Social eCommerce

Chapter 1. The Social Media Landscape

It’s impossible to list every social network that exists. New ones are popping up all the time. Some of them fail quickly and disappear, while others fail slowly and linger for years. The sites that are on top right now were at one time niche networks that spent a lot of time in the second tier before overtaking their rivals. Within the span of only a few years, the mighty have fallen and even mightier have risen to take their place. Social media is a volatile industry.

This chapter is intended to categorize social networks not based on size, but on their value to you as someone who is selling something online. The smaller and emerging social networks are almost certainly a waste of your time and money—from a business perspective, anyway. From a personal perspective, feel free to explore the Web and sign up for whatever interests you. Making money off of social media participation is a completely different game.

Tier 1 Social Networks

If you have limited resources, then don’t concern yourself with smaller social networks; just concentrate on the sites that are actually going to make money for you. The three sites explained in the following subsections are the most important now and in the near future, though each of them is good for something different. If you can branch out to all of them, great; if not, then pick the one that will have the most benefit to you and begin to map out your strategy. If you aren’t sure which site to concentrate on, ...