Facebook commerce still isn’t living up to the hype: Only nine percent of U.S. shoppers bought anything on social media this holiday season and just one in five had a purchasing decision informed that way.

That’s based on a survey of 1,032 U.S. shoppers by Baynote, which noted a 2.9 percent margin of error. The timeframe considered in the survey spanned from the Cyber Monday through Christmas eve.

Shoppers found the best product recommendations via search engines and email, beyond what social media and even commerce sites offered.

Similarly, coupons delivered via email, postal mail and search engines proved more helpful than daily deal sites and social networks, Baynote found.

The seeming sluggishess in people’s adoption of social commerce brings to mind early reactions to Internet commerce.

Not that long ago people were leery of sharing their credit-card information with online retailers, but this year, shopping on the web proved so popular that retailers tried to introduce a second Cyber Monday to try to capture more of the action with free shipping on purchases made that day.

So the question to ask is not whether Facebook commerce will take off but when — how many years from now before it becomes standard?

Baltimore-based advertising agency MGH created a Facebook-themed video Christmas greeting, in which the singer hopes for a check-in at his house by his “close” Facebook friend, Santa.

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If the thought of Christmas makes you want to bellow, “Bah, humbug,” don’t click on any Facebook post involving the holiday, or your news feed will make you feel like Ebenezer Scrooge.

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‘Tis the season to click through Facebook ads? According to data from Techlightenment from the holiday seasons of 2009 and 2010, ‘tis indeed.

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‘Tis the season to forward humorous cartoons about Santa Claus on Facebook.

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It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. But how is that translating to the virtual world we make our living in?

Our team of market research elves at ShortStack formulated a series of holiday-specific questions about page layout and design, discounts, contests, and sweepstakes, and posed a survey to our users. They came away with some pretty interesting data:

Of the 1,020 page administrators who responded, a whopping 68.6 percent are decorating for the holidays.

Some are going all out, like Marimuthu D., of Balti Curries, “We changed our profile picture, the photo strip and tabs to suit the Christmas holidays.”

Others, like graphic designer Lorann Snow, are taking a more subtle approach: “I like understated graphical changes to celebrate holidays. For example, I will add some snowflakes.”

At 34.5 percent, more than a third of those surveyed are implementing some kind of holiday photo contest, like Bronwyn E. of Barnes.com.au: “We’re running an ‘upload a photo of a Christmas gift you’ve made by hand’ tab for the holiday season.”

A Couple of Chicks e-marketing is adding numerous holiday features, according to Christy H., “We’re allowing people to post about their favorite holiday traditions, upload favorite photos, post recipes, what causes they support, etc.”

Not to be lost in the numbers are the pages bringing the true Christmas spirit to Facebook. Giving to and helping those in need was a common theme among those polled.

The infographic below offers more details on what admins are doing this season. How does this compare with your own holiday activities online, readers?

Guest writer Jim Belosic is president of ShortStack.

U.K. traffic to Facebook beat Google’s by .7 percent on Christmas day, which appears to be a first on that side of the pond. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s so easy for spammers to increase the amount of free currency promised in scams when the only real giveaway is more spam. The latest, touting 500 Credits, was gaining momentum when we originally posted this article, but Facebook spokepeople have told us that the application has been disabled. But you can never be too safe, so please don’t click on any posts that look like this:
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Christmas Day happens to be great for online social networks, with millions of users sitting around the house playing with new gifts, showing online photos to family members and friends, or just surfing the net because there aren’t as many businesses open during this national holiday. Whatever the case may be, Facebook traffic in the UK peaked at an all time high on Christmas, 2008, just as it did last year.
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