Online Store: Going social!

Once you’ve set up your Online Store, you can get started with promoting it using social network platforms, such as Google Shopping and Facebook. The Online Store easily integrates into the social networks and enables social interactions in a number of ways, including:

• The ability to add your store into the social networks of your choice.
• Allowing your customers to share the links to your products.
• Supporting a multitude of platforms, such as Facebook, Open Social and VK.com.

In this article, we’ll cover the following great social networking features:

• Facebook stores
• Facebook “Like”, sending and comments
• Google Shopping
• Ask for advice
• Product sharing
• Purchase sharing
• Other social networks
• Measuring social interactions

Facebook stores
You can add your Online Store to your Facebook Page so that your customers can go shopping without leaving their favorite social network. Take a look at this article on how to add your store, as well as some additional functionality: Facebook Stores.

Facebook “Like”, sending links and comments
The Online Store is built to support social sharing, such as Facebook Like buttons and product-link sharing. This means that your customers can “Like” your products or send the product link to their Facebook Timeline.

To enable Facebook Like and Send buttons:

You can add a Facebook comment box for each of your products. To do this:

It is also possible to set up comment moderation. This article on Enabling Comment Moderation has more information.

Google Shopping
If you have a Google AdWords account, you can get started with Google Product Listing Ads. With Google Product Listing Ads, your product ads appear when someone searches for your products on Google. The product information, such as the price and a picture of the product, will be displayed. Customers who click on the ad will be directed straight to your store where they can complete their purchase. You are charged per click – so, only when a customer clicks on the link and goes through to your site.

Take a look at the Google Ads page for more information and to get started.

Ask for advice
An important part of social networking is referrals and recommendations. The ability to allow your customers to ask their network for advice before making a purchase not only advertises your store, but also attracts new customers to your store. Here is how you can enable this feature:

The Ask your friends for advice button is added to each product and is located under the Add to Bag button. When customers click on the link, a Facebook dialog box with the product information opens. Customers can comment on the product and share it on their Timeline for feedback from their friends.

Product sharing
Ecwid supports a number of social sharing buttons including:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Pinterest
• Tumblr
• Google+
• VKontakte

Take a look at the Social Sharing tutorial to get started with adding them to your store.

Purchase sharing
Once a customer has purchased something from your store, they can share the link on their social networks.

To enable this feature:

Other social networks
If you use VK.com or Open Social, visit this page for information about how to integrate your store into those social networks.

Measuring social interactions

Web Tracking
You can measure your customers’ social interactions (such as number of tweets and likes per customer) on networks such as Google + and Facebook via Google Analytics. This webpage has all the steps and information you’ll need to get started: Social Interactions – Web Tracking (ga.js).

Feature Reference
Using Google Analytics, you can also collect metrics on customers’ social network behavior, such as how they got to your store, and the social interactions each user has with your individual products. Take a look at the Social Interactions – Feature Reference article for more information.