Assessing the Value of Social Traffic

E-commerce is revamping itself with the passing of each day. The merging of e-commerce and social media into one, that is social commerce, is becoming one of the hottest trends and it is here to stay! The meteoric rise of social media with social engagement becoming the norm has made the globe a small place to live in. The different social networking sites are acting as the best platforms where the online businesses are clinging to, for letting their businesses to hog the limelight. Facebook and Pinterest are the big players in the realm of social media which are making the investments of the e-commerce merchants to fructify. The value of social traffic cannot be undermined at all as it offers great business juice to the online retailers. The recent surveys conducted reveal that social traffic is indeed valuable scoring over e-mail and search traffic.

Bank on Social Media to create a Buzz about your Brand

Since an insurmountable amount of people are flocking to the social networking sites, it is one of the potent resources to spread a word about your business like wildfire. This is the age of online shopping where referrals, ratings, reviews work a lot in terms of making the interested buyers to take the buying action. Social traffic does not always lead to conversion. The recent studies even show a dampening face of social sales and it is moving at a snail's pace, but exposure of the online brands via the social sites in increasing manifold.

Converting Social Traffic into Financial Transactions is not a Child's Play

When engaging in a comparative study between the two social media giants Facebook and  Pinterest, some important facts could be figured out.

• Pinterest, the visual bulletin board seems to have injected the virus to “pin it” to the people who vouch for social sharing. The top brands are resorting to the pin-boards to share some of the visually-stunning pictures, which is making people not only to rummage through the mind-boggling images, video and other content, but making the effort to buy the products that catch their fancy
• It has been revealed that 70% of the Pinterest lovers get the psychological stimulation or the inspiration to buy when they go through this credible social site
•  It has also been reported that there has been an upsurge in the referral traffic rate from Pinterest, it being 35% in 2012 from 25% year-over-year
• The most astonishing factor is that Pinterest has been here for three years now, making its entry in March, 2010 and accounted for only 1% in social traffic in 2011. The figures have catapulted   to 26% at the end of 2012

When bringing about a comparison with Facebook, it is observed that social sales is not happening at a whopping rate currently. However, it is the credibility of this social networking site where recommendations from people really motivate the purchasing behavior of the interested buyers. Here is where social traffic counts.  Like Fancy.com facilitates the process of online buying, Facebook and Pinterest must think on similar lines to solidify their revenue generation graph of social commerce in a bigger way in 2013!

The Role of Social Traffic 

It is essential for the e-commerce merchants to realize that it is not only their search marketing efforts or email marketing campaigns that can bring in traffic to an e-shop. Social traffic can be of greater business value if the e-sellers know how to channelize the potential of the social media  platform. When peeping into the future of e-commerce, social traffic holds a very crucial position to let the online businesses to flourish.