In my opinion, there are two ways to combine social networking and e-commerce:

1) Create a social network around your products (Social commerce)
2) Market products to your social network (Modified traditional social networking)

- #1 Social Commerce -

In this first case, what you have is essentially a supercharged e-commerce store. You build your store as the focus of the site, and tightly integrate community features into it. For example, if you were selling coffee, you could have a feature where you would make users out of your customers - give them a profile, allow them to message you and other members, reward them fir leaving feedback, let them rate other member’s feedback, let them upload photos of the different countries you have coffee from, then display those photos on the specific coffee’s product page.

There’s a world of ideas for this option and unlimited potential. The key is that you create a community of not only passive users but active customers. If people really like what you’re selling, they’ll be more likely to come back.

We are all well aware of how important word of mouth is for a business. Combine that with the fact that people associate more easily with like minded people, and even to a degree become sort of like each other by adopting common interests. What you have is the foundation for a true Social Commerce business.

- #2 Modified Traditional Social Networking -

Traditionally, websites monetize their traffic through selling advertising space to companies like Google & Yahoo. In this scenario, what you have is basically two separate entities in a sort of symbiotic relationship.

Both entities are hosted on the same domain for example:

www.YourStoreSite.com and…
community.YourStoreSite.com

www.YourStoreSite.com is a fully functional stand-alone e-commerce store and the “community” subdomain is a fully functional social network of people interested in the products you sell.

For instance, say you sell sports cards. There’s no question that there is an intense community of sports card collectors out there, many of whom buy online. These customers usually have a preference for one seller or another but each seller most definitely has it’s hard core fans. This option is similar to how traditional e-commerce sites might use a bulletin board with threads for different topics. My design is that you amplify the social networking side of the equation.

Again - allow your users to interact with each other, leave feedback, comments, rate comments, other users, and products. Let them upload relevant media and display it on their profile, etc.

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A tactic you’ll absolutely want to use for both instances is publishing relevant content regularly. I’m talking about integrating blogging and online marketing into your online marketing strategy. I won’t go into great detail but basically, having frequently updated, high quality content relevant to your products on your site is phenomenally important to attracting people to your site. I’d recommend looking into what factors Google ranks pages based on.

Lastly, in both cases, it is important to consider yourself as a user and interact with your customers/users on your own social network. The more transparent you are as a company and as an individual, the more likely your customers will trust you, and trust is a key aspect to a successful e-commerce business.

I hope this has been informative for people considering building a successful social networking website for business. As always, I am available to consult on this topic specifically, just email me.