A new report from Hitwise is showing that as more time online is spent inside social networks, e-commerce sites are receiving less traffic from search (both natural and paid) and more from social networks. They found that for UK online retailers, the amount of traffic they received from paid search listings fell from 10.1% in March 2008 to 8.9% in March 2009; meanwhile the amount of traffic these sites are receiving from social networks has increased from 5.2% to 7.1% over the same time period.
A similar shift has happened from webmail providers to social networks; whereas a year ago the traffic they generated for e-commerce sites was roughly equal, Hitwise now reports that social networks are generating 58.3% more traffic that webmail providers.
With the UK (and the rest of the world) in a downturn, margins for online retailers are being squeezed, and reducing the cost per acquisition has never been more important. Companies are now showing that it’s possible to generate effective traffic from the social networks, which if done right is far cheaper than paid search; ASOS, the online fashion retailer, is receiving over 13% of its traffic from Facebook alone. Brands which get this right will be have a cheaper CPA and better margins than their competitors, giving an essential edge in this climate.
We’ve been selected as one of the twenty start-ups to go to the London Mini-Seedcamp on 20th April. We’re really excited about this - as well as a great chance to showcase what we do, we’ll get a full day of pitching, mentoring and advice from a world class selection of entrepreneurs and industry experts.
Facebook have been making a number of additions to their ‘public profiles’ recently (what used to be called fan pages); the latest of which is to add viral invites to pages, as All Facebook report. This means that a fan of a public profile can send direct invites to their friends, similar to applications. The effect of this won’t be dramatic, as if people really wanted to share a page with their friends they could do it with the share feature, however this could be a stronger call to action for users; and it’s certainly something which brand owners of pages have been calling for.
This Friday it’s Red Nose day 2009, in support of Comic Relief, a charity campaign which, in over 20 years, has raised over £500m to support projects across the globe, from helping disadvantaged young people in the UK, to supporting those in dire poverty or suffering from HIV and AIDs in third world countries.
They teamed up with iPlatform to allow Facebook users to donate their status’s to help spread the word about Red Nose Day this week - the app has launched today. Click here to go to the app and donate your status!
Brave New Talent is an innovative new social media recruitment service which connects under-graduates to companies they’re interested in working for. They are also leading up the search for One Young World, an event in 2010 where 1,500 25 year olds from across the globe will come together to discuss the future.
We’ve been lucky enough to work with Brave New Talent throughout their development, helping with their social network strategy, and integrating the whole of their site with the iPlatform - allowing users to access all functionality within their social networks.
The iPlatform has saved BraveNewTalent.com time and money. The simple solution integrates our technology to the major social networks on the web. This means we can focus on building a larger user base internationally by tapping into the world’s largest communities. It has been a pleasure to work with Josh and Dan as well as the rest of the iPlatform team. These guys are true social media evangelists. I would highly recommend using their solution to make your business more social.
Lucian Tarnowski, Founder and CEO BraveNewTalent.com
Brave New Talent inside Facebook, through the iPlatform
A few weeks ago the Facebook Developer Garage organised a charity hackathon for Comic Relief. You can see more information at www.comicrelief-hackathon.com. It was kindly sponsored by Everycity, Microsoft and Adknowledge.
iPlatform teamed up with Wakari and Mo.Jo to produce the ‘Funny for Money’ application, which ended up winning the judges vote. The app has a simple mechanism for users to upload jokes, and encourage their friends to vote for their jokes by buying digital red noses, donating money to Comic Relief as they go.
According to a new Nielsen Online report, Facebook now has a 47% reach in the UK, the Guardian reports. Together, member communities (made up of blogs and social networks) are the fourth most popular web destination in the UK - ahead of personal email. They’ve grown over 10% in the last year.
However, UK penetration is dwarfed by Brazil - the Google owned social network Orkut has a 70% penetration there, the highest social network penetration of any of the countries in the Nielsen survey.
Brazil is also top in time spent on these sites - 23% of all time spent (1 in 4 minutes), followed closely by the UK with 17% of all time spent online (1 in 6 minutes).
This shows how far social networks have come in terms of personal use - however also points out that despite the seemingly world dominating growth of Facebook, it’s not the total solution if you’re aiming for a global audience.
