commerce — Page 2

You can’t just jump onto Facebook, set up a Facebook page, and expect the money to start rolling in. A large part of the success (or failure) that a small business will face will come down to the investment of time and resources expended into developing relationships and engaging your customers on this particular platform. The following information will assume that you’ve done the necessary legwork to make Facebook work for you, and as such will show you how you can augment the great relationships you’ve built when it’s time to monetize these connections at your organization.

The first type of Facebook commerce is the Facebook-Facilitated On-Site Selling Method. With this method, a company brings an element of Facebook (usually the Like Box or Button) to their company website through social plugins. You may have noticed this if you’ve ever been logged into your Facebook account and visited a website like Chick-Fil-A.com. If you scroll down to the bottom of the website, you’ll see an integrated LIKE button, the number of people on Facebook who liked the brand, as well as a number of the Facebook friends I’m connected to that also clicked the LIKE button. The idea here, is if you’re on a company’s site, and can see what your friends think about them, you’ll be more inclined to shop there.

What are your thoughts about the future of Facebook for business?

With a purported 700+ million users, spending upwards of 700 billion minutes per month, with at least 130 friends, in the form of 90 pieces of published content per day, Facebook is now a formidable component of how people spend their time online and via mobile devices. The relaxed, word-of-mouth social networking site has become a key place for businesses to market their wares and connect with their stakeholders, and it has spawned a new phenomenon that’s been given its own term “f-Commerce” (short for Facebook Commerce).

The actual Facebook + Commerce mission is about “helping commerce partners use Facebook to create social and personalized shopping experiences” by sharing best practices and tools to help businesses increase registration and conversions, drive referral traffic, and deepen user insights on your site. Over the next few blog posts, I will break down in real terms, the potential that you have as a small business for using Facebook as a sales medium.

Specifically, we’re going to look at the four (4) type of Facebook Commerce that are out there:

Come back each week as we explore each topic.

Have you tried f-commerce (Facebook Commerce), what’s been your experience?