Social commerce activities – a taxonomy

In recent years businesses large and small have jumped on the Social Commerce bandwagon, all in the hope of utilising social media services to facilitate various Social Commerce activities. Given the growing influence of social media on social, economic and political events globally, the rise in business interest in Social Commerce is not unexpected. This paper examines the Social Commerce activities of several Fortune 500 businesses. It analyses and categorises how businesses utilise social media to interact with customers, trading partners, employees and other important stakeholders. Two important themes have emerged, firstly, businesses utilise social media services mostly to facilitate Pre- and Post-transactional type Social Commerce activities such as marketing and customer support. Opportunities exist for businesses to leverage social media for transactional type Social Commerce activities such as purchase, payment, and order-fulfilment. Secondly, the business use of social media seems haphazard. Stakeholders wishing to succeed in Social Commerce will have to reformulate their strategies to take advantage of how users behave on social media services and opportunities to draw synergy from utilising an assortment of social media services. The paper contributes to theory by developing a taxonomy of Social Commerce activities. It contributes to practice by highlighting opportunities to engage in Social Commerce activities, in particular, to leverage opportunities from implementing Transactional Social Commerce.<br />