Facebook set for ecommerce domination

27 October 2011 - posted in Ecommerce, Folk Loves, Online Marketing, Social Media, Uncategorized by Nicky Smith

The world of e-commerce has been buzzing recently with the news that the social giant Facebook and shopping supremo eBay are joining forces to create the Internet’s largest online shopping initiative.


This is big news for digital commerce and has the potential to permanently change the way people shop.

At last month’s f8 Developers Conference, Facebook introduced Open Graph 2.0, Ticker, and Timeline, three new features reflecting its desire to make shopping social.

The most important of the three in terms of commerce is Open Graph 2.0. Facebook users currently only “like” product pages to show their devotion to brand, subsequently allowing users to share their content with friends on the site. Open Graph 2.0 — the glue in the new Facebook-eBay partnership — allows users to customise the “like” function to “buy,” “own,” “want,” “recommend” or “review” products and share them with friends and family.

For brand image and customer engagement, the business benefits of Timeline could be huge, allowing companies to tell a more engaging and authentic story. This reason alone (beyond the 800 million active users) should get brands attention and start them celebrating the new changes to social media.

Compared to the current Facebook brand page, Timeline enables tons more branding, raising awareness and creativity. The cover image spanning the top of your profile, can be changed at any time and is perfect for a product shot or promotional push.

Prior to these changes, brands often didn’t understand how to best utilise Facebook and how it fit into their brand strategy. Instead they filled their profile with gimmicky apps or sampling incentive to encourage people to “like” their page. Now with the larger post size and photos, Timeline can easily serve as a brand blog, providing fans with frequent and engaging updates in a neatly packaged profile.

There are huge benefits for Facebook, users, customers and businesses when these new features are launched. For a more thorough run down, click through to Mashable and read one of their many articles on the subject, including the all important 5 Ways Facebook’s New Features Will Fuel Social Shopping.