Marketers prefer Facebook to other social sites

As of April this year, Facebook was marketers' favourite site, with 56.8 per cent of the largest US online retailers maintaining some kind of a presense on the site. It was followed by video-sharing website YouTube, with 41.4 per cent of retailers having a presence, and MySpace, with 28.6 per cent.

At the time the survey was carried out, only a fifth of US online retailers were on Twitter, although its phenomenal growth this year the percentage is sure to have increased.

The research has been compiled by eMarketer as part of its Social Commerce on Facebook, Twitter and Retail Sites report. The company says that the addition of interactive features that allow brands to communicate with their 'fans' have helped make it popular. The introduction of a Facebook 'virtual currency' and new 'virtual storefront' applications where users can purchase and send items without leaving Facebook.

Jeffrey Grau, senior analyst at eMarketer and the report's author, said: "The stickiness of social networks is not lost on retailers. Leading companies know that they cannot afford to wait for customers to visit their sites. They need to place their virtual storefronts where their customers congregate. This implies the nature of ecommerce is shifting from a transactional experience to a social one."

This article was first published on revolutionmagazine.com

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