Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook have had minimal recommended traffic to their website in black Friday

A report released last week by IBM showed that social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook had very little recommended traffic to their website in black Friday. "This is mainly due to the lack of downstream conversion tracking systems in social networking sites that are hard to measure their traffic contribution," Josh Consting, a technology blogger TechCrunch reporter, wrote today.

Twitter and Facebook are not usually the last stops of online shopping, which does not mean they have no incentive or influence to buy. However, the "Black Friday" report released by IBM last week showed that Twitter did not contribute any recommended traffic to the shopping, and Facebook contributed only 0.68%. To attract advertisers and integrate e-commerce, they must prove that Google is not stimulating all sales.

Last year, IBM said Twitter contributed 0.02% of its traffic, but this year did not bring any measurable traffic. This should not be very large when considering downstream visits and conversions, but the 0 per cent flow is doubtful. According to IBM, social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube, generated 0.34% online sales during the "Black Friday" period, down 35% from 2011. The lack of sales contribution is a problem for the entire social networking site industry, especially paid advertising.

In the past few months, Facebook has taken steps to stimulate shopping, introducing self-service user ID matching systems and advertising based on cookies. These measures allow advertisers to understand whether someone buys their goods (including one-click Shopping) through Facebook ads.

However, these are not in line with the buying traffic that Facebook ads bring. Facebook said the top 25 top pages of the week were all about retailers, with Wal-Mart, Toys ' R ' us and Macy's being the most watched (like, commented, shared). The word "shopping" last week jumped 586%. In addition, the mass of viral marketing brought about by the flow of conversion has not been counted. Facebook needs to expand its ownership system so that it can tell if buyers are their fans, whether they've seen a promotional ad or seen a product link that a friend has shared.

Twitter seems to be lagging far behind in this regard, seemingly without any downstream conversion attribution system linking Twitter accounts or advertising. Of course, the dealer can tell if someone clicks on their promotional tweets to visit the site directly. But buyers may be able to think of their ads or accounts in minutes, hours, or even days, and then search for it on Google and finalize the purchase. Twitter admits there is no downstream conversion tracking system.

It is crucial that social networks improve their systems of ownership, because advertisers will invest a lot of money only if they see a clear return on investment. If you spend 50,000 of dollars on Twitter to advertise, and the whole holiday sales come from Google, you'll naturally be switching to search engine ads.

In addition, if Facebook and Twitter really launch the ownership system, they will be able to recalculate their contribution to shopping and stimulate consumers who have not noticed the ads. This may not be the most honest business strategy, but search engines are using their resources to gain benefits.