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Facebook sharing drives online purchases

Admire Moyo
By Admire Moyo, ITWeb's news editor.
Johannesburg, 05 Apr 2012

The practice of using social networks as a channel to exchange mobile money between friends will grow in significance - and quickly.

So claim Robert Sussman and Lance Fanaroff, joint CEOs of ZunguZ, a locally developed platform that facilitates micro-payments between users on social networks, who point out that the trend is being driven by social sharing - which is the sharing of comments about products with friends.

They point to the rapid growth within the Facebook payment and credit space as critical to the growth of mobile money transfers.

“One recent statistic is that Facebook payments alone generate as much as $557 million within the global economy. Clearly, there is a need to bring the consumer into the convergence of mobility, social networking and banking,” says Sussman.

According to the March 2012 Social Impact Study by enterprise software firm Sociable Labs, 62% of online shoppers have read product-related comments from friends on Facebook, while 75% of these shoppers have clicked through to visit the retailer's site.

The survey, which was conducted between 15 January and 8 February this year, is based on a sample of 1 088 online shoppers, who use Facebook, about the influence and impact of social sharing on consumer purchases.

Darby Williams, marketing manager at Sociable Labs, says the underlying reason for these actions is that shoppers see social sharing as one of the most helpful tools for finding the right product to buy.

Among other findings was that social sharing also drives conversions, with 53% of shoppers who clicked through to the retailer's site having purchased the product that was shared.

It also emerged that social sharing serves as a valuable product discovery mechanism for online shoppers, which Sociable Labs says is equivalent in terms of shopping helpfulness to Google search.

Social proofing - seeing friend activity on retailer sites - significantly increases shopper confidence, with 57% of shoppers becoming more likely to buy, the survey also found.

“This validates that consumers are highly influenced by their friends in considering what products to buy and that social sharing is a major source of product discovery for a significant percentage of consumers,” says Williams.

Sociable Labs notes that once consumers are exposed to positive social sharing experiences, it creates a virtuous cycle of social sharing and purchase. Retailers can drive more social sharing by understanding the inhibitors and motivators for their customers to share, it adds.

It also explains that consumers share primarily to help their friends - sharing deals they found and/or the reasons they bought the product. “Shoppers get value from shared content primarily because it helps them discover what products to buy.”

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