Shopping from Social Portals? Not Likely!

February 4th, 2010 by Michelle Moore

This week, MediaPost Publications released some study data collected by Choicestream regarding Smartphone use. The first interesting observation was the article’s use of the term “M-commerce,” which I make fun of in another blog post…

Oddly, there was something else in that same article that I also have to poke fun at. Included in the survey done by ChoiceStream was a question about whether or not the sampled users had ever made a purchase through a social networking site.

Is it just me or is this a really “duh” question? They aren’t talking about buying game goodies on Facebook – they are talking about users of Smartphones making serious purchases using their phone, while shopping through a social media service.

The only thing I’m liable to buy on a social media service is membership to something the service offers.

There are two things wrong with this question even being asked. First, it inaccurately supports the mistaken conclusion that a lot of businesses are making – that you can SELL something on a social media network. No, you don’t sell things on Twitter or Facebook or MySpace or anywhere else like that… no one trusts those sites for something like making a credit card purchase – that’s just un-smart. Social media is there for publicizing yourself – branding, PR, damage control, etc. It keeps you in touch with the groundswell and able to react quickly to consumer sentiment and all that… it’s not a place to sell things. A business actively trying to sell products to a consumer directly through a social network will shoot themselves in the pocketbook.

Secondly, we’re talking about a phone… you look up something, you find it, there’s the phone number, you wave your finger and the phone dials and you place your order. Duh.

I’m the number one evangelist for Smartphones changing the way we search – 9 times out of 10 a person with a smartphone will use the phone for a web search instead of sitting at a computer. But unless the purchase is directly related to the phone, or maybe to dinner, I don’t think the average smartphone user will be using their phone to click around and order a 46″ HDTV via Best Buy’s blog.