before and after, and markets will move where money moves. Stay tuned for The Emergence of the Relationship Economy!
What say you?
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January 4th, 2008 at 7:34 am
One should look at the concept of “social objects” to get a insight into this vast question for starters.
I believe at gapingvoid: http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/004391.html
this post on why the “social object” is the future of marketing is a good intersection into this conversation,
Quote,
The Social Object, in a nutshell, is the reason two people are talking to each other, as opposed to talking to somebody else. Human beings are social animals. We like to socialize. But if think about it, there needs to be a reason for it to happen in the first place. That reason, that “node” in the social network, is what we call the Social Object.
I’ve often gone on record with the statement, “Social Objects are the future of marketing”. This post will attempt to explain further why i believe that.
[read more ....at the link given]
February 2nd, 2008 at 5:49 pm
[...] customers and creating advocates who will champion them to their extended networks. This is what social commerce is all about and its a long way from the mantras of CPM and CPC that dominate the online marketing [...]
February 5th, 2008 at 8:12 am
[...] Social Commerce [...]
August 9th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
[...] “Social Commerce!” – Will 2008 be the year of Social Commerce? [...]
September 19th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I would love to see this article on scommerce.com the social commerce blog
September 20th, 2008 at 6:27 am
activ pro solution proactiv http://www.al.com/forums/profile.ssf?nickname=colin259
November 26th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
[...] Jay Deragon predicted 2008 would be the Year of Social Commerce. On January 1, 2008, he wrote: While social networks continue to grow exponentially the next growth curve will be driven by the ”holy grail of economics“, social commerce. Social commerce may actually become the dominant development in 2008 and subsequently turn business models upside down and inside out. [...]
April 12th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
I think 2009 will be the year of social commerce as more and more people like Warren, Donald and Richard endorse it. One must make sure that their company has a presence in this paradigm to market products and business opportunities! Companies like Walmart have already adopted Web 2.o Social Media software to drive people to their site!
July 18th, 2009 at 8:15 am
”fly Reel’ Fishing Rod And Reel Antenna…
An interesting post by a bloger made me ……
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:02 pm
[...] commerce has had some false dawns; Steve Rubel tipped 2006 to be the year of social commerce, Jay Deragon and Simeon Simeonov thought it would be in 2008. Forrester believe we’re a little ahead of [...]
November 17th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
[...] 10: Jay Deragon (Social Media Directions) January [...]
November 18th, 2009 at 5:16 am
[...] Jay Deragon (Social Media Directions) – “Will 2008 be the Year of Social Commerce?“, Januar [...]
November 18th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Hi Jay, this is a great post, and visionary – we’ve taken your definition of social commerce here and added it to the Social Commerce time line and word cloud over at social commerce today
http://www.socialcommercetoday.com/?p=1121
January 18th, 2010 at 10:27 pm
[...] commerce has had some false dawns; Steve Rubel tipped 2006 to be the year of social commerce, Jay Deragon thought it would be in 2008. Forrester believe we’re a little ahead of ourselves and is [...]