Some Thoughts on Social Shopping and Click Consumerism

Facebook’s new Social Plugins allow websites to show which of your friends have liked a product or page. A developer can implement this in about an hour. And yet the implications are significant.

This is the beginning of what we could call Social Shopping.

Seeing that 159 of your friends like Nike is no big deal – we all know Nike. But seeing that 45 of your friends like that restaurant you’ve only just heard of, or that local service on the industrial estate – that has a lot of value.

Social authority is what big brands already have plenty of. It’s what local businesses are often struggling to get. The Facebook like button gives local businesses a shortcut to social authority – showing that people similar to you have already approved it.

The like button is a simple thing. But its depth is only beginning to be mined. At its core, it does one thing: it shows friends what you like. And that makes what you like more trustworthy to them.