Toronto-based incubator MaRS – a hub for entrepreneurs, scientists and capital – has produced a useful state of the market report on social commerce. The report, authored by industry analyst Neha Khera, can be accessed here, but here’s the skinny...
What did one social plugin company say to another? You’re mine for $151m. Bazaarvoice, market leader in social plugins for e-commerce sites has announced it is acquiring PowerReviews, #2 social plugin company for e-commerce sites. Another riddle...
A story well told is the secret to unlocking sales with social media. Or that’s the implication of “Tell to Win” the latest book by ex-CEO of Sony Pictures, Peter Gruber on the power of stories to move people (review). Of course, the power of...
From a commercial perspective, search and social have two different but overlapping value propositions for the user. In a nutshell, search is about finding what you want, and social is about researching what you want. In a commercial context, we use...
Understanding why people share stuff in social media is key to unlocking sales in social commerce; social media communicates social influence and social influence creates social sales. And a new study by Harvard psychologists Diana Tamir and Jason...
So the Wall Street Journal reveals that social scrapbooking copyright-dodging site Pinterest is now, despite no revenue to speak of, worth $1.5bn following a new $100m round of investment, led by Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten (owner buy.com...
Here’s a brilliant infographic just out from the Financial Times showing the eye-watering sums that Facebook founders and investors stand to gain from today’s $104bn ($38/share) IPO. From Zuckerberg’s $19.1bn to his dad’s $76m. Not a bad return on...
Just as social media is not a revolution (it’s just media – get over it), the idea that you have a revolutionary new kind of customer – the social customer – is nonsense too. Your customers have always been ‘social’ – learning from each other and...
So it’s IPO time for the leading social commerce platform on the planet, and Facebook thinks it’s worth half of Google ($104bn vs $196bn), as much as Amazon ($101bn), and twice eBay ($52bn). But here are three reasons why a psychologist wouldn’t...
Somebody is going to take a look at this video and make millions. It’s a scene from a Chinese ‘Tuángòu‘ (team-buying) raid on a paint retailer. The concept is super-simple – a flash mob of shoppers descend on some poor retailer and demand a bulk...
Have you integrated social scrapbooking app Pinterest into the purchase funnel yet? Perhaps you should. It’s quick, easy and could be very profitable. New research from London-based specialist e-commerce site for women Boticca selling handbags...
Selling is not always about sales – it can also be about building your brand (your ability to extract margin by creating choice-shaping associations in the mind of the consumer). To this end, here’s a brilliant social commerce campaign from Nike...