Page 220 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

204 7 Social Commerce: Foundations, Social Marketing, and Advertising

Table 7.1 The major differences between e-commerce and social commerce
Property E-commerce Social commerce
Major objective Transactions Social interactions
Major activity Publishing Engagement
Content Company generated User generated
Problem-solving Company experts, consultants Crowdsourcing
Collaboration Traditional, unified communications Web 2.0 tools
Product information Product descriptions on websites Peer product reviews
Marketplaces E-tailers (e.g., Amazon.com) and direct from Social networks (f-commerce),
manufacturers’ stores (Dell) collaborative markets
Targeting Mass marketing, segmentation Behavioral targeting, micro segmentation
CRM Seller/manufacturer support Social support by peers and by vendors and
employees
Online marketing strategy Website selling Multichannel, direct at social network sites
Integration System integration Mashups and system integration
Data management Reports and analytics Analytics

For a complete guide to social commerce (free), see pixlee. activities. However, several other areas are emerging in the
com/download/the-complete-guide-to-social- commerce. field, especially activities within organizations that are
The major differences between social commerce and e-com- referred to as social enterprise or Enterprise 2.0. Liang and
merce are illustrated in Table 7.1. Turban (2011/2012) illustrate the social commerce land-
For a chronicle presentation and an infographic of histori- scape in Figure 7.2 and an infographic describes only some
cal milestones in the development of social commerce, see of the areas here. Discussions of the other activities of the
socialtimes.com/social-commerce-infographic-2_b84120. figure are provided throughout the book.
For a detailed discussion, see Marsden’s slide presentation
“Social Commerce Opportunities for Brands” at slideshare.
SECTION 7.1 REVIEW QUESTIONS net/paulsmarsden/social-commerce-the-opportunity-for-
brands. For statistics about social commerce and its use, see
1. Define social commerce and list its major characteristics. “Social Commerce Statistics” at bazaarvoice.com/research-
2. Trace the evolution of social commerce. and-insight/social-commerce-statistics. For a specialized
3. Describe the major differences between e-commerce and textbook, see Turban et al. (2016). The two major elements in
social commerce. social commerce, social media marketing and Enterprise 2.0,
are described next.

7.2 THE CONTENT OF THE SOCIAL
COMMERCE FIELD Social Media Marketing

The content of the SC field is very diversified. For example, Social media marketing (SMM) is the application of mar-
Indvik (2013) provides seven species of the field. keting communication and other marketing tools using social
media. Social media marketing facilitates social commerce,
builds brands, repairs brand reputation damage in social
The Landscape and Major Components media, and fosters long-term customer relationships, among
of the Field other things. For a free toolkit, see act-on.com/resources/
social-media-marketing-toolkit.
The landscape of social commerce is multidisciplinary (see For the industries that benefit most from social media, see
slide presentation by Marsden 2010 and Liang and Turban Carranza (2015). For predictions of 50 experts on the devel-
2011/2012). Most of the activities center around e-marketing opment of social media and social media marketing for 2016,
conducted with social media, particularly marketing com- see Gil (2015). The various topics of social media marketing
munication, techniques of advertising, sales promotions, and are described in Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7. For an infographic,
public relations usually expressed as social media marketing see Wood (2014).