Recently, Twitter announced on its blog that it is testing a way to discover and buy products directly on Twitter.
It has selected a few partners for the limited beta, and it isn't very widespread yet. While we have noted similar rollouts before here at SocialFlow, this is again worth highlighting because it shows how social media is taking center stage as a discovery platform, and it follows logically that sometimes users are going to want to buy the things they discover.
This is in line with Twitter's move to change its layout, offer expanded media in-line and now, apply a set of easy-to-execute actions to these offerings. So, while this move has been tried and telegraphed for a while, it should signal a commitment to shorten the process of getting from the "top-of-the-funnel" discovery elements of social to the "intent-based" check-out sections of the funnel. In a very short time, the concept of a funnel won't even apply in any rational sense, and any user can be counted as a buyer or a willing participant for your brand - given that certain conditions are present.
This opportunity isn't without strings attached. As with anything, there is a cost of doing business - and in this case, a penalty for doing business the wrong way. Because the context of a user is going to determine the PROBABILITY that they will interact with what you're trying to share, the platforms are going to have to advocate on behalf of the user much more forcefully. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are openly informing marketers with the changes they are making to their APIs. By allowing more fine control over who can see a message, they are signaling the requirement that marketers not blast way at users without regard for the experience the users of these platforms are having. The platforms want you to minimize your collateral damage, and to do some in both the earned and paid approaches to social media marketing.
It makes a lot of sense to also assume that if you make the experience worse for the users by being off-topic and ill-timed, the algorithms which act as the gate between you and your audience will become hostile to your chances of using social media to its full marketing potential. These platforms are not going to want to give wide reach to brands which have a track record of diluting the social experience and take up the spots in the feeds which could go to brands which are showing success and can likely continue paying the platforms for the marketing reach afforded to them.
This opens up a lot of opportunity to gain ground if you can get this right before your competitors. By marketing in such a way that minimizes noise, targets willing converts to your message, and spending less (and hopefully nearly nothing) on extraneous "fluff" metrics which do not help your bottom line - you can see outsized returns from social media marketing.