A recent study by ClickZ News found that businesses are spending much more heavily on social media in 2012 compared to 2011. Facebook advertising is the big winner compared to the other social media platforms and is becoming fairly mainstream.

Facebook  has managed to get more targeted and to build broader reach. It allows businesses to interact with customers and create viral marketing campaigns, and these are things that are definitely coming up in conversation rates.

Facebook advertising is a great way to promote products and services to new and existing clients. Running Facebook ads simultaneously with daily deals, flash sales or special promotions in your Facebook store is a key practice for any business who wants to increase sales and fan engagement.

Zibaba’s Social Commerce Platform offers a complete solution to do just that: Promote, sell and advertise on Facebook.

Once you easily set up a daily deal or special promotion in your Facebook store, you can
advertise this offer on Facebook with Zibaba’s Ads Direct. You will find several clear benefits:

• SIMPLE: Easy-to-use interface which enables you to set up Facebook ad campaigns within a few clicks
• EFFECTIVE: Accurately target the right audience for a successful campaign
• INSIGHTFUL: Increase ROI and CTR with real-time analytics
• PROFITABLE: Maximize your advertising budget and increase sales

It makes sense that businesses are taking a closer look at what Facebook has to offer from an advertising perspective. If you haven’t looked yet into how you can grow your business and maximize your presence in the world’s largest social network, this is clearly the time to do so.

Senior  marketers agree that companies can gain competitive advantage by leveraging social media, and that social media enables businesses to be more successful.

Considering that social commerce on Facebook is expected to be worth $34 billion by 2015, there’s no better time than the present to increase your company’s presence on Facebook.

Zibaba’s social commerce platform is the only solution today which enables you to PROMOTE, SELL and ADVERTISE on Facebook.

Zibaba enables you to easily:

• Create your customized Facebook store
• Promote your store using daily deals, flash sales, fan-only discounts and more
• Advertise on Facebook  to new and existing customers
• Recruit and manage social affiliates to widen your social network
• Maximize and optimize sales and fan engagement

It is with great pleasure that we share with you We R Interactive’s new shop, powered by Zibaba.

We R Interactive decided to open, with the help of Zibaba, an F-Commerce storefront for their successful virtual Facebook game  ”I AM PLAYR”. The shop sells physical Nike merchandise for fans of the online game. 

Oli Madgett, co-founder of We R Interactive commented “Through the sale of real-world Nike branded River Park FC shirts and team scarves we’re further blurring the boundaries between the virtual football world of I AM PLAYR and real-life football”.  You can visit the store here.

The opening of the store was covered at Econsultancy, The Next Web, Cynopsis: Digital, The Drum and iMedia Connection.

With the holiday shopping season behind us, online retailers are looking towards 2012 and the opportunities for increasing revenue this year.

A key action item on most online retailers’ lists for 2012 is social shopping. In 2011, social networking, led by Facebook, broke the tipping point. With over 800 million users, Facebook is racing towards its 1 billionth user. Beyond its number of users, a second and no less important statistic is the amount of time each user spends on Facebook. Americans spend an average of 6.9 hours per month on social networks, with three minutes out of every four minutes on social networks spent on Facebook (and one minute out of every five minutes spent online on Facebook), according to comScore.

With the growth of Facebook, it’s clear that the social network is now a social platform. One of the activities best suited to this new social platform is commerce. From the results we started seeing in 2011 — which will only grow in 2012 — here are four reasons why your brand should add social commerce in 2012:

1. Strong conversion rates: With Facebook leading the internet in terms of time spent on-site, it’s no surprise that the Facebook storefronts we work with are seeing up to 4 percent conversion rates driven by strong user engagement. Historically, brick-and-mortar retailers said that it’s all about “location, location, location.” Well in 2012, that location includes Facebook.

Facebook isn’t the only social game in town, however. Retailers should be experimenting with all available social commerce solutions in order to maximize conversion rates while offering consumers the best way to shop online. Twitter has proven to be an effective marketing vehicle for many online retailers, and given the importance of Google AdWords to so many online retailers, Google+  is a platform that must be tested. LinkedIn is another social platform which should be mined for marketing opportunities, particularly for B-to-B businesses.

2. Ease of sharing/getting recommendations: In addition to the significant amount of time users spend on Facebook, the inherently social nature of the platform also contributes to the strong performance it delivers. The ability to shop with friends without having to physically be together is a big advantage of social commerce. By “Liking,” “Sharing” and “Commenting,” friends help make shopping easier and more fun. And when another friend happens to be interested in making a similar purchase, a quick review of their Facebook Wall — complete with recommendations from friends — makes that purchase decision easier without having to pick up the phone and solicit advice.

3. Group buying and other social commerce opportunities: A natural extension of the ability to shop with friends remotely is the ability to group buy with friends. Advanced by Groupon, group buying is a great way to gain a discount by providing a retailer with bulk sales. Friends with similar likes and interests are only one click away on Facebook, so it’s easy to complete a group purchase via Facebook. Couponing via Facebook is another effective marketing vehicle to help convert prospects who have expressed an interest in your products through liking, sharing and commenting.

4. Ad targeting: One of the aspects that makes Facebook unique is the ability to show your affinity towards something — e.g., a school, a place, a company, a product, an organization, a cause, etc. Since users frequently go to Facebook to show their affinity for the things they support and believe in, targeting based on that information comes naturally.

By targeting ads on Facebook based on users who are inclined to be interested in your products — e.g., fashion groups for an online clothing retailer or sporting groups for a sporting goods retailer — retailers are more likely to be engaging users who will convert. It’s easy to experiment on Facebook on a limited budget with various targeting options in order to optimize your ad spend and maximize your conversions and performance.

This year promises to be an exciting one for cross-channel retailers, and social commerce figures to be a big reason why.

Are you still shopping for holiday gifts? Why even bother going into the crowds of stores? 50% of holiday shopping is done online, now you can do it from Facebook.

You can find special promotions at these and many other stores on Facebook.

Cactus Thorn Trading Co.
Click “Like” for 15% off and FREE SHIPPING on beautiful Christmas decorations.

Everyday Energy Shots
FREE SHIPPING on energy shots for that special someone always on the go! A perfect stocking stuffer.

Purely Gadgets
Find all the best gadgets of the season right from Facebook.

“You Are a Wonderful Mother” by Grace McClure
Buy this great book for any of the most important people in the world, mothers.

Revenge Is
25% off and FREE SHIPPING on EVERYTHING. Buy fashionable ECO-FRIENDLY closes for the stylish people in your life.

Canadian Jewelry Exchange
Are you going to buy Jewelry? Why not receive 30% off of EVERYTHING?

Angels Fancy Dress
Great Christmas costumes! Receive 10% off when you use the coupon “FBXMAS”

Happy shopping from everyone at Zibaba. Have a happy and healthy holiday. Best wishes for 2012.

We at Zibaba want to make sure you make the most of this season as this is a great opportunity for you to drive more traffic to your Facebook store and to increase your sales and revenue.

Are You Offering A Holiday Promotion? Let Us Know…

We would like to take part in your store promotion activity and have decided to make up a list of stores offering holiday promotions.

If you are running any holiday promotion in your Facebook store, please let us know and we will be happy to include your store name in this list which will be promoted in our social media outlets.

We hope this will give your store more exposure and give you great gift ideas all at once!

For your store to be included please contact us at: Jordan@zibaba.com

5 Promotion Ideas For Your Facebook Store

1. Advertise On Facebook With Zibaba’s Ads Direct
To grow your fan base and increase sales for your business it is only natural to promote your Facebook store with Facebook ads through Zibaba’s Ads Direct.

With Ad’s Direct you can create customized ads for each and every product in your store. This platform enables you to create automated campaigns which are optimized according to conversions and social metrics to easily reach your promotion and advertising goals on Facebook. It’s that simple!

2. Set up Group Offers
Group offers are considered to be one of the best social media marketing methods to generate traffic and sales. They are a popular way of increasing sales, increasing brand loyalty and encouraging social sharing.
The Group Offer feature on Zibaba enables you to offer discounts on specific items in your catalog that go into effect once there is a minimum number of buyers.
Facebook is the ideal destination for these kinds of group offers. The extended networks of Facebook friends and fans sharing purchasing preferences make group offers easy to implement.

3. Offer Coupon Sales
Online coupon popularity is rapidly increasing. Research shows that over half of the internet users in the U.S. will redeem an online coupon in 2011 (eMarketer.com) so it is highly recommended to integrate online coupons into your overall strategy.
You can easily set up coupon sales in your Zibaba store, so take advantage of this great feature.

4. Offer Fan-Only Discounts
Set a fan-only discount in your Facebook store to grow your client base and build customer fidelity!

5. Offer Free Shipping
Free shipping is one major factor many shoppers are considering when paying for presents this holiday season. Research shows that this incentive has been used at record levels over the first few weeks of the holiday season.
In your Zibaba Facebook Shop you can offer free shipping to buyers whose shopping cart exceeds an amount set by you.

For further details and assistance please contact us at cs@zibaba.com. We are here to help!

The Zibaba team wishes you Happy Holidays!

As a community of over 750 million, it’s important for businesses to have a presence on Facebook. But if you build it, how can you get people to come?

To create a marketing solution that drives targeted visitors to Facebook storefonts, Zibaba is launching f-Commerce Ads Direct, enabling their several thousand Facebook storefront customers to easily set-up and run ad campaigns from their product catalog which are continuously analyzed and optimized according to conversations and social metrics.

This is the first advertising solution fully integrated with a Facebook storefront.

“Running advertising campaigns in Facebook has never been easier,” said Ronen Shlomo, CEO of Zibaba.  “Now that our Shop Manager has been fully integrated with the Facebook advertising API, all of our clients will be able to utilize the service and the value added functionality.  Campaigns can be setup and directed to individual products, the client’s Facebook store or any external URL of their choice, enabling the advertising to directly drive sales through one integrated solution.”

Click here to learn more about f-Commerce Ads Direct powered by Zibaba: http://youtu.be/KNOKB3KakiU

“If the launch of Zibaba’s easy-to-use f-commerce storefront created new and significant revenue streams for lookfantastic, Zibaba’s new f-commerce Ads Direct will exponentially increase our Facebook-driven revenue by reaching out and targeting our ads to the most relevant prospects among the social network’s 750 + million users,” said Sarah Jones, Social Media & Community Manager, lookfantastic.com. “This self-service solution with ads and campaigns continually analyzed and optimized according to performance will take our f-commerce efforts to the next level.”

Ads Direct Dashboard

As a Facebook Preferred Developer, Zibaba is one of only a limited number of development companies given permission directly by Facebook to integrate the advertising system into their social storefront offering.

f-Commerce Ads Direct powered by Zibaba includes informative analytics tools and dashboards to show Facebook store owners the exact performance of their advertising.  This will include the knowledge of how much has been spent in relation to the amount of new sales, customers, fans and individual product ‘likes’. Campaign optimization is based on the analytics tools, which enable optimizing campaigns according to target group, geography, day, product offering, and more.

“Many small and medium sized businesses who may have felt intimidated in the past when running Facebook advertising campaigns will find the Zibaba interface very simple and easy to use and navigate,” said Arie Fishler, CTO, Zibaba.  “But it doesn’t stop at small/medium businesses.  Utilizing the analytics tools that we are offering will give any business, regardless of size, the ability to fully optimize every advertising dollar spent and, in turn, provide a much higher return on investment”.

About Zibaba – http://zibaba.com.

Zibaba was founded in 2008 by Ronen Shlomo (CEO) and Arie Fishler (CTO) to offer marketing solutions that tap into the potential of social engagement.  The company has made ground breaking developments in the world of social commerce and has become a leading provider of f-commerce marketing platform solutions enabling anyone to manage online stores within the Facebook social media environment.  Zibaba is a Facebook ‘preferred developer’ company.

For more information, please contact us –

T: 1-887-889-1415
E: advertising@zibaba.com
www.zibaba.com

The event has been organized by Modified Ventures LLC, a post-internet market development company founded by Dutch business and retail industry journalist Peter Verkooijen.

If you are interested in meeting with CEO of Zibaba Ronen Shlomo or VP Business Development Michael Katz either in Boston (September 12^th to 14^th and 19^th to 20^th), New York (September 15^th to 16^th) or San Francisco (September 20^th to 23^rd), please send an email to bizdev@zibaba.com stating city, date and time preferences.

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Leading f-Commerce provider Zibaba has launched a unique lead generation solution for businesses enabling them to showcase products and services, and capture real time sales leads directly from their Facebook fan page.

“Millions of businesses are looking for new channels to generate fresh and relevant sales leads,” Ronen Shlomo, CEO of Zibaba, stated.  “With targeted advertising and social recommendations, businesses can now capture relevant and hot leads directly from their Facebook fan page.  Businesses such as auto dealerships, financial service providers and real estate agents can showcase their products and services on their fan page.  Then in the click of a button, relevant targeted leads can be collected directly from the items in which potential customers have shown an interest”.

Zibaba has added this new vertical in addition to its existing ‘Storefront for Facebook’ offering.  The new lead generation service will also utilize Zibaba’s state of the art f-Commerce platform and benefit from features such as Integrated Social Interactions, Social Affiliate Network and Facebook Targeted Advertising and Analytics. “It’s the law of supply and demand.  With more than 750 million users and the ability to target advertising to large groups of users with specific interests, more businesses are looking to increase their presence and advertising budget on Facebook” Stated Ronen Shlomo.

“It’s a great development that will be very useful to thousands of businesses,” said Michael Katz, VP Business Development, Zibaba.  “In addition to real estate agents and auto dealers, we believe that financial service industry professionals will benefit greatly from this new lead generation service.  Each product offered by these businesses can be displayed within their Facebook fan page and utilize the full social interaction features of our social lead generation solution such as ‘share’, ‘ask advice’ and ‘like’.  Businesses will now be able to generate qualified leads with much more relevance and accuracy and in turn, increase their sales”.

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Topman, one of the leading fashion retailers in the UK has entered the social commerce space and opened a store inside Facebook using Zibaba’s full featured f-Commerce platform.

“When a big brand such as Topman opens a Facebook store and chooses Zibaba it indicates two things,” Ronen Shlomo, CEO of Zibaba, stated.  “One is that the time is right to add a Facebook store to any existing online offering and secondly that Zibaba fully caters to the social commerce requirements of any brand, big or small”.

In addition to Topman, Zibaba has been the Facebook storefront of choice for many other leading fashion brands to launch stores inside the social network.  These include brands such as Bank, Uniqlo, Firetrap and and Fly53.  “It’s a level playing field right now in terms of Facebook storefront providers, but I feel that Zibaba is starting to lead the field in a number of verticals and fashion is just one of them.” Stated Ronen Shlomo.

“We are very excited that Topman has chosen Zibaba to power their Facebook store,” said Michael Katz, VP Business Development, Zibaba.  “In just a few months we have seen an incredible growth in the number retailers making the transition in Facebook.  For Zibaba our customer base is doubling month on month.  We believe that merchants are beginning to understand and realize the potential of being able to reach customers in their favorite social network.  Additionally they are also utilizing the full social interaction features of our stores such as ‘share’, ‘ask advice’ and ‘like’.  Customers are now able to have a two way communication with brands and the brands get a clearer picture of what consumers want, like and dislike”.

The social commerce solution offered by Zibaba includes the ability for merchants to run Group Offers, Flash Sales and Coupons directly from their Facebook store.  Zibaba also assists merchants to promote their Facebook stores by connecting them to online marketing professionals within the environment of a Social Affiliate Network.  “We don’t just give our clients a store and leave them to get on with it.  We want our clients to succeed and therefore we provide them with the tools to do just that” stated Ronen Shlomo.