An interesting study has been recently released that shows the growth in mainstream acceptance and use of social media as a tool for shoppers.

According to a comScore survey, 28% of respondents indicated that social media has influenced their purchases. Of those influenced, most had read consumer reviews and expert product reviews. Interestingly, almost 1 out of 10 of those people mentioned that they were influenced by postings on Twitter, from either a company’s Tweet or friend’s tweet.

A similar study was performed by a search marketing agency in 2007, and at that time, Twitter was not even on the radar as a tool for holiday shoppers.

So, it’s pretty obvious that retailers will need to increase their attention to their social media strategies including the 3 primary movers: product reviews, Facebook, and Twitter. For those who have yet to jump in, here are some tips:

1. Identify your social media goals (customer service, branding/awareness, marketing, product update communication), and the metrics by how you’ll evaluate campaign success.
2. Identify the “players” in your industry, and begin to follow their Tweets. Get a firm understanding of the conversations taking place about you and your competitor’s products. It’s important to do a thorough job of listening before jumping in.
3. Setup up auto alerts in Twitter with your company name, name of your products, and those of your competitors, so you can quickly stay on top of the incredibly dynamic nature of conversations relevant to your products.
4. To maintain and grow your follow list without alienating your readers, be sure to provide a ratio of tweets of at least 4 to 1 of “value or information messaging” versus “marketing messaging”.
5. Whenever possible, provide links to the source of your information messaging.

Engine Ready, Facebook, Internet Marketing, Social Media, Twitter