Facebook Shopping

I read the article “Facebook Shopping Apathy? Smart Plays On F-Commerce.”  It is an article about Facebook-based companies shutting down due to lack of sales.  The article talks about how companies that tried to bring the product to the consumer have failed.  People who don’t want flowers aren’t going to buy flowers just because there is a Facebook page available for it, same goes for any other product out there.  If someone wants to buy something they normally will go to a website that provides that product, not a social media website.

However, there are companies that are incredibly successful with their Facebook innovations.  These companies include Ticketmaster and Jet Blue.  Instead of putting the product on a social media shelf, they instead allow users to brag about products and effectively make the consumer also a marketer.  By allowing Facebook users to directly connect to their own website and allowing ‘friends’ to like, and share, links these companies have created a network of people who talk about their products and bring their friends with them, creating more business.  For instance Jet Blue has made it much easier to organize group activities over Facebook, which allows people some organization when planning a spring break vacation.

I really agree with the idea behind this article, that in order to sell products over a social media platform you cannot just bring the product to the consumer.  You have to bring the consumer to the product by allowing people to brag about a new hairbrush, tell people the Blue Man Group concert they went to was the best, or to create an event for a flight to Cancun for spring break.