Recent research is indicating that this channel is an important route to generating trends and conversions.
As smartphone penetration continues its rapid rise, it has been predicted by recent research that social media marketing over these devices will play a growing role in the success of mobile commerce.
The popularity of smartphones is bringing an increase in the growth of the use of online content from those sources.
For example, a recent report from Brafton indicated that smartphone users and tablet users have increased their visits to websites by 52 percent this year, when compared to the same time last year. Moreover, the design of a brand’s site can elicit various reactions from visitors. Done properly, and optimized for a smaller screen and touchscreen functions, brands can elicit excitement and a drive to learn more and take action – such as make a purchase – leading to a potential rise in conversions.
Social media marketing helps to drive consumers to those landing pages so that they can be converted.
Another report, this time from Vision Critical, determined that social media marketing can also help mobile commerce by easing the transition to the channel from having only been on the standard web. Even when the smartphone optimized or responsive website has not yet been created, brands can use Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, and even YouTube to help to make sure that they are making themselves present, available, and relevant to smartphone consumers, even before an official website or app (or both) remain in the pipeline.
In the Vision Critical survey, 35 percent of mobile Twitter users said that they completed all of their social media marketing inspired purchases right from their smartphones. Moreover, an additional 46 percent said that they did most or some of those purchases from their devices. Only 19 percent said that they transferred over to their desktops or laptops to complete the transaction.
This suggests that social media marketing can directly lead to conversions over mobile commerce. It was supported further as the trend was not isolated to Twitter. Among Facebook users, 17 percent said that they always used their device for that reason, while 40 percent said that they did for part of them. Among Pinterest users, the figures were 19 percent and 43 percent, respectively.
These smartphone friendly websites are using Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and others to build relationships.
According to the latest research, mobile commerce websites are increasing their use of social media marketing because of the advantage it provides in generating a sense of a personal relationship between their customers and their brands.
The researchers in this study referred to the trend as “swift guanxi” due to its areas of effectiveness.
The term has been used because the “guanxi” concept is from China and is “broadly defined as a close and pervasive interpersonal relationship” as well as “based on high-quality social interactions and the reciprocal exchange of mutual benefits.” This, according to the researchers from the study, Robert M. Davison, Carol Xiaojuan Ou, and Paul A. Pavlou.
The researchers found that using mobile commerce in this way was highly effective for building loyalty.
When they spoke of swift guanxi, they were talking about the ability to ease interactivity, loyalty, and repeat transactions when using social media for mobile commerce purposes. The data used in this study was gleaned from the leading online marketplace in China, TaoBao. They looked into the way that computer mediated communication (CMC) technology could be used for this purpose and convert shoppers who would otherwise have made a single purchase and never return, into a long term customer by way of personal rapport.
It had previously been assumed that shoppers had a preference for impersonal transactions. However, this mobile commerce study shows that both consumers and retailers have an inherent liking for the type of relationship that can fall under the guanxi label, even though the degree of that interaction may vary from one culture to the next.
According to Pavlou, “Nobody would argue that personal relationships are unimportant, but it is unfathomable that people in the U.S. would engage in such extensive communications and personal interactions for a small transaction.” He was referring to the fact that in China, for instance, a very small transaction where only a few dollars were spent could be the result of a communication that could take well over three quarters of an hour.
