The Influence of Social Media on E-Commerce Sties

Abstract

This thesis addresses the influence that social media sites have on the behavior of online customers (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.). The thesis combines information from three different approaches that study how social media sites are used by online stores to help increase their sales: 1) Google Analytics; 2) Crazy Egg; and 3) an online Survey. Firstly, Google Analytics was used to collect data from three online sources. The data was used to determine the path that customers took to arrive at the online stores. Using data only from those customers who completed a transaction. The researcher found that revenue generated from search engines was approximately four times higher than from typed URLs, online ads, as well as Twitter and Facebook. The researcher also found that revenue generated from Twitter traffic was increasing. Secondly, Crazy Egg was used to collect information on event actions (e.g., button presses) that generated more webpage specific details. In particular, we were interested in knowing how often customers clicked on an online store’s social media buttons (e.g., on Facebook and Twitter). The Crazy Egg data indicated that customers only used the online store’s social media buttons (i.e., Facebook and Twitter) about 1% of the time. Finally, an online survey was conducted in order to capture the opinions and attitudes of customers who used social media, including their tendencies to follow stores online, and the frequency of their visits to the store’s social media sites. We found that all participants used at least one social media site. Approximately 69% of the participants followed stores online using social media (Facebook and Twitter being the most common) and they used these sites to look for offers, find product information, and read reviews from other customers and the online stores’ owners. The survey also showed that 47% of participants reported that they had used social media buttons while visiting an online store, which was much higher than the results generated by Crazy Egg.