New Study Shows Retailers Turning to Social Media

As you know at SearchMarketingRebel.com we’ve long been advocates of Social Media.  We use social sites like Facebook and Myspace as well as the video sharing sites and article marketing sites for our Search Engine Domination Strategies.  Well it looks like the big boys are finally catching on and implementing Social Media as part of their online strategies.

Below is an except from Internet Retailer, you can read the full report on their site:

The 2009 holiday shopping season was perhaps the roughest in the history of online retailing. The wretched economy caused consumers to rein in spending and conduct more comparison shopping, hunting for the best deals.

Changing consumer behavior throughout 2009, in turn, caused retailers to try new selling and branding techniques, or augment existing ones. Three areas of change included the use of social networking, online video and streamlined purchasing, according to The E-tailing Group Inc.’s annual study of 100 online retailers.

60% of the retailers in the study featured on their e-commerce sites links to social network presences, notes Lauren Freedman, president of the research and consulting firm. Freedman will be speaking at the Internet Retailer Web Design & Usability Conference, Feb. 15-17 in Orlando, FL, in a session entitled Lessons from Holiday 2009.

Right now social is very top of mind for merchants, but it’s an R&D issue to understand how social works, what its role is in driving customer engagement and what it will deliver in return on investment,” Freedman says. “The biggest impact social will have will be on engagement with the brand. I am skeptical about its ability to deliver sales, which in the end is what marketing has to do.”

The study also found that 61% of retailers present video guides—for branding or how-to, for example—throughout their sites. This is up from 49% in 2008.

“Last year there was more use of video at the experiential level from a branding perspective like a fashion show or leveraging YouTube to show how to decorate your house for the holidays, as well as video on product pages,” Freedman says. “Video is a growth area. The customer likes it, it’s not expensive to produce and present, and it gives customers more confidence to buy.”

In conclusion: If you are not using Social Media as part of your online marketing arsenal you are being left behind, it’s not too late but you need to start doing something.  If you are already using Social Media, then now is the time to kick things up a gear and start dominating the search engine results for your market.