Just how pervasive and influential can social media be? Enough to convince you to buy something? Twitter thinks so. As a channel for driving reactions to just about anything, they believe their ability to motivate the consumer to purchase a product is well within reach. As such, they have unveiled a "Buy Now" button.
However, AdAge's blogger, Tim Dunn, thinks Twitter is facing an uphill battle. To his point, email and organic search are still king when it comes to informing the consumer in the eCommerce space. The purpose of the Buy Now button is to route users through to the merchant site's
checkout page. Still in its infancy, one could potentially see evolution in the direction of deeper integration
between the one-click button and the destination site to enable one-click
purchases. While the future is filled with possibilities, the challenge facing Twitter and other social media platforms is the powerful presence of email. According to a 2013 survey conducted by consulting firm McKinsey, "Email is 40 times more effective at acquiring consumers than Facebook
and Twitter combined, and the average order value prompted by email is
by 17% higher than those prompted by social media."
Dunn goes on to say that social media platforms are really just environments for being social; keeping up with their friends, viewing funny videos, engaging in conversation. This is where I disagree with him. Sharing information about products and reliance on reviews from friends and family is one of the primary drivers of consumer purchases. Social media platforms have made significant strides by introducing advertising; who is to say that providing an immediate connection to make purchases will be unsuccessful? I happen to think this initiative has a lot of potential. Will it eclipse or replace email? No, but it will be another complementary selling tool in an online advertiser's arsenal.
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