While social media may not be a significant direct referrer of traffic to e-commerce websites, it does have an influence on product discovery and purchase decisions, according to a pair of studies. Walker Sands’ “2014 Future of Retail Study” finds that almost 1 in 5 consumers claim to have discovered a product through Pinterest, while YouTube videos have influenced a purchase at least once for 53% of respondents. A survey from Social Media Link, meanwhile, indicates that about 2 in 3 social media users trust the product and service recommendations they find on Facebook.
That’s a slightly higher percentage than trust blogs (63%), retail websites (63%), Pinterest (56%) and YouTube (51%), though it’s unclear whether or not those results are confined to users of each channel. Read the rest at MarketingCharts.
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