MackCollier.com

by

Monday’s Marketing Minute: Twitter Begins Opening its Code, WWE/UFC Join Forces, Pinterest Releases Predictions For 2023

Happy Monday, y’all!  We are now into April, we survived the Fools of the First (likely more on the way tho), and Spring is officially here! Hope you are ready to have an amazing week, here’s some business/marketing/social stories I’ve been keeping an eye on:

 

Twitter has made its recommendations algorithm (I can never spell that word correctly) open source.  Meaning that everyone can now see what goes into the code that the platform uses to determine which tweets you are shown. This is a big step toward transparency for Twitter, and it will now put a lot of pressure on other sites like Facebook and Google to open up its code. Which I doubt they will do.  To be fair, most code shouldn’t be shared, it’s proprietary information that gives a company a massive competitive advantage. At the same time, it’s very odd that I can search for the same term on Google, then use other search engines and get different results. And if I am searching for a breaking news political term, the search results can be wildly different. Clearly, the algorithms are designed on some level to suppress or highlight information based on what end of the political spectrum it is on. Which is no good. Twitter will likely continue to share more of its code.  I suspect smaller social media sites and search engines will follow, but the big dogs will not.

 

Just as Wrestlemania 39 was wrapping up, it was announced that the company that already owns UFC, will be purchasing WWE as well. Longtime WWE owner Vince McMahon will become the Executive Chairman at Endeavor, while Dana White will continue to be the President of UFC.  Seems like a bit of a promotion for McMahon and a sideways move for White, but maybe not. It will be interesting to see how the two brands could work together with talent, as certain athletes like Brock Lesnar, Ronda Rousey and CM Punk have gone from WWE to UFC and vice versa in recent years. This move will likely lead to more such moves and athletes from each brand appearing at events for the other.

 

Pinterest has released its predictions for 2023, touting an 80% accuracy rate on past predictions. I’ve always felt that Pinterest is one of the most underrated social media sites. It seems like its users spend more time there versus other social media sites, and for certain industries like fashion and home decorations, you can learn a ton about your customers from simply mining pinning activity on the site. Always good info to dig into.

 

So that’s it for this week’s edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute! Back on Weds with a new post.  Until then, have an amazing week!

by

Monday’s Marketing Minute: Facebook’s Rebrand, PayPal/Pinterest Rumors, Pinterest Creator Fund

Welcome to another glorious Fall week! Hope you’re enjoying the cooler weather and are in the Halloween spirit! Here’s some marketing and breaking business news that’s caught my eye the last few days:

 

I can, and probably should write a longer post on this issue at some point. Facebook’s many problems and user complaints are well-documented. My biggest issue with Facebook has always been that it extracts massive amounts of information and data from its users, while giving the users almost nothing in return. This extends to businesses, who have seen their organic reach on the site fall for years. Now, Facebook is wanting to rebrand, not just to hopefully deflect some of the criticisms, but to also position itself as a player in evolving Web 3.0 platforms and technologies.

More than anything, I think Facebook is the poster child for both the unrealized potential of Web 2.0 companies, as well as the changes that need to be addressed that spurned the development of Web 3.0.

 

So a bit of breaking news. All last week, the rumor was that PayPal was going to acquire Pinterest. Well just this morning, the news is breaking that PayPal has DENIED the acquisition rumors. It will be interesting to see how this affects stock prices for both companies, PayPal fell sharply on the rumors, while Pinterest spiked.

 

Pinterest is the latest platform to offer incentives for content creators, starting a $20 Million fund to support its users. The Creator Rewards program will initially be available only in the US, but should rollout worldwide soon. So any Pinterest user in the US, over 18 and with at least 1,000 followers could be eligible to start making some money off their pins!

 

So that’s the latest marketing news for this Monday. We’ll see what happens with the PayPal/Pinterest news this week.  See you next Monday!

by

Monday’s Marketing Minute: 31% of Adults ‘Constantly Online’, Pinterest & Twitch Continue to Grow

Happy Monday! Hope you are having a wonderful week as we close in on Memorial Day and the unofficial start of Summer! Here’s a few marketing and digital stories that caught my eye:

 

Interesting insights into which groups of US adults spend nearly every waking moment online. Amazingly, 31% of all adults say they are ‘almost constantly’ online. The highest percentage came for adults aged 18-29, with a whopping 48% of this group saying they are almost constantly online. The lowest number came for adults aged 65+, with only 8% of this group claiming to be always online.

 

Twitch continues to post insane growth, and most marketers continue to miss it.  Just look at this chart of the number of monthly hours of streams watched since 2018.

Twitch growth

Want more stats on Twitch?

  • Last month was a record for Twitch with over 2.2 BILLION hours of content watched, and Twitch is on pace to beat that number this month
  • Last month was a record for Twitch with over 3.1 MILLION concurrent viewers. And yes, Twitch is on pace to beat that number this month as well.
  • In 2018, there were 560 Billion minutes of content viewed on Twitch.  There’s already been 620 Billion minutes consumed in 2021.

Twitch continues to be one of the best ways to reach a millennial audience. Besides that, if you are simply a marketer that wants to get a masterclass in how to build community and be better at marketing, watch how the top Twitch streamers connect with their followers. Anyone wanting to connect with customers under 30 should be paying attention to Twitch.

 

Pinterest is another social site that just continues to grow, whether or not marketers notice. The site just announced that it is now serving over 5 BILLION searches a month.  For reference, Pinterest reported 2 Billion searches in 2016.  So the volume of on-site searches has increased by 150% in 5 years. As I mentioned in last Monday’s Marketing Minute, Pinterest is poised to enter the livestreaming game as well. Along with Twitch, it continues to be a social site that all marketers should be aware of.

 

So that’s all I’ve got for this Monday, another big content week on tap here, see you tomorrow!

by

Monday’s Marketing Minute: YouTube Shorts on Fire, Pinterest Enters Livestreaming, In-Person Events Coming Back

Happy Monday, y’all! Hope you are ready for another amazing week! Here’s some breaking marketing and digital stories that caught my eye…

 

 

YouTube’s Shorts videos are proving to be insanely popular both with viewers, and content creators.  As you can see below, they are already generating over 6B daily views, and YouTube is rolling out more options to pay creators. Compensation for content creators is going to be one of the major themes for 2021. We will soon reach a point where SMEs will start leaving companies because they can make more money as content creators. Let’s keep an eye on compensation for content creators and see what the landscape looks like by this Fall.

 

Pinterest is beginning to experiment with livestreaming for its users. Later this month, Pinterest will host live virtual events with some of its top content creators.  I think this idea could work.  First, the events will only be available through the Pinterest app, so I like that they are pushing users to the app.  The events themselves will be structured around helping Pinners get better at skills that tie into how they are already using Pinterest.  So the events will focus on things like cooking a better meal, or planning your next vacation, or home improvement project.  So the focus won’t be on Pinterest as much as why people are using Pinterest. I think that’s a smart play.

https://twitter.com/thekenyeung/status/1392935923394875392

 

Fall 2021 looks to be when we can expect to see in-person events begin to return. Almost half of ad executives plan to be back to attending in-person events in Q3 2021. We’re still about 6 months behind where I thought we would be with returning to in-person events.  I assumed there would be a few events this Spring, but then a big return in the Fall of this year.  It seems like the big return won’t come till Spring of 2022. Still, I expect to see a decent spike in the number of in-person events this Fall.  People are hungry to get back to in-person events, there’s simply no better learning environment.

 

So that’s what I’m reading this week! I will see you back here tomorrow, hope you have a wonderful week!

PS: Are you subscribed to the Backstage Pass? Every Friday I give you stories, tips and ideas on how you can engage your customers and convert them into passionate fans, who love your brand.  Want in?  Signup below, and I’ll see you on Friday!

 

by

Monday’s Marketing Minute: Pinterest’s Growth, B2Bs Leveraging Content Marketing

Happy Monday, y’all! Here’s a few marketing stories that caught my eye over the last week.

Social media may be taking it on the chin right now, but Pinterest is an exception. The site is benefiting from people spending more time at home, and I have to admit, I’ve spent more time on Pinterest in the last 5 months than I did the previous 5 years. The challenge ahead for Pinterest is how they can continue to give sellers opportunities to sell through the site, while not compromising the user experience. In fact if done properly, Pinterest could actually add more sales opportunities for sellers and ENHANCE the user experience. We’ll see how well they navigate this.

 

KIND bars are making an interesting move to stand out from other health bars like Cliff. The company is trying to change customer behavior and have customers eat their bars before working out and not as a snack. To this end, they offered $100 to the first 1000 people that submitted a receipt for their products OR a competitor.  The $100 is to help with fitness expenses for customers. It will be interesting to see if KIND has a strategy in place to stay connected to those 1000 customers. This could be the start of a larger and long-term advocacy effort, and it will be interesting to see if KIND is thinking that far ahead.  I suspect they are, given the amount of money spent just on the giveaway.

Mixed results on how content marketing is working for B2B marketers, according to new research from CMI/On 24 and Marketing Profs. On the one hand, more marketers (75%) are reporting that content marketing has helped them generate leads this year versus last (70%). On the other hand, the percentage of marketers who generated sales/revenue through content marketing also dipped slightly (51% in 2020 vs. 53% in 2019). You can review the study here.

 

Thank you so much for reading, I greatly appreciate it, and will see you here tomorrow!

by

Monday’s Marketing Minute: Users Don’t Trust Facebook, How Covid Has Changed Shopper Behavior

Welcome to the start of another great week! Thanks for reading, on Wednesday my Movies and Marketing post will feature the movie with the greatest product placement of all-time (what do you think it is?), and on Thursday I’ll do a special post recapping what happened here in the month of September after relaunching my blog. Happy to see the stats are looking pretty good, and I’ll dive into that more on Thursday.

Now, let’s jump into the news!

 

eMarketer had some interesting research into which social platforms are the most and least trusted. eMarketer states that it is measuring trust as “the confidence users have in a social media platform to protect their information and provide a safe environment for them to create and engage with content.”

LinkedIn and Pinterest ranked at the top in first and second, while Twitter and Facebook ranked at the bottom in seventh and ninth. I think there’s two issues at play here, the first is privacy concerns and how comfortable users are in letting these platforms handle their data. But that’s not the only area, because LinkedIn ranked first, even though the platform has had security breaches in the past. So the trust factor also incorporates the actual environment and user experience on these platforms. This is what really hurts Twitter and Facebook, in my opinion.  These sites simply have toxic environments. Users argue and insult each other constantly, and neither site has developed an effective or consistent way to monitor and police content. LinkedIn has much user interaction, but its far more professional and business-oriented in nature. Pinterest is focused heavily on the content (pins and boards), not the user interaction.

 

I’ve been a big fan of the work BazaarVoice does as well as its timely research studies ever since I spoke at its headquarters a few years ago and got to spend some time with the management team. I look forward to their research studies and they have a new one on how shopper behavior is changing as a result of covid. Among the key takeaways, shoppers are becoming more comfortable with the idea of doing more in-store shopping, but want to see stores taking greater measures to ensure safety for shoppers. Honestly, I think this could be the big area where we could see a lasting improvement for the health of shoppers. Let’s be honest, prior to this year, whenever you went to a grocery store, you grab a buggy that’s been touched by who knows how many strangers that same day and who knows what germs are on that buggy. If retailers simply make a better effort to clean their buggies and offer hand sanitizer at store entrances, those changes alone would greatly reduce the change of shoppers catching a cold or other germs while shopping. Very simple changes can and should be made by stores to help promote a more healthy environment for in-store shopping.

 

And for you Pinterest fans, Search Engine Journal has a rundown of a ton of new features the site has rolled out for creators.  And yes, I do spend some time on Pinterest, have actually spent quite a bit of time there the last few weeks.  It’s fun to poke around and look for inspiration and just focus on the content!

Hope you have a fantastic Monday, see you in 24 hours!

by

Monday’s Marketing Minute: TikTok Finds a Home, Visual Branding, Men Using Pinterest

Happy Monday, y’all! Hope you are ready to have an amazing week! I want to thank everyone for reading and subscribing, since relaunching on August 31st, traffic is up 17% versus the previous 3-week period. Thank you! I’ll do a comprehensive update probably next week on what happened in the first month of the relaunch.

 

TikTok users may be able to keep the app on their phones a while longer.  President Trump has given his blessing to a deal between TikTok, Oracle and WalMart that would make TikTok a US-based company. However, there’s still some questions over how much, if any, ownership ByteDance would retain in TikTok. So this story may not be over…

 

Visual branding and storytelling is something that most of us overlook until we see an example of a company or organization doing it really well, then we see the potential. I love how the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens are infusing a ‘Poe-vibe’ into its graphics and visual images. It gives the Ravens a distinctive look and feel that totally makes sense and creates a lot of interesting possibilities for the design teams. How awesome are these examples?

 

One of the themes I’ve stressed to marketers this year is to think critically about how their customers’ habits will change due to widespread covid-related lockdowns. A perfect example of this is how Pinterest usage among men is spiking. If you think about it, this makes complete sense. Men are spending more time at home, and as a result, they are seeing all the potential ‘weekend home improvement projects’ they could be doing. Sure enough, Pinterest is seeing that men are using its service as inspiration on tackling home improvement projects. This is why it pays to understand your customers and invest the time to learn how you can best help them as their behavior patterns change.

 

That’s your Monday Marketing Minute, hope you enjoyed it and have a great week! See you back here in 24 hours!

by

Pinterest Passes Snapchat to Become Third Biggest Social Media Platform in the US

According to eMarketer, Pinterest passed Snapchat in number of US users in 2019, and will grow its lead through at least 2023.

I’m far from a Pinterest ‘expert’. In fact, I’ve probably only spent a few hours combined on the site since joining several years ago. But I’ve always thought it was interesting how that Pinterest continued to have its fans and devoted users, even though it maybe hasn’t gotten the level of hype of a Snapchat or even Tik Tok. The growth has been more ‘organic’ in that sense, fueled not by hype or a marketers land-rush, but by users loving the site and telling others.

I think you can learn so much about a social media platform’s users by asking and answering two simple questions:

1 – Who is using the site?

2 – Why are they using it?

 

Lets Compare the Ages of the People Using Snapchat and Pinterest

Referencing the eMarketer article again, let’s look at age penetration among US users for Snapchat:

12-17 years old – 66.5%

18-24 – 81.3%

25-34 – 49.2%

 

As you can see, Snapchat is very popular among the 12-34 age group. But the study listed 5 other age groups, and Snapchat didn’t see over 21% penetration in any of these groups. In fact, it only saw double digit penetration in the two groups of the five not listed.

So that tells you that Snapchat is popular among millennials (and whatever group is coming after them) and doesn’t see as much usage among Gen Xers and Baby Boomers.

Keep that in mind, now let’s look at the age penetration among different age groups for Pinterest users:

12-17 years old – 28.1%

18-24 – 35.6%

25-34 – 40%

35-44 – 39.6%

45-54 – 33.9%

55-64 – 26.1%

 

See the difference? While Snapchat enjoys roughly 50% and higher penetration in three age groups from 12-34 years old, Pinterest enjoys 25-40% penetration in every age group from 12-64 years old. So while Snapchat appeals to a mostly younger audience, Pinterest appeals to a wide age range. This means Snapchat’s userbase is more fragile and susceptible to loss if a competing app or platform emerges that appeals to a younger audience as well. Such as TikTok. Since Pinterest appeals to a much wide age range, it is in a better position to fend off any current or future competition.

 

So Why Do People Use Pinterest? 

I started blogging in 2005, started using MySpace that same year, Facebook and Twitter in 2007. I’ve typically been one of the early adopters of emerging social media platforms. For the last 15 years that I’ve used social media, it’s always been amusing (and a bit depressing) to see what happens when the MARKETERS discover a particular social media site. First the social media/marketing bloggers discover the site, then the marketers that follow them try it out, and we are off to the races. In each case, the marketers come in and try to alter the basic site functionality to fit within the marketing processes that they are used to.  With often mixed results because these social media platforms were primarily built as personal communication tools, not marketing communication channels.

But Pinterest was one social media site that the marketers never really spent much time on, and that’s always intrigued me. I think the main reason why marketers never spent much time on Pinterest is because it takes a lot of time and energy to create, curate and maintain boards. If you aren’t passionate about the process, you probably won’t stick with it. If you talk to Pinners or google why people love Pinterest, you will frequently hear users talk about how they love how the boards give them inspiration. The inspiration can fuel ideas, or future plans, or just give them something to dream about. But the Pinners who invest the time and energy in creating and maintaining their boards do so out of love. And they interact with other Pinners, they share their findings and likewise find other interesting boards to follow as well.

If you look at Pinterest usage from the angle of planning and inspiration, you can begin to understand how the site appeals to a wide age range. All of us have something we are planning. If you are young, it could be going to college, or getting married. If you are married, it could be travel, or relocating to a new city because of a job promotion. If you are older, you may be planning for retirement and that could involve a possible move as well. No matter what stage of your life you are in, there are major future events that you are planning for.

And besides that, there are things you need help and advice with every day. Maybe you need help landscaping for the Spring, or working on your car, or becoming a better painter, or growing your collection of old comic books. Whatever your interests and whatever your age, Pinterest users have no doubt already created boards that you can find inspiration from.

 

If you are a regular Pinterest user, how do you use the site? What do you love about it? Pinterest is the one social media site that I rarely visit, but every time I do, I think to myself “I need to spend more time here!’

by

The Promise and (Potential) Peril of Social Commerce

Social media sites like Pinterest and Instagram are embracing the idea of social commerce. Social commerce is about making it easier for users and accounts to sell products directly via their feeds and content. For instance, Instagram users that meet a certain follower threshold can link directly to products in their Stories.

For marketers, the appeal of social commerce is obvious. Leveraging social content to drive sales has always been a goal for marketers, and as platforms are embracing functionality that makes this easier, companies are obviously quite excited at the potential for social commerce. From the user perspective, my view is, how can social commerce be leveraged to improve the user experience? If the user experience is enhanced, then those users will embrace social commerce functionality on these sites.  The attempts at incorporating social commerce will pass or fail in great part on how successfully these attempts understand user intent and only sell to those users who are truly ready to buy.

I think there is great promise and (potential) peril when it comes to social commerce, and I wanted to discuss how social commerce could work, and how it could fail. For now, marketers are focusing on social commerce to immediately complete sales. But when you factor in the social element, there’s great opportunity for these platforms to facilitate the awareness, consideration and research phases that then lead to commerce, and do so in a social setting, with users working together to help move each other through the sales funnel. So lets look at both the good and potential bad about social commerce:

So What Is Social Commerce?

Social commerce is about leveraging social media sites and platforms to facilitate and complete sales directly on that site or platform. For instance, Instagram recently announced a Checkout feature that will eventually let users buy products without leaving the Instagram app.  This feature is currently in beta, here’s how Instagram says it will work:

“Today, we’re introducing checkout on Instagram. When you find a product you love, you can now buy it without leaving the app.

When you tap to view a product from a brand’s shopping post, you’ll see a “Checkout on Instagram” button on the product page. Tap it to select from various options such as size or color, then you’ll proceed to payment without leaving Instagram. You’ll only need to enter your name, email, billing information and shipping address the first time you check out.

Once your first order is complete, your information will be securely saved for convenience the next time you shop. You’ll also receive notifications about shipment and delivery right inside Instagram, so you can keep track of your purchase.”

 

The idea of using social media to directly drive sales is not a new concept, in 2014 Twitter let brands add a Buy button directly to tweets. This feature was later removed, but it shows that social media brands have been trying to find a way to add social buying functionality into its platforms for a while now.

How Social Commerce Could Benefit Users

The idea of implementing selling directly into social media streams and sites is a scary proposition for a lot of social media users. That’s because, marketers tend to push sales on customers even when they aren’t ready to buy. If used smartly, social commerce could greatly benefit customers by tapping into the ‘social’ element of social media.

First, let’s revisit the buyer’s journey and talk about how it applies to social media. This post on How to Sell With Social Media covers the topic, and I’ll summarize the stages here:

  1. Unaware, AKA Who the hell are you?. The buyer has no idea who you are, or why they should want to listen to you, much less buy anything from you. When companies talk about using social media to ‘Build Awareness’, this is the group they are targeting.
  2. Slightly aware and slightly interested. This group has begun to understand who you are, and can start to see how your products and services can fit into their lives.
  3. Interested and considering buying. This group knows who you are, knows what you sell, and knows how those products and services fit into their lives. Now they are trying to decide who to buy from, you or a competitor.
  4. Ready to buy. Take my money!

 

These are the stages for the journey that the average buyer goes on. As you can see, the buyer isn’t READY to be sold to until really the 4th and last stage. And the buyer doesn’t want any promotional content focused on products and services until the 3rd stage when they are doing research.  So the challenge for social media sites and platforms that want to incorporate social commerce is to factor in user intent. If the user isn’t ready to buy, selling them won’t create a positive experience for them.

On the other hand, when you add a social layer over the buying process, that can change things. If you take a product that I don’t know about or know I want, and add an endorsement for that product via a person I trust ON SOCIAL MEDIA, that can quickly move me to a point where I am ready to buy.

Let give you an example of how this can work: A few years ago I was invited to join a Facebook group based around business travel. These are peers (many of who I knew and trusted) who wanted to create a Facebook group just to discuss navigating a lifestyle where you are traveling more than you are at home. In the course of the conversations of this group, product recommendations would often come up. Someone would mention a problem they had with frequent business travel, someone else would recommend a product they bought that helps solve that problem. Several times I saw members buy a product another member had recommended, I did as well.

The funny thing is, I wasn’t interested in buying those products until someone I trusted recommended them on social media. If I had seen an ad for those same products appear in my feed, I would have ignored them, but because someone I trusted recommended those same products, I bought them.  But even then, all they could do was link to Amazon or another site.  We didn’t have the ability to buy right there without leaving Facebook.  Social commerce is about removing that layer of friction to the buying process AND it’s about shifting the buying process to people you know and trust. When leveraged correctly, social commerce can merge with the organic discussions that are already happening on social media, and add utility to the user experience, instead of degrading it.

For instance, Pinterest has begun incorporating social commerce into its platform. If executed correctly, this could improve the experience for Pinterest users as many are on the site browsing for ideas or doing research for future purchases. Additionally, comments from other users can help users make decisions on which products to buy and which ones to avoid. The key is adding social commerce in a place and time that the user is OPEN to the addition and doesn’t view it as a distraction or irritant. Social commerce should enhance the user experience, not detract from it.

Related: Pinterest explains its new social commerce products on the Behind the Numbers Podcast.

 

The Potential Risks of Social Commerce

At its best, adding a commerce layer to social interactions could provide great utility for users, while helping customers work with other customers to better organize information and recommendations. It helps connect customers with products they need and can use, and can help them make smarter purchase decisions, by leaning on advice from peers and friends they trust.

But there is a potential risk to adding commerce to social interactions, especially if the commerce involves leveraging those social interactions to create new sales that otherwise might not happen. It can lead to spending more than you wanted to, and increase feelings of remorse, post-purchase.

Here’s an example of what I mean: Last year during the week of Thanksgiving, I downloaded and began playing a game on my iPhone called World War Rising. I figured it would be a fun time-killer and I had some free time during the holidays. The game itself it pretty forgettable, but it does have a very strong social element driving it. The game is set up so alliances of people wage ‘war’ on each other by attacking each others bases. An alliance can have up to 100 members and members have chat functionality as well as private messaging to connect with each other.

Here’s where things get tricky. The game is set up to encourage you to interact with your fellow alliance members. You get to know your teammates, and feel a connection to them. The game has events where teammates work together so that the alliance as a group receives prizes.  So you quickly develop an affinity and sense of kinship for your teammates.

What’s curious, and a bit scary, is how the game monetizes its players. The game offers players packs of goodies that are designed to help them grow their bases and become stronger. These packs can range in price from $5 all the way up to $99.  And believe it or not, there are a LOT of people that spend a LOT of money on these packs. It’s not at all uncommon to find players that have spent THOUSANDS of dollars on this game.

Many times, I have had a player tell me that they bought a $99 pack and they justified the purchase to themselves by saying “I felt I owed it to the team to get stronger”. When I first joined the game and learned that people spent hundreds if not thousands on the game, I thought these people must be insane! But after playing the game for a while, I can totally understand why people spend money on the game. There really is a sense of wanting to HELP your teammates by buying packs to get stronger. And when a player buys a pack, they are congratulated by their teammates. I’ve talked to players who have played previous versions of this game by the same developers and they all comment on how the developers have selling to its players down to a science. They know how to drive sales, and I would even say it comes dangerously close to manipulating players to spend money. If your base is attacked and you suffer a major defeat, you might be offered a pack that promises to “help you recover now!” or something similar.

 

Selling via social media has always been about accepting the behaviors of the users and improving the experience for those users. If you try to change behavior via commerce, it’s very easy to alienate and irritate users. But if you accept the organic behavior of users and only introduce commerce functionality to users who are ready to buy, then you are offering utility, not hindrance.

Either way, social commerce is here to stay. There will no doubt be growing pains, and hopefully marketers will work with existing user behavior when incorporating commerce into social channels, instead of trying to change behavior.