Last week an announcement was made by Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, the owners of Denver Nuggets basketball team (and Arsenal), about their partnership with Evento to maximise social ticket sales through fan engagement through the Nuggets’ Facebook page.

Evento’s SitNearMe platform allows fans to purchase tickets whilst being able to see where their friends are sat.  Great information when looking to see who else is going and which area of the stadium to book your spot.  According to research, social media platforms can as much as three times more effective in selling tickets than traditional marketing tactics.

“We have over 1.2 million Nuggets Facebook fans, one of the most active and engaged followings in the NBA.  Attending a game is one of the most exciting experiences for a fan, so we wanted to enable our robust social fan-base an opportunity to purchase seats near their friends.  By implementing SitNearMe® into our Facebook page, we’re not just utilizing the social site for information sharing and engagement, but it is now an integrated piece of our overall strategy to help get more fans into the arena.”  –  Che Vialpando, Denver Nuggets Senior Vice President of Team Sales.

Facebook was meant to be the next big e-commerce platform, often called f-commerce, back in 2011.  But a lack of take up (and success) by the bigger names in business meant that it didn’t took off in the big way that many had predicted.  But this does not mean to say that it cannot work or isn’t working now for some.

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At the end of last year, the tech news site ZD Net, highlighted how Facebook commerce has been a success for some.  Nothing to do with sport but clothing store Apricot Lane Peoria generates around $2m in annual sales, about half of which comes from online and the majority of that half is from Facebook using Ecwid.

So back to the Denver Nuggets and SitNearMe.  For a team with over 1.2m fans and a dedication to the platform through budget, there is every chance it can succeed.  As consumers we are driven by peer influence – we take in what others are wearing, where they go on holiday, etc.  We look for social endorsement and recommendations.  It both helps us filter information to make decisions and feel accepted when we have made them.

With Kroenke Sports having instigated fan-friendly ticketing solutions at their other Denver teams (Colorado Avalanche, Rapids and Mammoth).  What chance us seeing something creep in at Arsenal where Stan Kroenke is majority shareholder?  With 20m fans on the platform there would certainly be an audience for it.

The results aren’t known yet for such a new launch, but it will be interesting to find out both in the short and longer terms what impact the social ticketing service has had.  Will it take time for fans to get used to it?  Will people ever get used to and trust purchasing through social networks?  With Twitter soon to launch their own in-app purchasing (if rumours are true) it could become the new ‘norm’.

What are you thoughts on social commerce?  Have you ever bought anything on Facebook?