Shopping on social media may not be big right now, but by 2015, it's expected to explode...

A new infographic by has found that “social commerce sales are expected to bring in $30 billion each year by 2015, with half of web sales to occur through social media,” writes Samantha Murphy of Mashable. Currently, one in three small businesses use Facebook, while there are over 42 million fan pages on Facebook. Seventeen percent of those sell products on the pages.

Facebook fans are 79 percent more likely than a non-fan to purchase a product, and 74 percent of fans are more likely to recommend a company or product. The social media site also drives 26 percent of referral traffic to company websites. Right now ”20 percent of shoppers prefer to purchase products via Facebook than the brand’s website”— and that number is expected to climb.

Via Lauren Moss

That’s right! By the end of 2013 there will be 1.3 to 1.5 billion people using Facebook.

Facebook has grown more than 90 percent in just one year in those countries that, only last year, had populations big enough to matter but have not been taken over by Facebook yet.

 

Visit the link for further information and additional graphs that track this past year's growth of the social media platform in each country identified in the infographic...

Via Dr. Susan Bainbridge, Lauren Moss, Alex Janus