Google Buys Facebook?!@#

Okay, so Google didn’t actually buy Facebook (not that I would mind if they did since I bought Facebook shares on opening day). What Google recently acquired is a company called Wildfire Interactive, that lets clients build and manage social media ad campaigns. It’s known that people aren’t adopting Google+ as widely as they’d hoped for (when’s the last time you went on on it?). Google has been trying to achieve social media stickiness holy grail that Facebook has managed to build, despite its Street performance and despite its illusive privacy policies.

With this recent transaction, Google is now able to sell social advertising alongside Google Adwords and other products such as Google+, YouTube, Facebook Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest. With this type of presence, Google will not need to buy Facebook, nor will they need to pull users from other social sites to its own.

As we mentioned in a previous post, “Facebook for ecommerce,” social media is the ideal platform for engaging with and acquiring customers. Because the interest groups are self-defined and selected, it’s an easy way to target your niche audience. And, by being part of the dialog, ecommerce businesses can quickly become thought leaders by sharing product knowledge, industry expertise and solid advice and customer support.

There’s been a bevy of social media interactive agency buyouts of late. Salesforce.com bought Buddy Press, Oracle bought Virtue and Collective Intellect (social media monitoring). It’s tough to keep up with the proliferation of social media outlets, especially if that means logging in to each one to post/reply/monitor. Tools like Wildfire and other social media dashboards offer a one-stop login to manage one’s social presence. The ability to manage social media from a single portal is a powerful tool for ecommerce store operators who often run all aspects of the business (you know who you are).

We here at eCommerceSystems are always trying to find ways to add hours to any given day. One of the places we can squeeze a few precious minutes is by using integrated social marketing tools. Since there are far too many to list here, check out Ken Burbary’s Social Media Monitoring Wiki to find one that suits your business needs. Many also have apps that let you manage social media from your smartphone. Tell us about your favorites and why you like them.

By: Shirley Tan