Brenton Chin's Blog

A big issue for social networking sites is how to monetize websites. Sites who have huge followings that consume so much content must find a way to present advertising content that will be engaging with viewers and not distract them too much from the functions of the site.

Since July of this year, Facebook has been testing a “buy” button in their News Feed to allow Facebook users to purchase goods featured in ads or posts directly from Facebook. The company that will be processing the payments is a small startup called “Stripe”, who offers a similar service to Paypal.

It will be very interesting to see if Facebook users, firstly, react positively to this change. And if they do, will they actually use the “buy  button” to make purchases? This is a relatively new idea, although it is important to note that Twitter is using the same company to experiment with a buy button of their own.

Personally, I do not see myself purchasing products from Facebook as I am not that big of an online shopper, nor do I yet trust making a purchase from within Facebook. I do think this idea does have potential. A lot of my friends shop online, and click on advertisements on Facebook.

A company that I see frequently on Facebook ads s “Jacks Threads” who sells men’s apparel. I think companies that would benefit from this feature, are ones that rely on customers making impulse decisions. Clothing especially, is something that you see online, and may make an impulse decision to purchase. A company that I see frequently on Facebook ads is “Jacks Threads” who sells men’s apparel. By having the buy button, it reduces the steps required to make a purchase, which makes an impulse decision easier to make.

When the feature is launched it’ll be interesting to see how well-recieved it is. Hopefully this will have positive implications on the way that digital marketers reach their audience base.

See below, the “buy button”.