Facebook’s ‘Want’ Social Button To Socialise eCommerce or Commercialise Social Networking?

Retailers seem to hunger for more Facebook connection these days. Last month, the whole Silicon Valley was intrigued about the rumoured new social buttons similar to the social networking site’s ‘Like’ social button. The anticipation for those buttons will soon come to an end after Facebook formed a significant partnership with eBay which everyone hopes would be the start of the implementation of the ‘Want’ and ‘Own’ buttons.

Clickz reported that eBay-owned GSI Commerce and its 180 major clients that include household names like Bath & Body Works, Calvin Klein, and American Eagle Outfitters will soon be able to gain access to social buttons. eBay has around 100,000 clients who use the online auction site’s e-Commerce platform.

Business retail will soon be deeply immersed into Facebook’s ‘socialised’ universe. Despite the ongoing criticism regarding Facebook’s share scare, the optimism for further expansion remains upbeat. eBay customers can soon share their online shopping experiences with their friends once they click the ‘Want’ and ‘Own’ buttons. Well, Facebook seemed to have learned quite a few lessons from its failed Beacon project. This time, the social networking giant is giving its users the option to share what they like, want, or own to other Facebook users. Well, there’s no escaping Facebook unless you quite using Facebook or any of its related applications. Many internet users can be impulsive and most likely to immediately push those social buttons once they appear.

How the New Social Buttons Affect Marketing Strategy

According to social media marketing experts, once customers enter a retailer’s website via their Facebook account, the new buttons’ click data can be accessible to both the social networking site and the vendor. The data will then be utilised for positioning offers on a merchant’s site. This methodology of distributing such data is pretty similar to what retailers have already experienced with Facebook’s other social buttons. ‘Want’ and ‘Own’ are not the only ones that will soon appear on people’s Facebook pages. New social buttons such as ‘Reading’, ‘Watching’, and ‘Listening’ will soon be displayed. Once this happens, marketers can explore the full-blown potential of using Facebook for marketing purposes. There will be an unprecedented massive data sharing between Facebook and its media and retail partners on a social media scale. This innovation by Facebook allows merchants to effectively target marketing offers to their intended audience.

According to Clickz, Wanttt.com, a company who also developed similar ‘Want’ button for its 230 clients have seen a rather rosy prospect for Facebook’s retail partners to seize valuable marketing opportunities brought about by this change. Sharper Image, one of Wannttt.com’s clients, reported a five times higher conversion rate for ‘Wanters’ than the non-Wanters. This opens an enormous volume of opportunities for marketers. Social media marketing aims to build a campaign strategy based on a customer’s intent. There’s no better way of gauging the intent of a use than the ‘Want’ button. This method would probably have more accuracy in pinpointing what consumers ‘really’ want.

This innovation really reinvents the idea of social networking. Socialisation of eCommerce is truly quite a different approach to marketing. Would Facebook remain true to being a genuine social networking site or will it speed up its transformation of becoming a commercial hub?

There’s no black and white answer to that question. Much of what Facebook is doing is in grey. As Facebook evolves, two things can happen. Facebook could either socialise eCommerce or commercialise social networking.