According to Richrelevance recent infographic "Who's driving shopping traffic for retail sites" Pinterest is the social network which delivers highest value. Pinterest presents the highest AOV (Average Order Value) and Facebook highest conversion rates. Twitter is behind on every metric presented in the traffic.
The question behind such remarkable figures is are these metrics relevant both in terms of "Purpose of Touchpoint" and in terms of "Customer Experience?
Purpose
The answer is inevitably "no". If we consider the characteristics of each network, Facebook, Pinterest & Twitter are not there for the same purposes and same goals.
- Facebook is where interactions and recommendations from peers take place and from which people are more likely to follow the advise of their friends.
- Twitter is still an "Innovator" and "Early adopters" network where people look for relevant pieces of information on the topics they favour but not for advice to shop online.
- Pinterest is a different network with a major emphasis on visuals and emotional triggers. People are in a shopping mall where if your visuals are of poor quality your conversion rates will never explode. Furthemore, the people visiting Pinterest are also of different social background with higher education degrees and higher purchasing power.
So each network has a different population with different expectations. Everyone in it’s right place.
Customer Experience
It doesn’t mean that you must choose one for another. If you consider that for each network you have typical profiles than by using Customer Journey mapping techniques you can consider each of the network as a source of acquisition to the e-commerce platform, or a touchpoint for awareness. If you use it intelligently one social network can support the other. It’s much more complex then focusing on one touch point and we could discuss this much further.
Take away
- Understand who are the customers on each network and what makes them tick – emotional drivers and engagement rules
- Create synergies between each touchpoint
- Make sure your offers support the format of the social network you engage on
- If your customers aren’t there then conversion rate will be null whatever the network
