In this day and age, it is hard to imagine a business without its presence on social media. If not a Facebook page, then it is Twitter and Instagram, and for some, there is even Snapchat. How successful those social media platforms are is a different story, but for those who know how to utilize their social media presence are aware that it is a smart way to get better business results.

Sumo Heavy Industries, a digital commerce strategy firm, conducted a study that showed an increase of 198 percent in social media referral traffic to e-commerce sites between 2014 and 2015. This should not come as a surprise as more and more retail companies are establishing their own e-commerce services. This trend is gaining ground here in the Kingdom as well where old-fashioned big names in the retail market are jumping on the bandwagon of modernization and starting their own online outlets.

The report also showed that, as expected, Facebook still has the largest number of social media users who follow businesses online to learn more about their products at 56%, followed by Twitter and Pinterest both at 47%. The surprising thing in the study is the absence of Instagram from this list!

As for the businesses which were most influenced by social media referrals, according to the study, baby products came first at 56%, home furnishings at 40%, followed by health and wellness at 33% and automotive at 32%.

Social media companies were quite aware at an early stage that their platforms could be used by businesses to brand and sell their products. After all, that is where most of the money is. Therefore, they were doing everything possible to make their platforms more business friendly. Facebook autofill checkout options, Twitter and Tumbler introduction of buy now buttons, followed by Instagram shop now ads and Facebook buy event tickets were all options provided by these platforms to attract more businesses.

The new big thing now, according to a number of analysts, could be the utilization of chat bots. In a nutshell, chat bots are computer programs that are using artificial intelligence to mimic conversations with users. "They can transform the way you interact with the Internet from a series of self-initiated tasks to a quasi-conversation," as explained by Julia Carrie Wong in The Guardian. These chat bots could be integrated into messaging and conversational apps to make them smarter, and if needed, more business friendly. For instance, Facebook Messages or even Twitter timelines could use such bots to generate business suggestions or purchase orders; for example, instead of opening a pizza place app to order pizza, you could be tweeting your order to the restaurant and they would prepare it for you, or instead of opening a car hiring service app, you could be sending them a message on Facebook to send a car your way.

Many companies and chat-based apps are testing such services around. The question is, when are we going to see it in the local market, which company will be the first to utilize it?