Social networking site, Facebook, is used by more than 350 million people to share personal and business with friends, colleagues, customers and prospects. The social media giant will soon be turning six and has not ceased to attract members with demographics that could serve e-tailers well in terms of extending market reach and increasing branding.

Clearly, social media sites are amongst the top referring sites for many marketers particularly retailers, which then leads us to the question, is Facebook e-commerce for you?

Some of you may think it’s risky business, however, it can also represent an invaluable source of marketing for your business.

Social media merging with online shopping is definitely not a bad idea, particularly since the latest Nielsen figures tell us consumers spent 5 and a half hours on social media during 2009.  Users are used to spending a lot of time in their favorite social network, hence integrating your business into these channels will be seen as a perfectly natural integration of the two.

Social network users are feeling more confident, thus increasing their level of participation and interaction on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and the likes and therefore, retailers are finding in these, a solution to drive more customers and monetize more.

Choosing to leverage Facebook business options can provide a new vehicle  for your customers and potential prospects to interact. Furthermore, it can help you acquire new customers as your Facebook fans spread the word about your business to their friends and network.

More reading www.cnn.com.

The conference, which was dedicated to e-Commerce in the consumer electronics sector and the shift between online versus offline consumption, opened up with Antonio Besana, GFK’s Director, giving a brief sum up on the latest findings and emerging e-commerce trends.

He explained how there’s an increasing number of consumers who are now shopping online in a more frequent manner, which is resulting in that the Internet remains the fastest growing sales channel.

e-Commerce itself rose significantly in 2008, a growth which is primarily attributable to the fact that more people are shopping on the net than ever before. In 2008, the number of online purchases rose by 12% to 29.5 million out of an estimated spend of 252 million euros in Europe, according to a study by casaleggio.it.

Amedeo Guffanti (see image below), 77Agency Partner and Business Strategist, intervened by explaining that despite the economic crisis the world is facing today, e-Commerce is proving to be a great opportunity for branding and having online presence, especially for companies that had never before considered the Internet as an alternative marketing strategy, making particular reference to the fashion and luxury goods sector. Some brands 77 is currently working with that have decided to tap into the online world include Athlete’s World, Miss Sixty and Dimensione Danza.

In conclusion, we can say that today’s crisis has helped businesses expand their horizons and marketing strategies. Some more than others have in fact realized that the integration of the different channels- online, offline, mobile- serve as great contribution to improving customer loyalty, client interaction and the overall availability of products and services. In this sense, it is of great importance companies begin jumping on the bandwagon in order to survive the economic downturn and seek for innovative, non-traditional marketing methods.

It’s a new technology that allows website publishers, advertisers and creative agencies to enrich new or existent video content into becoming incredibly interactive in order to drive more sales and leads.

Coull Engage makes more of existing videos or you can design your media campaigns from scratch and give e-commerce a whole new meaning. Coull makes your videos as interactive as you want them to be by making as many products or characters clickable so you can get the best out of your advertising.

According to Coull, an engagement rate for interactive video ads of 29% was observed in some leading brand’s campaigns which have adopted the Coull video technology. Some of the starring brands include MSN, Renault, Bebo and Lycos.

Take a look at the Nike ACG video below as a sample interactive video that uses Coull:

As you can see, each item of clothing and accessory featured in the video has been assigned its own tag (marked with brackets).  Users can click on the product of their choice and a separate window pops up with the featured product, containing the product description and call-to-action. A further click will then take you straight to the product page on the brand’s actual site, in this case, the Nike Store.

The Coull Dashboard provides you with a real-time monitoring, tracking and measuring of your ads performance where you can create, upload, modify and set parameters to your video.

If exploited correctly, Coull could be a great affiliate marketing tool. It’s also a great product placement tool for brands to engage with the right target audience, hence drive sales to your website.

Regardless of where your video campaign is placed- websites, microsites, social network profiles-  Coull will always embed the tracking and reporting options that enable you to keep track of your online campaign at all times.

Advertising Age’s White Paper presents us with a complete study on recession-time case studies along with some of the most iconic online marketing campaigns that have succeeded during downturns from all industry sectors. Why am I saying this? Just so we can keep our chin up a bit and realize that there’s also a good side to the story.

Yes, it is indeed a dull period, however, we can say the Internet has been a soothing instrument for us and companies themselves in times of economic suppression especially in the midst of the Holiday Season. As Mike Sachoff from WebProNews puts it, holiday shopping has become a bright spot in the woeful economy.

According to comScore, through the first days of this year’s holiday shopping season up to Dec. 7th, online spending has reached up to $15.63 billion dollars. Just between December 1st and December 7th sales summed up to $4.45 billion- 7% more than last year.

“The online holiday shopping season has picked up noticeably since Thanksgiving as consumers have given in to the holiday spirit – and very attractive retailer discounts,” said ComScore chairman Gian Fulgoni, in a statement. “While this growth is certainly a positive development in this tough retail season, it also needs to be put into perspective.

This sudden awakening in spending is definitely good news and it’s bringing us all a little bit of hope regardless of the current situation. Not only that, but websites are becoming more interactive and user-friendly since Internet usage has increased.

Multiple testing of online stores has become critical for retailers. Today, most online stores have added rich-media content like videos, photos and made their sites more interactive and less complicated for users to enjoy hassle-free online purchases.

To read more about comScore’s Holiday shopping research visit www.comscore.com.

Consumers do still not all trust online shopping, reports

MSNBC.com. 77 alerts marketers that this report should shift the focus of advertising from e-commerce newbies to experienced online buyers. The report says that the people who are not shopping online yet, probably never will. E-Commerce will grow nonetheless, since current online shoppers will continue to buy more products online.

In an extreme point of view, this means that marketers should from now on basically ignore the part of the online community that has never bought anything online yet. Instead, most e-commerce advertising should be directed at the online community that has experience buying items online. Channels to do this at would include the online shops themselves, but also, for a broader range, for example payment method sites. If you can single out the existing users of e-commerce, and then grab the attention of people interested in your brand, you will be steps ahead of the competition.