26
Mar
40% Of Consumers PREFER To Use Social Logins
With the introduction of 3dcart’s Facebook Connect add on, we’ve written about how Facebook Connect can help your online store raise conversions and explained best practices of using social logins. So when we came across this great infographic from Monetate, we knew we had to share. Not only does their research reinforce how important it is for merchants to consider Facebook Connect, they share some interesting statistics on how customers PREFER social logins.
Here are few interesting take-aways from the below infographic.
40% of consumers PREFER to use social logins for creating accounts and 60% of shoppers say they use Facebook Connect most frequently! Consumers are getting more and more use to logging in with Facebook, making it seem even more laborious when they have to go through the process of filling out lengthy forms on other sites. Make it easy on your customers and you will see happier customers, and less abandoned carts.
50% or more of consumers say they use social networks to provide feedback. I think that if more stores used Facebook Connect, this number would be higher! When you make it easy for customers, they are happy to give you feedback on your products and company and when they do it on social networks, they share it with all of their friends ( see next stat!).
60% of consumers go to social networking sites to read product reviews. As a merchant using Facebook Connect to encourage social sharing, this is amazing!
21
Mar
Facebook Connect: When, Where And How To Connect With Customers
Now that you know the advantages Facebook Connect offers your online store, we wanted to give you some tips on how to best leverage the social feature.
WHEN:
Knowing when & where to use Connect is key to leveraging it’s social power for your store. Don’t jump the gun with an early pop-up window for two reasons:
- 99.9% of users HATE pop-up windows.
- Asking users to connect too early may cause more of them to decline because they are still checking out your site; they aren’t committed to the process yet.
Instead, encourage users to Connect with a less forcefull call to action further down the purchase/ interest process than your homepage.
WHERE:
If you need some ideas on where to place your call to action, just think about where the social feature makes sense.
For example:
- account creation page
- product review section
- post-purchase
- forums/community areas
HOW:
Facebook Connect has much more potential than just making a registration easier. It offers you tons of unique and interesting ways to connect with your customers and their social networks.
For implementation inspiration, check out how these eCommerce sites are connecting with their customers:
LEVI.COM – SOCIAL SHOPPING
When users come to levi.com, they are encouraged to shop socially by clicking on the “like-minded shopping starts here” call to action. By connecting with Facebook Connect, customers can share Levi’s products with their friends, “Like” them, or find “Top-Liked” products across their network.
AMAZON – SOCIAL GIFTING
Amazon uses Facebook Connect to make gift card purchasing as easy as possible. When a user Connects with Facebook, they can purchase gift cards for friends that will be posted to their friend’s wall on the day of their choosing, like their birthday. The beauty of this use of Connect is that users only have to complete three steps to purchase the giftcard: sign in with Facebook, create the card and then send it on.
HEINZ – SOCIAL EXCLUSIVES
Heinz used Facebook Connect to promote and create buzz for their new product. Who would talk about Ketchup on Facebook? Not many people. At least until, Heinz launched a limited edition flavor, but only allowed Facebook fans to purchase it before it went on general sale. Using Connect, Fans could purchase the new flavor and recommend it to friends. So how did the Ketchup Connec campaign do? Heinz sold 3,000 bottles of their flavor to Facebook fans, gained 14,000 new fans and the buzz they were looking for.
Interested in adding Facebook Connect to your 3dcart store? 3dcart’s Facebook Connect feature is now available through the app store for $199. For more details or to get started, visit store.3dcart.com/facebook-connect-for-3dcart.html.
21
Mar
3dcart Offers Facebook Connect To Merchants
Earlier this month, we talked about Facebook Connect and how it is revolutionizing the way online business leverage the power of social media. Now, 3dcart merchants can tap into that power with 3dcart’s new built-in Facebook Connect integration.
3dcart’s Facebook Connect add-on displays a button on the “My Account” and “Checkout” pages. If the customer clicks the button, they automatically sign in using their Facebook account. First-time customers and return customers who chose not to save their personal information must fill out their payment information separately, ensuring no privacy issues.
The premium feature offers online retailers:
More Conversions
By simplifying sign-in, customers can bypass creating unique IDs and passwords, removing a major barrier of entry to a potential sales conversion (and future conversions). With more customers identifying themselves before they buy, retailers gain powerful insights on their audiences, enhancing revenue generation.
Empowered Social Marketing
With access to customer data and social graphs, retailers gain immediate visibility into audience behavior, interests and favorite brands. Facebook connectivity also simplifies how customers share the products they buy and the online retailers they frequent.
Personalized Interaction with Customers
Identifying customers immediately gives retailers the opportunity to target recommendations based on previous purchases and interest-based information. Relevant products are more likely to catch a customer’s eye, increasing the chances they’ll buy.
3dcart’s Facebook Connect feature is now available through the app store for $199. For more details or to get started, visit store.3dcart.com/facebook-connect-for-3dcart.html.
Image via Lakeshorebranding.com
07
Mar
Facebook Connect for Ecommerce: What You Need To Know
Can you think of an online sign-up process that DOESN’T require an email address for completion? Its almost as assumed that a user has an email address, as they do a home address. And with good reason, today almost every online user does. With an email address a merchant can reconnect with users post-purchase, reach out after an abandoned cart or send them a coupon for their next purchase. While capturing emails adds a layer of communication to you customer relationships, it doesn’t tell you anything additionally about your customers. Email lets you communicate, but not necessarily connect.
However, Facebook Connect can do just that. Facebook Connect allows users to use their Facebook account to connect to third-party sites ( like yours). Facebook explains the significance.
Facebook Connect is the next iteration of Facebook Platform that allows users to “connect” their Facebook identity, friends and privacy to any site. This will now enable third party websites to implement and offer even more features of Facebook Platform off of Facebook – similar to features available to third party applications today on Facebook.
Connect can be used to bypass the signup process or anywhere you want to add a layer of social content. Connect is a great way to deepen & personalize customer relations.
And don’t worry about hassling your customers – TechCrunch reports that 50% of visitors to ecommerce sites are already logged in to Facebook. And users are becoming more comfortable with the practice: according to Facebook, 30% of its users actively engage with third party websites through Facebook Connect each month.
There also huge advantages Connect offers over traditional sign-in methods:
Identity Authentication
Unlike Twitter and other less personal social networks, Facebook is a stickler for making sure users represent themselves with their real names and real identities. When users login with Facebook Connect in your store they bring their real identity information with them including basic profile information, profile picture, name, friends, photos, events, groups, and more.
Leverage Friends
Facebook is the ultimate social network with over 500 million users, so you can bet that your customers have Facebook friends with similar interests & shopping habits 
Facebook Connect allows merchants to add a rich social context to their stores allowing customers to see which of their friends have already created accounts in your store. Think of how much more inclined to trust your store ( & purchase from it) a customer would be if they saw a friend had also created an account in your store.
Increase Registrations
There are a ton of reasons why merchants and developers LOVE Connect, but so do customers. Customers love bypassing long sign-up processes with just one-click. The ease of use can result in HUGE increases in registrations. Just how huge? Facebook reports that sites that use Facebook Connect see a 30% to 200% increase in site registrations
Gain More Reviews
Not only are customers more likely to complete the registration process, the ease of signing in with Connect makes it easier for returning customers to review your products. Facebook claims that sites using Connect see 15% to 100% increases in user generated content like comments and product reviews. And we all know how valuable reviews are in ecommerce!
Stay tuned for more posts on how to leverage Facebook Connect for your 3dcart store!
29
Feb
5 Social Resources You Can’t Miss From 3DCart’s Social Media Webinar
We shared a ton of tips and tricks in Monday’s webinar ( if you didn’t get a chance to attend check it out here) We went over SO much in fact, that we wanted to share some highlights.
Here are 5 social resources you can’t miss:
Wisestamp: Promote Your Social Accounts In Email
Promote your store’s social accounts in your email signature with Chrom Plugin wisestamp. Wisestamp automatically embeds a social signature in your emails. Wisestamp is easily configured allowing you to customize what social accounts you want to show, how they look and even add your own website in your signature.
Tweepi: Build Your Twitter Following:
Tweepi allows you to easily follow Twitter users in bulk, follow back users who are following you and unfollow users who do not reciprocate. There are many tools similar to Tweepi, but most on par with its service demand payment. My advice though is NOT to go crazy with following & unfollowing too much bulk activity can cause Twitter to ban your account ( especially if you are not actively engaging followers). To be safe, I suggest following/unfollowing 50 users a day. That;s enough to build you base quickly and not trigger any alarms at Twitter.
Klout & Topsy: Find Experts
A great aspect of Twitter is the ability to connect with experts in your industry, press and other influential figures to your business. Klout & Topsy are two great resources to help you find those individuals. Klout ranks a person’s social influence and gives you topics that those users a influential on. Through Topsy’s expert search, you can type in keywords related to your business and interests and it will show you a list influential Twitter users.
Findpeopleonplus: Expand Your Circles
If you are looking for people to add to your personal Google+ Circles ( brand pages cannot circle users that have not circled them), then there are 3 sites you need to check out http://www.findpeopleonplus.com, http://www.recommendedusers.com & http://www.group.as. In addition to finding other G+ users to connect with, you can register your own account under keywords to expand your visibility.
Circle+: Easily Add To Circles
Circle+ is a Chrome extension that allows you to easily add Google+ profiles listed on ANY webpage to your Google+ circle like the sites above. When you connect Circle+ to your Google+ account, it first collects a listing of your circles and adds them to a dropdown box so you can choose which circle you would like the profiles to be added to. The according to its description in the Chrome store, “It then scans the current page you are on for Google+ Profile IDs and tries to add them to the given circle. Once it is able to do this it will give a listing of every person that has been added (by image and name.)”
29
Feb
Social Media Webinar Recording
Thanks to all who attended the webinar this Monday. Below is the recording for those that didn’t get a chance to attend:
24
Jan
Who Is The Connected Consumer? She’s Awesome!
The leader of your book club shops online. Your 13-year old middle-schooler shops online (hopefully with your consent). Your grandmother shops online. Online shopping isn’t just for the tech savvy anymore, but just WHO is the new mobile shopper? Just HOW connected are they?
A new infographic by Zmags sets out to answer just that and there are some important take-aways.
She’s a soccer mom. 52% of ‘connected consumers’ are women with an average age of 40. Yep, despite generational stereotypes the connect consumer is NOT a millennial!
13
Jan
How To Make Your Email Marketing Share-Worthy
Email marketing is becoming more and more social. If you need proof just check out GetResonses’s infographic below!
Users sharing a store’s email is a merchant dream, but its not just going to happen out of the blue, users need a reason to share. Its important to make it easy and enticing for users to share information with friends, both on social networks and through email.
So what can you do to help your email marketing spread across the social universe?
1. Include social links to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ ETC
You should make social sharing convenient and simple as possible. Link to social networks within your emails and include icons to grab their attention
09
Dec
The Psychology Of Social Shopping
Whether we understand it or not, psychology is always large part in business. Understanding the mind of a consumer is a huge advantage for online merchants, especially in terms of social commerce.
Did you know that according to Kiss Metrics
- 64% of Twitter users say they are more likely to buy from the brands they follow.
- 51% of Facebook users say they are more likely to buy from the brands they follow.
- 81% of Facebook fans said they feel connection/empathy with a particular brand. Only 39% of non-fans said they did.
- 87% of Facebook fans said they are satisfied with a particular brand. Only 49% of non-fans said they did.
- 38% of respondents reported that they would likely become a fan of a brand on Facebook if they saw a family member or close friend do so.
- 50% of small business owners reported gaining new customers through social media – most notably through Facebook and LinkedIn.
Social commerce continues to gain traction but the trend begs the question: What makes a fan stop flipping through their friends photos and purchase a product? Here’s an infographic that will provide a glimpse into your shoppers mind:
08
Dec
2011: A Year in Social Media [VIDEO]
2011 was a big year for social media. Search giant Google entered their social platform G+ into the ring, Facebook and Twitter both rolled out new features for users and brands, Linked.in released their IPO – and that’s just the start of it. WHEW!
Check out this awesome video showing the increasing power of social media in 2011!