Changing E-Retail Marketing Forever: 2015 Social Media 500

Introducing the All-New Internet Retailer 2015 Social Media 500     Ranking America's 500 Largest E-Retailers Based on Social Commerce Sales and Revealing Why Social Media Marketing Is A Game-Changer for E-Retailers If there's one lesson e-retailing marketers should take away from the web sales year just completed, it is this: social media is now revolutionizing the marketing of e-commerce just as the web revolutionized retailing more than a decade ago. It's a game-changing technology, and the research contained in Internet Retailer's all-new 2015 Social Media 500 shows in stark relief that some web merchants understand that and are thriving on social media, while others are lagging behind and losing ground in the newest, fastest-growing and most impactful e-commerce marketing platform. Social Media: A New Requirement for E-Commerce Marketing The voluminous data in the 2015 Social Media 500 clearly reveal that advertising retail brands on social media has suddenly changed from being a luxury for retailers with extra cash to spend to an absolute necessity for all e-retailers looking to grow their businesses. There are three reasons for this: Social networks now command 20% of the time American consumers spend online, according to comScore Inc. Social networks are increasingly segmenting their user bases, giving e-retailers the ability finely target their brand messages in a way that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Facebook—the mother of all social networks—just this month changed its rules to greatly limit free brand promotional messages that Facebook users see on their news feeds. The only way retailers can skirt those limits is to pay Facebook for advertising. This new research from Internet Retailer reveals that many more e-commerce marketers last year began to fully grasp the value of expanding and retaining their customer base through social media content that connects with and influences customers to act. As a result, more e-commerce operators are investing in social media marketing than ever before—upping the digital marketing ante for all e-retailers in the process—according to data in the just–released 2015 Social Media 500. And, the research shows, this investment is social marketing is delivering some impressive growth rates in traffic to retail sites and improved conversion rates as well.     Key Facts from the 2015 Social Media 500 The 2015 Social Media 500 highlights the major trends in the use of social media by 500 pioneering web merchants. As a group, the 500 web merchants ranked as the leaders in social marketing and commerce grew their social footprint dramatically in 2014 as they:     2015 Social 500 Available in Two Formats The exclusive data contained in the 2015 Social Media 500 is presented in two formats designed to meet the different information needs and budgets of e-commerce marketers. The first is a $265 subscription to the Social Commerce component of the Top500Guide.com database, which lets subscribers access three years' worth of complete social media data of all 500 web merchants and create their own custom reports comparing selected or comparable groups of e-retailers on any of the 72 social media and commerce metrics contained in the database. The second is a downloadable 62-page PDF version of the 2015 Social Media 500 priced at just $89. It contains a strategic analysis of all social media data in the 2015 Social Media 500 study plus 13 content-rich tables that provide the key details on each of the 500 social media leaders.                     Copyright ©2014 Vertical Web Media LLC. All Rights Reserved. 125 S. Wacker Drive, Suite 2900, Chicago, IL 60606-4439 All articles are protected by United States copyright and other intellectual property laws and may not be reproduced, rewritten, distributed, re-disseminated, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast, directly or indirectly, in any medium without the prior written permission of Vertical Web Media LLC, Internet Retailer.     View Online  |  Unsubscribe  |  Forward to a Friend  |  Visit InternetRetailer.com