Online purchasing is growing while Aussies have a more ferocious appetite for social networking than most of the world.

So it makes sense that there’s infinite plugins and extensions to help e-commerce shack up with social networks.  Get it right and your social media output can be used to add value to your online store continuing the conversation and building relationships and loyalty – way beyond single transactions.

Our preferred e-commerce solution, Magento, can easily be integrated with Twitter feeds and Facebook fanpages using Magento default APIs. Similarly e-Newsletter sign-up options include features that allow recipients to share the newsletter invite across social channels.

Beyond share or like buttons, social commerce can be built across communities through all sorts of user engagement platforms, reviews, mobile apps, newsfeeds, coupons, discount and deals.

Social referrals can aid the purchasing process by spreading the word amongst shoppers’ friends and offering rewards and incentives to do so.

“Peer referrals allows consumers to gauge the product relative to their personal preferences,” explains SocialTwist CEO Vijay Pullar.  ”A key trend brands can leverage is that friends know what other friends like and they know what their other friends are looking for,” said Pullar.

There’s seemingly no end to the plugins and extensions that can be integrated with your Magento online store, here‘s a handful:

ShareThis, Socialable Allows users to share specific sites, pages or products and distribute information via Facebook, Bebo, Twitter and tell friends.

Beetailer, Storeya, Facebook Store App Integrates some or all of products from your Magento store into social networks and fanpages.

Curebit, Social Twist Get your customers to refer their friends via Twitter, Facebook or email, with useful tracking features

Groupon, Zizio Social Deals Launch social deals campaigns and coupons offering rebates for referrals for your customers to tell their friends.  This is a flooded category of social commerce to be weary of  but it can occasionally still be appropriate for certain markets.

Facebook  Referrals,  Open Graph and Comments Allowing your customers to invite people and get automatic discounts, share what they ‘want’ and ‘own’ or leave comments your webstore’s product page by logging into their Facebook accounts.

Shopalize Purchase Sharing Widget After purchase, customers can share their purchases or offers with friends in social platforms.

Tailor your social strategy to your market, capabilities and objectives as running consumables out the door at bargain prices needs a different approach to a premium product looking to create brand longevity and a loyal fan base.

While Facebook and Twitter will give you wide reach, more niche and specialised social platforms are being used by brands to supplement their broader social strategy.

These communities geared to a specific interest may give you a more targeted reach. For example, sharing photos of your clothing range and inspirational images via Instagram may help gain the attention of fashionistas or you may establish credibility with foodies by posting info on Foodspotting. These niche audiences may be the trendsetters within your category of commerce.

We recommend staggering the implementation of your social elements unless you have internal resources in place or the budget to outsource its management. Social needs to be monitored carefully and providing rapid response times or risk alienating users.

Our advice: get your store working, then plan and implement one or two social extensions or plugins at a time.

Access their effectiveness and reach through services such as Facebook Insights and Google Analytics, which includes analysis of your site and e-sales across multiples channels including social.

Socialising your online store will be an evolving process as technologies and communities change, yet it is a necessary and worthwhile investment in today’s e-commerce mediascape.

Need an expert at Magento integrations including in social extensions and plugins?

Design Industries offer tailored web solutions. Click here for more info about Magento e-commerce integrations or contact us.

If you want to make the most of your online presence, here are a few tips to make the process easier and more productive.

Maintain a Consistent Brand Image

At the most basic level, you need to create a business site that mimics your brand. So much of your customers’ perception of your company comes from the visual and audible messages you are sending out. So it is important to duplicate these messages on your viral marketing sites. Keep the messages you send out consistent with the corporate image you are portraying.

Focus on following likeminded companies to help create synergies between your products or services. And create discussions that encourage innovative thoughts and discussions within and about your industry.

Be Worth Following

Secondly, make sure that anyone stumbling onto your page gets a clear, concise idea of who you are and why you are doing what you’re doing. While it may be great to get more fans and followers, you also want to make sure you are always focused on your target market. Make sure your profile section not only details your product, but also relates back to your business’s core mission and values.

Likewise, the first thing someone will see when visiting your page is a list of the most recent comments and activities. This information is crucial. Make sure you are continually providing fresh, unique and useful content on your sites. Continue to push your marketing opportunities by regularly offering tips, coupons or advice. Take Qdoba Mexican Restaurant’s Facebook page, for example. The restaurant recently advertised free tacos from 10 am to 1 pm at a local street festival. While most of its customers will not take advantage of this offer, it is a great marketing tool that reaches out to current and potential customers and develops strong positive perceptions of the brand.

Be There

Once you have created your social media pages, it is also very important to continue to monitor and update them. The old mantra, “Be there,” is a good one to follow here. Qdoba does a great job of this as well. They are continually responding to their followers’ comments and providing personal touches. You should schedule a minimum of at least 15 minutes per day per site that you are involved in to respond to comments, create contests or search for new connections. If you are not there to manage and direct the content that is being included on your page, you will not be able to get your brand’s message out.

Engage Your Followers

If you can invest more than 15 minutes per day per site, try to focus on providing valuable, engaging content for your followers and contacts. Start by providing specific case studies or customer feedback that you have received. In other words, you should brag! Why should someone trust your products or services? Your followers all view themselves as each other’s peers. If you can post positive customer responses (or, better yet, have someone else post positive comments on your page), then it is the equivalent of a good friend giving the recommendation. Another avenue that can incorporate greater public engagement is to provide impactful or intriguing comments or questions and request others’ feedback. Are you interested in technology? Try posting a question on the merits of new 3-D televisions. Do you run a travel agency? How about asking your followers to tell you about their favourite place to go during the summer? Not only will you get posts, but people will return every so often to read through additional responses in order to get new ideas and see others’ feedback.

Whether you are running a small business and have to take responsibility for managing these social media sites or you have a dedicated employee working on this marketing campaign, just make sure to log on, make comments and be creative with how you use this site. Engage your customers and you will reap the rewards.

Businesses, brands and personalities that have grasped the concept of social media are experiencing wild success. They receive real-time feedback from their customers and fans about their products and services, while providing their customers with an experiential marketing experience, rather than simply providing a basic service or product. When used correctly, social media can enhance the relationship between businesses and their consumer and enforce brand loyalty.

Which Social Media Application is Right for Your Business?

Once you decide to enter the world of social media, your next decision is to determine your placement. Just the fact that a dozen different applications are available doesn’t necessarily mean you should be involved with all of them. Here are brief descriptions of the most popular social media techniques:

Blogs

Think of a blog as an online diary. Users create written entries filled with their thoughts, comments, expertise and opinions on particular issues and situations. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other research or other blogs. Most blogs also allow readers to leave feedback and/or comments, becoming involved in the topic on a personal level. Some popular blogging sites include LiveJournal, Open Diary and WordPress.

Social Networking

Perhaps the most popular and widely used form of social media, social networking sites allow users to form, build and develop social relationships online. Within a social networking site, a user generally has a profile that can be shared and viewed by other viewers. Individuals gather and communicate with one another based on their common interests and shared networks. Some of the more popular social networking sites include Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace.

Micro-Blogging

Micro-blogging is similar to a regular blog (described above), but the content, size, and scope of a micro-blog is generally much smaller and less detailed. Microblogs may consist of simply a sentence or a few words. Twitter is currently the most popular and highly used micro-blogging site.

Multimedia

Multimedia comprises a number of social media applications, including photograph sharing, video sharing, livecasting, and music- and audio-sharing. Within the sphere of social media, multimedia applications allows users to share personal media files with friends and/or complete strangers. Popular multimedia sites include YouTube, Flicker and Skype.

Different social media applications will be appropriate for some businesses, yet irrelevant for others. Most businesses do not need to be involved in all applications, but rather should identify which applications will help them achieve their goals, based on the customer base that uses each specific application. As a general rule of thumb, a business should begin using a new social media application only if it has valuable, entertaining, timely, or informative details to share with a particular market. Simply filling up online space and sharing “fluff” will not increase the credibility or likeability of a company using social media.

What are the goals of your business’s marketing department? Do you seek to share detailed information with prospects and customers? Do you have outstanding knowledge of a particular subject or topic? If so, then developing a blog will be an effective way to share this information. Users seeking information on a particular topic will be led to your site through search engines and, over time, will begin to trust and rely on you as a valuable resource. Be sure that blog entries always include a link to your website, and publish your blogs on your site.

If your business or brand has frequent updates to share, then participating on Twitter, or “Twittering” may be a good solution. As stated previously, Twitter is a micro-blog. The service allows users to send brief updates and messages out to those users who have subscribed to follow them; they receive these updates either on their computers or phones. Twitter postings can also include links to other websites, which can drive website traffic further. Twitter presents an excellent platform for a political candidate, celebrity or any fast-paced business trying to develop and promote a distinct brand.

On social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, a user creates a free profile which provides a platform for sharing information and/or identifying your business or brand. This profile can be viewed by others, who can become fans or friends of your business. Within your profile, you can provide information, photos, updates and feedback that can be viewed easily by other users. Some businesses use these applications to drive traffic to their site and increase sales, perhaps by posting a sale or giveaway on their social networking site. Other businesses work to build dialogue among their online friends about a new product or service being offered and thereby develop public relations buzz. Social networking sites tend to be a good match for consumer-based products, new product introductions and event-based applications.

Multimedia sites, and particularly YouTube, are fantastic ways for companies to share commercials and videos that viewers may find informative or entertaining. Numerous individuals have begun a successful business simply by posting “how-to” videos that focus on their area of expertise. Their viewer base grew and eventually allowed the individuals to turn their once free videos into a successful income-generating enterprise.

Beginning to use any form of social media requires an initial investment of time, although the requisite length of time will vary based on the particular application. It takes only minutes to open a free account on YouTube and begin uploading videos. However, building a Facebook account requires more time, depending on how much information you plan to share. The critical factor, however, is the amount of time that you’ll commit to the social media applications after you’ve established your initial presence. All social media applications should be used consistently. If you choose to participate in Twitter, share approximately the same number of messages each day; avoid being silent for a week and then bombarding users with hourly messages. If you choose to blog and want to be regarded as an expert in your field, then research and compose a new blog on a weekly or bi-weekly basis so that your readers can rely on finding new material at predictable intervals.

It is also absolutely necessary to inform your customers and clients about your new social media applications and then drive users to them. Be sure to post notifications and links on your site to inform website visitors that you now have a Facebook or LinkedIn page. Vice versa, drive traffic to your website through the use of social media. When entering this arena, take advantage of the free website analysis offered by Design Industries for an evaluation of your complete online marketing strategy and an assessment of how social media application can complement your other marketing efforts.

Social media has proved very effective for companies ranging from sole-proprietorships to giant corporations. It allows businesses to stay current, reach new markets, and develop loyalty among existing customers. With the correct placement and dedication, social media can be an effective piece of your marketing strategy and build on the success of your business or organisation.

But now a new site is changing things by allowing you to interact with total strangers at random. If they find you interesting and worthwhile, then you’ll continue chatting. If they find you dull or a waste of time, they’ll click on to a new stranger – no hard feelings. ChatRoulette simply requires a webcam and at least two interested parties. Jump onto their very basic site (http://chatroulette.com), and as soon as you press Go, you’ll be connected to someone else in the world. They could be across the globe or across the street. You may become great friends, or you may simply chat for ten seconds. As soon as one party grows uninterested, he or she clicks “next” and is connected to a new stranger to try to make a match.

ChatRoulette provides a basic new medium for online users to connect with others. In a society where human contact and personal interaction is slowly fading away, ChatRoulette provides another channel for people to meet, share and discuss whatever suits their fancy. Unlike blogs, Facebook postings or Tweats, ChatRoulette is a two-way, interactive space to see and speak with others in real time. If you want to meet interesting people, and you don’t mind a few false starts, this is the place for you.

However, like any social media site, users are responsible for monitoring the personal content that they share and post online. ChatRoulette is not without its potential hazards; be aware that anything shared over webcams could be recorded and posted elsewhere. As with any public site, don’t share too many personal details or other private information. The site does its best to monitor content. It requests that users report inappropriate videos and it does not tolerate obscene or pornographic material, but all users should be aware of the potential for abuse. During these current controversial times of potential internet monitoring by different governments such as the Australian and Chinese, we can’t help wonder whether ChatRoulette will be banned in the near future. What a shame if we are cut off from this opportunity to interact with other internet users around the world.

The bottom line is that ChatRoulette provides a unique and innovative way to meet new people and connect with others. But, as with all social media sites, proceed with caution. Be sure to monitor yourself and others on the site, and don’t take offence if someone clicks “next”.

But since Twitter’s introduction, its popularity has spread like wildfire. Millions of users send tweets throughout the day, and although the content of many of those tweets is mundane trivia about what people are doing at the moment, other tweets cover more substantive, newsworthy topics. Some individuals now attract thousands of followers, with tweets being disseminated more broadly than ever before.

Twitter has taken on a life of its own. People are using it in ways that were never foreseen by the individual creators. Some of the new uses are slight modifications that have significant implications. For example, users have begun tagging tweets related to a specific event with the # sign, so that #inauguration allows people to follow messaging threads about inaugural events, and similar tags can be used to discuss conferences, national disasters, and more.

Other users began using the @ symbol to reply to other tweets, directing their response to a particular user. The convention was adopted rapidly, impressively changing Twitter’s isolated tweets into interactive conversations where users can speak directly to one another.

In addition, more than 11,000 applications have been created by developers, taking Twitter in new directions that the original creators never envisioned. Summize created a way to search live streams of Tweets, providing an easy way for anyone to find up-to-the-minute comments on breaking events. SickCity tracks references to illnesses in Twitter, potentially alerting medical professionals to epidemics. Activists in China and Moldova have used Twitter to organise public demonstrations. Each new application adds a new layer of depth and richness to the Twitter experience.

Some people lament the way that users spend hours glued to their cell phones and other mobile devices, tweeting their friends and colleagues. They argue that this type of instant communication deprives people of more meaningful, richer person-to-person interactions. However, the opposite argument can also be made. As people use Twitter to comment on world events, they are actually becoming part of a large audience enjoying a shared experience. A few decades ago, unfolding events were seen on television and discussed among family members. Nowadays, users can discuss those events in real time with a much wider, more diverse group of interested observers.

And, contrary to skeptics’ objections, in reality the conversation is not limited by the 140-character tweet size, because users often use Twitter as a pointing device to direct their followers to other online resources, such as news articles, blog posts, and videos, or even charitable causes. This type of redirection has become so popular that some websites are reporting that the amount of traffic they receive from Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking applications is now greater than what they used to receive from Google search engine results.

Perhaps Twitter’s greatest legacy will be that it allows people to keep up on each other’s lives in an increasingly disconnected world. A typical user is connected to relatives, friends, colleagues, and a few celebrities. Even if there is no actual interaction, people feel connected simply by knowing what is happen in the daily life of others. While some complain about the intrusion of technology in our personal lives, others embrace it as a way to improve communication and interpersonal relationships.

So here I was updating our blog and thought I set up that twitter account a while back and apart from that one post with the ground breaking news of  “sending our new newsletter….” not much else has happened. Therefore I made the decision to start posting some tweets, so far so good, a few got posted today and I am all content with the small yet now due to  my insight knowledge important first steps

I decided to go one further surely there was a simple WordPress plugin to link my Twitter account and my blog to make the interaction and posting a far easier process, and that is where the Groundswell found trouble. The plugin was easy to install like most WordPress plugins are, but it simply does not work.  Well it does not work as I write this blog, which is in fact also a final test for the Twitter plugin, after this it is disable time…

So either you will see our new little right column Twitter plugin or you won’t.