Does Social Sharing Drive Sales?

What is Social Sharing?

Social sharing is the broadcasting of thoughts and activities on a social profile, and unlike other social media “fads” that come and go, social sharing is a major behavioral shift that is here to stay.

How Social Sharing Works:

Web acts of sharing on social networks have become a form of currency.  When someone shares a great deal on Facebook with their friends, it encourages others to share back or purchase.

With Facebook, for example, social sharing options include posting content to your own wall, a friend’s wall, to a group or in a private message. It also allows the user to include comments on the item being shared. Social sharing is a great way to drive traffic back to your site.

Just this morning, I received a message on Facebook from one of my friends who shares a common problem of taming frizzy hair in humid climates.  Instantly, upon reading, I was influenced to purchase.  Notice that it didn’t matter how much it cost.  I was instantly converted to a customer because her recommendation meant more to me than any advertisement, sale, or price.

I had never even heard about My Deva Curl before, but I instantly became a loyal customer just because of a friend’s recommendation. If I find that the product works well, I will more than likely share my purchase with other friends.  I’m sure you can see from this example how social sharing is a very powerful tool for ecommerce stores.

There have been alot of questions in the ecommerce world about social sharing and sales revenue, but there haven’t really been any hard numbers confirming if it does.  We all know that the more engagement you get on social networks, the better your website will be recognized on search engines.  But have you ever wondered how much a share is really worth to you?

AddShoppers analyzed $5,000,000 worth of ecommerce transactions from thousands of retailers on the AddShoppers platform.  They broke down their findings and put it in an easy-to-read infographic for your viewing pleasure:

What You Need to Know About Social Sharing:

• The average tweet is worth $1.62 to online retailers.

• Every pin drives an average of $1.25 in revenue to an online retailer.

• The majority of products shared on twitter are electronics

• The average online order influenced by a tweet is $181.37.

• Product shares via email have the highest likelihood of turning into a purchase.

• More people share apparel products than any other product category.
• The average online order influenced by Tumblr is $200.33, the highest of any social networking site.