weeks - 8:08 pm on Apr 7, 2011 (gmt 0)

If there was anything to FB in terms of driving traffic that sold product, the Facebook Marketing Forum on WW would be screaming. It's not. What's wrong with the web pros here? Nothing.

All sorts of merchants are experimenting on Facebook. Best Buy has set up a shop on the social-networking site. Home Depot gives special offers to people who “like” its page. Levi’s added a “like” button. But does this mean Facebook is en route to becoming a major e-commerce player? Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru says the answer is a resounding “No." [blogs.wsj.com...]

In spite of the fact that hundreds of millions of people around the world have Facebook accounts, the ability of the social network to drive revenue for eCommerce businesses continues to remain elusive. eBusiness professionals in retail collectively report little direct or indirect benefit from Facebook, and social networks overall trail far behind other customer acquisition and retention tactics like paid search and email in generating a return on investment. For some companies and brands, Facebook promises to support branding and awareness (i.e., "top of the (marketing) funnel") efforts, but for most eBusiness companies in retail, Facebook is unlikely to correlate directly to near-term sales. A few pockets of success, however, have surfaced, and a cottage industry of vendors who can support these programs will inevitably burgeon. [forrester.com...]

A social-network presence, she found, was less effective at customer acquisition and retention than e-mail and paid search.

Facebook’s problem, she said, is that few people go there for shopping-related activities. “You go to Facebook to find other people, not to find a product,” Mulpuru said in an interview.

My recommendation is to post your emails on FB, your website and Twitter. Use a service that does it automatically. Think about how your message appears across all of these channels. Then stick to your knitting and don't waste anymore time with FB.