Executive Outlook: Selling Over Social Media

By Charlie Lawhorn, senior VP business development, Stibo Systems

Social media has caused an explosion in new ways to market and sell products. But these new channels have introduced new complexities in managing product information — and new ways for it all to go wrong.

Many businesses have been quick to jump on the social media bandwagon, starting to promote products to their online followers. According to Nielsen, Twitter's footprint has expanded in the first half of 2009, reaching 10.7 per cent of all active Internet users in June. Businesses are wising up to the benefits of Facebook groups, video content on YouTube and the power of bloggers. There is great potential for marketing through these channels, helping significantly increase online sales by targeting a large user group.

The popularity of social media channels can be a blessing, but marketers should also be aware of the dangers or providing so much product information over so many different channels. If keeping data consistent between catalog, Web and store causes problems, how do you even begin to deal with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as well?