Blog # 1 – Tools and Sources

eCommerce and Social Media

Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash

Across centuries, various modes of communication have been central to the survival of society, its culture and history. We’ve seen society move from oral to written; and of course with the emergence of the printing press humankind was able to share its stories far and wide. Fast forward few hundred years, we now have a new kind of communication method brought forth by social media and the evolution of technology. Social media is defined as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content (Benkler, Yochai: 2006). This user-generated content on social media serves many purposes including personal, business and advocacy. For some, social media is a tool to communicate and share their stories and thoughts. For others, social media is an instrument by which they can influence others to buy their products or ideas. Another emergence from technology has been the world of eCommerce. As someone who currently works with Marketplace vendors, I would like to examine the cross section of eCommerce and social media to better understand how social media monitoring tools can be used by eCommerce businesses to generate awareness and sales. As well, I would like to explore couple of sources for news and updates for Marketplace vendors.

When it comes to staying up to date on news related to Marketplace, Teikametrics and MarTechSeries seem to be great sources. Teikametrics is an ad management platform that helps sellers on Amazon and Wal-Mart marketplaces to optimize their online listings. Their connection with industry bigwigs along with their credible resources (blogs, webinars and newsletters) make it beneficial to follow them. Another great source for news as it pertains to the Marketplace landscape is MarTechSeries.com. MarTechSeries “covers marketing technology news, editorial insights and digital marketing trends from around the globe.” (Martechseires.com, 2022).  Again, it would be beneficial to follow them as they are thought leaders within the industry with reliably sourced articles, interviews and events from around the globe.

While Teikametrics and MarTechSeries provide reliable sources of information, it is important to ensure Marketplace businesses utilize social listening tools to monitor their brands and competitors online. As discussed in a post by Hootsuite, social listening “is the process of scanning social media for mentions of your brand or products and conversations related to your brand” (Mikolajczyk, 2021). It can help businesses understand what products their customers love, learn more about their competitors and get a sense of public’s sentiments towards their brands (Mikolajczyk, 2021). Two social media monitoring tools that I believe will be helpful to Marketplace vendors would be Hootsuite and Mentionlytics. Hootsuite allows its users to ”set up unlimited streams of social media content based on mentions, selected keywords, hashtags, or locations. (Lua, n.d). Similarly, Mentionltyics helps to “track mentions [of] Brand and Products, Competitors, [and their] Industry” while allowing its users to manage their brand reputation and grow their sales (Mentionlytics.com, 2022).

I believe these two social media monitoring tools and two sources of news channels would be of great value to eCommerce businesses as it allows them to effectively sell online.

Do you have any suggestions for other sources of news and tools for social media listening designed for eCommerce? What are some of the hurdles you are finding with using such tools and any advice you’d like to share?

References

Gibbs, Sonia. (2022). Module 1:Reivew of Best Practices. BrightSpace. Retrieved From
            https://ontariolearn.desire2learn.com/d2l/le/content/46712/viewContent/2290742/View

Lua, Alfred. (n.d). Are You Listening? The 19 Best Social Media Monitoring Tools.
            Retrieved from https://buffer.com/library/social-media-monitoring-tools/

Martechseires. (2022). About Us. Retrieved from https://martechseries.com/

Mentionltyics. (2022). Homepage. Retrieved from https://www.mentionlytics.com/

Mikolajczyk, Karolina. (2021). How to Use Social Media for Ecommerce (Tips and Examples).
            Retrieved from https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-ecommerce/