The old school method of selling products and services online is fast fading. Traditionally, the process of e-commerce has typically happened in the following sequence:

1. Setup an online website or a store and populate it with applicable product(s) or service(s)

2. Work on organic search ranking for relevant keywords associated with the products or services in the hopes to achieve top search engine rankings so as to be found easily as visitors search

3. In addition or sometimes, as the only way, advertise via PPC and Media Buy campaigns and capture visitors

4. Visitors gained either via organic search or paid search are directed either to the product or service page directly or they are directed to a targeted landing page, where something of value is offered in exchange for their contact information (such as name, email, phone etc.). They are then followed up via email and voice auto-responder campaigns, again, with the goal to eventually convince them that the product or service being offered is worthy of their consideration to buy.

Today, the above mentioned steps, as the only method of sell, is almost non-existent. There is always some element of interactivity beyond the one-way approach that got e-commerce started. Blogging started the interactive revolution and is here to stay. Videos, with the availability of broadband, has become common-place.

Over the last few years, the interactivity has really blossomed. Although not for commerce, people started using the online media to get social. Communities started forming. MySpace kicked off the Social revolution, albeit targeting the young generation. Facebook also started off with the younger generation, but found a way to crack through to reach the wider audience as the place for social networking. Then Twitter came along, as the micro-blogging platform, where one could share the traditional blog thoughts in an easy-to-use 140 character snippet. YouTube became the go-to place for videos. This led to a full-fledged Social Networking revolution, with multiple Social sites spawning – whether for social networking or social bookmarking or other forms of social media. Today, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube (let alone all other networks) are so popular and so widely used that put together, if a Country; would be one of the most populous in the world!

One might think that we have come a long way after the humble internet beginnings of Netscape. Yes we have, although, we are only now getting started. With e-commerce and social media having fully matured in their own worlds, the marriage of e-commerce and social is now in the early stages of giving birth to a new industry. Welcome to new world of Social Commerce!

Social Commerce is fascinating. In the new Social Hub, Sellers won’t sell based on forced pitches, or extensive landing pages, they will sell with s-commerce in mind. The Social Market will be one where Buyers will look to what other buyers say in review sites, what they share as opinion in social networks, what they recommend as social shopping to others, and will seek social rewards for doing so, in the process. Social Commerce Marketplace will break the bounds of traditional commerce and will bring everything in the open. Social Commerce Platforms will form and will help manage the interaction with Buyers and Sellers efficiently. Outsourcing will lead to Social Outsourcing and no longer will people just source help, they will look to social sourcing. Buyers will look more for certainty, and less on haggling and negotiations. Fixed Price shopping would become the norm. Fixed Price Service offers will become common place. Social Commerce today is just starting up and social commerce websites are few and far between, however this is just the beginning. Social Commerce today is where E-commerce was in the early 90′s. The new S-commerce revolution is here.