While we have all accepted and adjusted to the fact that Facebook is an essential part of being an ecommerce merchant, the world’s most popular social networking site ups the ante in its ever increasing role in online business. Paul Chaney, in an article for Practical Ecommerce, writes about Facebook’s quest to become the preferred homepage of the Internet public and its effect on ecommerce merchants. According to Chaney, Facebook is among the top three sites that average consumers visit when they go online. Quoting a report from the TechCrunch and The Wall Street Journal, Chaney writes that “Facebook is split-testing a subset of its users, with a blue bar across the top of the page when they login, asking that they make Facebook their homepage.” This option will be rolled out in the next couple of weeks but according to the article, already there are some six percent of Internet users who already have Facebook as their homepage. This may be of some cause for alarm for another Internet giant, Google, but for ecommerce merchants this move also has its significant implications:
1. It reiterates the importance of establishing a Facebook presence. Notice how almost all ecommerce sites include a link to their own Facebook page. A Facebook account brings you closer to your customer base and establishes a connection with prospective customers. With Facebook applications like Payvment and ShopTab, you can also sell directly from the site.
2. SEO can lose some of its star power. At the dawn of ecommerce, SEO was king. Nowwith Facebook changing the game and attempting web domination, SEO may soon find itself out of the spotlight.
3. Facebook optimization becomes a must. Facebook’s response to Google’s PageRank is EdgeRank: an algorithm designed to determine what content is shared by users in news feeds. Although not as sophisticated as the former, Facebook’s dominant presence could soon spawn a new ecommerce industry wherein Facebook optimization is vital.
From just some social networking site to, now to THE website, Facebook is proving that it is not just a social fad. As an ecommerce merchant, it should be noted that Facebook is definitely one of the sites to watch out for in the near future.