ShopTogether and Optimizing the Brand for Social Search
As we’ve touched on here before (here, here, here), the growing importance of social networks as a way of not only staying in touch with family and friends, but also getting opinions on what to buy is undeniable. Consumers are moving away from destination sites and search engines in favor of social networks as a way of getting information.
It is important that companies optimize their brand in response to this shift. Brian Solis, a prominent author and thought leader in the area of new media, recently published a list of 10 steps for optimizing the brand for social search (below).
For brands in the retail, real estate, financial services, travel and other markets, our ShopTogether application for social commerce can help brands tackle six of the steps (Nos. 1, 2, 5, 6, 7 and the “Bonus” below) that Solis recommends, plus a lot more.
The ShopTogether toolbar modernizes a site by integrating sharing and chat functionality found on the most innovative places on the Web, and allows one-click distribution of a brand’s content to all of the social networks most important to its customers. On top of that, ShopTogether allows real-time interaction on the site itself, keeping friends and other site visitors connected on the page, where they can chat and browse each other’s products, giving them a voice and letting them share opinions that lead to buying decisions.
In addition, data collected anonymously by the ShopTogether Crowd application can be used for broadcasting the hottest items in the store in real-time, displaying those products dynamically on the site itself, or on the company’s Facebook fan page or in banner ads on third party sites, adding a new merchandising element for brands.
Which of the below steps has your company taken to optimize your brand for the way consumers are now getting information? Contact us and let us know.
http://www.briansolis.com/2010/03/optimizing-brands-for-social-search/
10 Steps for Optimizing the Brand for Social Search
1. Modernize and socialize your site to complement the experience visitors expect in 2010
2. Optimize the site and all social objects for traditional, social, and real-time search
3. Create meaningful and personable social profiles where consumers are active today (pay attention to where they will be tomorrow as well)
4. Establish an editorial calendar to produce and distribute relevant content for each and every network with cadence
5. Add social connectivity to the home site to facilitate maximum engagement (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Google, Yahoo) – eradicate proprietary login systems
6. Integrate social sharing functionality at the source of engagement – keep them on the page
7. Enable the social syndication of that content within one step
8. Manually introduce content and social objects to stakeholders and social beacons
9. Create paths that define and engender the experience you desire with destinations and calls to action integrated to close the loop
10. Monitor the activity and find ways to improve the experience and also sharing
Bonus: Give them a voice to make sharing more personal and contextual
Social Media Marketing Spend on the Rise
A new survey just released from Duke University and the American Marketing Association shows what we’ve been seeing anecdotally with our marketing colleagues in companies both here and abroad: spending on social media marketing is going up.
According to the study, respondents said that they are currently spending 5.6 percent of marketing budgets on social. That number will rise to nearly 10 percent in the next 12 months and to nearly 18 percent in the next five years. These numbers reflect similar data that recently came out from the Society of Digital Agencies, and points to the growing importance of social media as part of the overall media mix.
It would be interesting to see how these numbers break down even further, for example, how much is going towards marketing third party sites or networks vis-à-vis expanding the use of social tools on their own sites. Most of the companies we talk to are testing a variety of approaches. How are your budgets being allocated? Contact us and let us know.
Real Estate Sites and Differentiation
Consumers have overwhelmingly adopted online resources for apartment and new home hunting. A recent survey conducted by Apartments.com of 1,500 consumers nationwide found that more than 80 percent of renters said they will use an online apartment search site when looking for their next place to live. The results are similar to those from a National Association of Realtors study released late last year showing that 90 percent of those in the market use the Internet when searching for a new home.
Although design differs, many real estate and rental sites are strikingly similar in terms of functionality and usability.
Real-time collaboration technologies like ShopTogether can provide an immediate point of differentiation for real estate sites. It’s a technology that has already seen success among early adopters in the retail segment; however, we think it could help connect agents, spouses and roommates online for a more productive home “search.”
For leaders in online real estate, early adoption of these collaboration tools can help further outpace competitors. For companies jockeying for the number 2, 3 or 4 positions in a crowded market, collaboration technologies like ShopTogether can be just the thing to help spread the word, build brand and catapult a company to No. 1.
Using Social Commerce as a Viral Marketing Tool
DecisionStep customer Charlotte Russe was an early adopter of ShopTogether, aiming to make the experience on their site as fun as possible while bringing in influencers. One way Charlotte Russe and other customers let shoppers know about the ability to connect is by marketing ShopTogether through email, Twitter and Facebook like the example below.
Promotions that offer discounts to users who shop together encourages influencers and site fans to tell their friends about the brand and then brings them on to the site, where they can browse together, share ideas and have fun, all which help lead to purchase decisions.
ShopTogether can provide promo codes for customers to use at check-out; retailers can ask customers to invite one, two or 10 friends to shop together on the site at a time to receive discounts.
According to Charlotte Russe, with ShopTogether “Customers are shopping not only with their friends, but also with siblings, parents and other relatives…There is a branding aspect to this as well as a return-on-investment perspective.”
With the growth of social shopping, 2010 is sure to see even more examples of retailers engaging consumers and building brand.
Social Networks and Applications “Biggest Priority” in 2010
Interesting stats are in from a Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA) survey of marketing executives of major brands across the world, as well as others involved in the digital space. The overwhelming majority is bullish on the outlook for digital marketing and projects in 2010, and the study shows that social networks and applications will be the biggest priority for marketers this year.
In the study, Peter Caban of Mekanism suggests a possible force behind the growing importance of digital marketing for brands. He says, “Just as much as the conduit for brand storytelling has evolved, the modern consumer of 2010 plays a huge role in your marketing plans. Consumers have beyond proven themselves as content creators and distributors – they are the medium. Consumers are living, breathing, passionate people who are redirecting traffic and content in real-time, based on personal interests, relationships, and the culture of the moment.”
What’s clear is that consumers have new demands for interacting with brands online, and marketers are looking to find ways to appeal to them. Social shopping apps like ShopTogether do just that through real-time collaboration and engagement tools that connect users, update friends on their various social networks about their brand experience, attract new customers back to the e-commerce site and bring an entirely new dimension to online shopping.
Steve Wages, the executive director of SoDA says that we “…must avoid complacency at all costs and continue to focus on driving innovation as well as engaging consumers with relevant dialog in uncharged and fast-moving channels…” We couldn’t have said it beter ourselves.
Greener Shopping in 2010
We came across this blog towards the end of last year about greener shopping and it got us thinking. In addition to all the great suggestions on how to reduce, reuse and recycle, social shopping is an ideal way to conserve. Instead of jumping in your car and going to the mall, sites like MattelShop.com, CharlotteRusse.com and others let visitors shop together with friends and family online whether they live a block away or in different countries. It’s a fun way to choose the perfect gift for yourself, or a niece, brother or friend, when geography or time constraints may get in the way. And, for brands that incorporate it, social shopping can be another pillar of their corporate social responsibility efforts.
Social Commerce for Home Buying and Apartment Hunting
As with so many industries, it’s hard to remember real estate before the Internet. A lot has changed from the days of scouring through classifieds, driving around in search of “for sale” signs and researching for hours with an agent. The Internet has afforded a wealth of information for potential home buyers and saved hours of time to find the perfect place. In fact, the web has become such a valuable resource that, according to a recent study by the National Association of Realtors, 90 percent of those in the market use it when searching for a new home.
Additionally, 68 percent of home buyers are couples (either married or unmarried), and 87 percent work with an agent. What that implies is that an overwhelming majority of home buyers works with at least one, and in most cases, two other people throughout the decision-making process.
In spite of this inherently “social” nature of home buying, the online experience for the real estate industry is a highly isolated and solitary one, e.g.: An agent emails pages of links and options from an MLS that may or may not fit the buyer(s)’ criteria; the buyer looks through the links on her own and eliminates the ones she knows off the bat don’t fit. Then she goes through the site doing some research on her own, copies the links and adds them to the list. Next, maybe she forwards the links from work to her fiancé, who then repeats the process. Once the couple has decided on their list, they may send it back to the agent, who then has recommendations on certain listings she knows have inherent flaws the buyer might not know about and finally they arrive on a set of possibilities. Then, it’s time to start pounding the pavement.
Social commerce tools like ShopTogether minimize those hassles by allowing two or more people to view properties online together from different locations. A couple can browse properties together in real-time from across town during their lunch breaks. They can even have their REALTOR join in to guide them and answer questions, and couples can give a quick “thumbs-up” or “thumbs-down” on a listing. And for rental sites, ShopTogether can provide similar benefits for friends or couples researching a place that will appeal to everyone in the group.
Given we’re still in the early stages of social commerce, ShopTogether can be a differentiator on innovative sites that will attract more visitors and keep them there longer, which benefits not only end-users, but also the sites that depend on ad revenue as part of their business model.
With the explosion in popularity of sites like Facebook and Twitter, the real-time social potential of the web is finally starting to be realized, and the sooner real estate sites embrace this trend themselves, the sooner they’ll be exclaiming, “Sold!”
DecisionStep and the “Assembled Commerce” Model
Retail Systems Research (RSR) analyst Nikki Baird recently published an informative and spot-on paper about Assembled Commerce and Optaros’ 3C’s framework (Commerce, Content and Community), looking at how retailers now have the ability to influence a customer’s purchase decision beyond just awareness-building to get consumers to a store. Retailers now have the ability to directly influence every aspect of the purchase funnel.
Baird argues, “The future is not about strengthening the retailer’s or brand’s position in the community but in the ability to bring the right community to bear for the right context. Early in the process, community plays an educational role — helping the shopper learn about products or categories of products. Later in the process, the community serves to validate the decision-making process, helping a shopper confirm that he or she is making the right product selection.” Baird goes on to say, “Too often, the mix of content, community and commerce is driven by enterprise silos, siloed content within siloed channels.”
At DecisionStep we’ve considered the difficulties of e-commerce sites in weighing the right mix of commerce, content and community, and in what context that mix is most effective. With ShopTogether, consumers can choose at which point in the purchase decision to access the community, whether that community be friends, family or other consumers shopping on a site at the same time. Rather than siloing a community on a microsite or away from the product pages and “add-to-cart” button, ShopTogether is accessible whenever and wherever the shopper wants to get real-time answers to questions directly on the brand’s site, near real-time feedback from their friends on Facebook or Twitter, or just to see what other shoppers in the store are looking at and talking about to generate purchase ideas.
No matter what step a shopper is in when deciding on a product or service to buy, ShopTogether integrates the 3C’s by connecting shoppers to their community of choice, on the retailer’s site where they can access brand-provided content and ultimately make a purchase.
ShopTogether Usage Surges Over Cyber Monday
Reflecting the reported gains made in sales and the overall number of shoppers visiting e-commerce sites over the Thanksgiving weekend, DecisionStep saw a huge boost in usage of its ShopTogether application among its customers on Cyber Monday. The number of ShopTogether sessions increased 81 percent compared to a typical day, as more and more shoppers joined friends and family to find the perfect holiday gift. We’re thrilled to see the jump in users trying out and having fun with our technology and our customers reaping the benefits.
ShopTogether is our hosted application for online retailers that utilizes the best in social networking and real-time technology to connect consumers like they’re in the stores, malls and markets of the offline world. It lets friends, family, fellow shoppers and customer service pros browse, share, discuss, recommend, save and ultimately purchase products, improving the customer’s online experience, increasing order values and conversions, and building brand.
For more information about ShopTogether, check out our Solutions page or better yet, contact us for a demo.
What Happens After Cyber Monday?
With Cyber Monday quickly approaching, the majority of consumers’ focus will be on which retailers are providing the best deals, shipping terms and value. Below are some examples, taken from an article in RIS News, of what some retailers are doing this Cyber Monday:
JCPenney: The department store is offering free shipping and screenbusters which highlight high-quality gifts at sharp price points. The retailer also announced it will offer its Cyber Monday promotions a day earlier this year on Sunday, November 29. The two-day online sale will feature special offers exclusive to jcp.com on more than 30,000 items.
Blue Nile: The jewelry retailer will offer free overnight shipping on all orders placed on Monday, November 30 and premiere holiday exclusives at midnight including limited edition jewelry items that will be offered at a significant discount and only available for 24 hours or while supplies last.
Walmart: The big box retailer is offering free shipping for home, electronics and baby items as well as 80 percent off select clearance orders. The retailer also is offering major discounts on popular gift items including Guitar Hero, Nintendo and the Garmin GPS.
Undoubtedly the lure of 80 percent off and free shipping is tough to resist, and disseminating the news about these deals through both traditional and new media campaigns is a key component of retailers’ strategy to get customers into their virtual “doors.”
But once customers go online on Monday, it’s important they stay in the store, shop, and buy…and keep coming back.
Customer reviews, blogs and online video have gone a long way in connecting brands to their fans and improving their online experience. But pioneering brands like Mattel, Charlotte Russe and more are taking it to the next level this holiday season using social shopping tools like ShopTogether.
When a shopper sees a new toy they think would be perfect for their nephew, or a pair of flats that would look great on their best friend, ShopTogether can move that person from the spark of inspiration to action, by letting them chat and browse products, in real-time, with someone that can give their instant “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” on the purchase, or recommend alternatives.
The purchase process, which, without ShopTogether, otherwise may be a time-consuming hassle, can now be a fun way to reach a decision while introducing the brand to new customers. Whereas deals and promotions will likely drive millions of customers online on Cyber Monday, social commerce tools like ShopTogether will go a long way to ensuring those customers come back on Tuesday, Wednesday and into 2010.
New Study Underscores the Growing Importance of Social Marketing for e-Tailers
A new study from Internet Retailer and the Vovici Corp illustrates that—even in a tight economy—retailers plan to spend more on their e-commerce environment in the coming year with a strong focus on social marketing applications. The study reflects what DecisionStep is also seeing in the marketplace.
As a possible indication that more retailers understand the necessity of building a superior e-commerce experience to remain competitive, more than seven out of 10 respondents to the survey said they planned to spend more on advanced e-commerce applications, such as video, blogs and advanced search. Among those advanced applications, by far the largest percentage (49 percent) of respondents said they planned to spend more on social marketing technologies (e.g., ShopTogether).
Perhaps the most recent example of the importance retailers are beginning to place on social marketing comes from Mattel, which just launched MattelShop.com. ShopTogether was one of Mattel’s three strategic pillars to support the company’s first “online shopping destination committed to delivering play everyday by offering a complete selection of Mattel products, informative content, and an immersive social shopping experience.”
At DecisionStep, we’ve spent almost a decade developing rich e-commerce applications to improve the site experience for consumers, and understand that social marketing is a critical factor to driving engagement and increasing conversions. With social shopping applications, retailers can make their sites a more engaging and fun experience for their shoppers by allowing them to interact with the people who matter most in the decision-making process — friends, family, peers and customer service reps — like they do in the offline world. And brands benefit from better word of mouth and reach by connecting fans to their friend networks on the major social media sites and on the brand’s home site as well.
Pioneering online brands like MattelShop.com, Buy.com and CharlotteRusse.com clearly understand these benefits…and the study cited above shows that a large number of other retailers have also caught on.
Next Stop for Social Commerce: Travel
Given the importance of collaboration when deciding one’s travel plans, whether it’s an agent pointing out special offers, a couple deciding where to go on their honeymoon, a group of friends planning their Spring Break in Cancun, or a family working out their details for a reunion cruise, social shopping/social commerce applications like ShopTogether translate perfectly for the travel sector. And once somebody invites their friend to help plan their trip on the site, they won’t be jumping off to another site where they can’t chat, share travel options and decide right then and there. For visitors coming to the site to simply explore ideas about destinations, ShopTogether can also display the most popular locales and packages in real time. You can see how this works on Mattel’s site here: http://shop.mattel.com/shop/index.jsp?categoryId=3824120.
Having immediate second and third opinions on a considered purchase like travel can save customers hours of time emailing links back and forth, calling each other on the phone or printing out options and discussing them offline. In addition, by allowing their site’s fans to invite friends and family to plan their tip together, they are differentiating their brand from competitors and introducing it to a host of potential new customers in a fun and engaging way.
The first mover in online travel will realize the greatest strategic advantage. It will become even more important as consumers begin to expect newer, more social interaction with the brand.
More Consumers Heading to the Online Arms of Multichannel Merchants
Recent reports indicate that more and more consumers are going to the websites of some of their favorite retailers, including Macy’s, Gap and Urban Outfitters, to make a purchase. Reasons for the increase include shoppers becoming more accustomed to online shopping following last year’s high gas prices, a search for competitive deals in a tough economy and low inventories at retailers’ physical stores.
As consumers move more of their shopping online, the stakes become greater for retailers to differentiate their online brands and provide an engaging experience. Social shopping technologies like ShopTogether are one way to encourage fans to bring friends and family to shop with them or connect with others anonymously to get opinions. Once engaged with somebody else on your site, people are less likely to jump away and shop elsewhere for a deal where their friend can’t follow.
As more and more consumers continue to go online and expect a unique, engaging, and even inspiring or fun experience from their favorite retail brands, we expect new customers to push our collaborative tools even further.
Retail and the Real-Time Turning Point: Why Now?
Prominent online retail brands like Mattel, Buy.com and Charlotte Russe, as well as dozens of smaller ones, have begun to embrace social shopping technologies in recent months. Why now?
In a tight retail environment and tough economy, businesses are looking for more ways to deliver a competitive advantage and a strong return. Real-time social shopping technologies cost a fraction of a typical retailer’s marketing budget and only take a couple of days or weeks to deploy. And retailers like Charlotte Russe that are using the technology have seen significant increases in unit lift, average order values and time spent on site, while seeing decreases in returns.
Another reason more retailers are deploying social shopping applications is because consumers are becoming exposed to real-time and near real-time communication on the Web with friends and family through sites like Twitter and Facebook. A telling sign of how far these networking tools have reached came from Facebook, which reported earlier in the year that the fastest growing segment of users was women over the age of 55. Online retailers realize they can now influence word of mouth – which has been shown in study-after-study to be the biggest influence on a consumer’s purchase decision – much more effectively by tapping into these vast networks.
Finally, real-time technologies have received high-profile attention lately thanks to Google. First, the company announced YouTube RealTime in April, which lets people interact on YouTube to see what their friends are watching, see a history of their friends’ recent activities and get notifications in real time when friends perform an activity like adding a comment or a favorite. Then, in May the company announced Google Wave, a real-time communication platform that combines email, instant messaging, wikis, social networking and project management. With the implicit “thumbs up” Google has given to real-time communications, more online businesses, both in the retail and other sectors, will likely begin to adopt these technologies on their site.
Given the clear benefits real-time shopping can deliver, coupled with the current state of the market and adoption of high-profile real-time technologies in other categories, it looks like 2010 will be the year that a whole host of retailers will follow the lead of some of the trailblazers like Mattel, Charlotte Russe and Buy.com.
ShopTogether Goes Live with Mattel
We’re really excited today to announce that our real-time social shopping technology called ShopTogether is now live on Mattel’s new e-commerce site, www.ShopMattel.com. As a blue-chip consumer brand loved by a huge swath of consumers – moms, dads, grandparents, uncles, aunts, kids — this announcement represents high profile validation of our technology, and underscores the product’s applicability for gift-giving just in time for the holidays. You can imagine a situation where an uncle in LA wants to get his nephew in Pittsburgh a new Hot Wheels® toy, but has no idea what his nephew likes. With ShopTogether, he can go online with his sister and pick out the perfect one. Here is a video to showcase:
ShopTogether also lets visitors to ShopMattel.com view the most popular items on their site in real time. The hottest items appear in a dynamic display with products moving in and out as the crowd’s favorites change. It serves as a great merchandising tool for Mattel, and a fun way of getting new gift ideas for the consumer. You can view the application on Mattel’s site here.
Also, check out this article about the announcement from Reuters. Stay tuned to our blog for more news.
Learning from the Successes of Online Consumer Opinions
Community-based features like online consumer reviews, discussion groups and wish-lists have been commonplace on e-commerce sites now for years. It’s easy to understand why. The internet is the easiest and quickest way to research products, and study after study shows that the opinions of one’s peers, whether it’s friends, family or like-minded consumers, have the greatest influence on someone’s purchase decision. Sites that have recognized and acted on this information have benefited the most through improved consumer engagement, brand affinity and sales.
BusinessWeek’s Spencer Ante recently wrote a story touching on this topic and how Amazon.com has succeeded in incorporating features that enable otherwise unrelated consumers to share opinions about the products it sells. But while peers are being effectively leveraged as online research aids, friends and family ironically remain a highly underutilized resource in the online purchase process.
What online retailers are still trying to figure out is how their brand can be a bigger part of the conversations that consumers are having with friends and family in much the same way Amazon.com has led the charge with peers.
Social shopping technology is the solution. With social shopping tools, consumers now have the choice of how to solicit feedback on purchases both big and small, and e-tailers can steer conversations that otherwise would have happened offline, through third party sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), or not at all, to them, with their brand as the backdrop. And the innovation that is social shopping could have implications for the tried-and-true staple of consumer reviews as well. Stay tuned.
Despite Near-Universal Adoption, Study Shows Retailers Have Concerns About Social Media
A recent study from the e-tail group shows that while 99 percent of retailers either have or plan to have a Facebook Fan Page and are actively using other social tools, they still worry about their competence at using social media. According to e-Marketer:
One of their biggest fears was that customers would abandon their site in favor of one that was more socially engaging. Using social media might be scary, but avoiding it is becoming less of an option.
With more and more retail customers flocking to social networks like Facebook and Twitter, retailers know they need to be there, but a key concern is how to leverage these networks to engage consumers while driving sales and maintaining control of the brand.
Social shopping tools like ShopTogether are quick and easy-to-implement solutions to this problem. Retailers and other online businesses can let their fans advocate their brand through the social networks, and connect multiple shoppers on their site, where they have more control. More importantly, customers can have real-time access to the people that matter most in the decision-making process: peers, friends and family.
For more on this topic check out this bylined article from DecisionStep CEO John Jackson in RIS News.
Moms and Real-Time Social Shopping
The importance of moms in the purchase process is paramount. While juggling child-rearing responsibilities with careers, hobbies and interpersonal relationships, many moms also are the decision-makers on everything from their children’s school clothes to the home electronics. In addition to these roles, many moms have become the household trailblazers in the technology arena. Mommy bloggers are just one example.
Now, it appears moms are becoming leaders in social networking as well. A recent study from RAMA (Retail Advertising and Marketing Association) and BIGResearch shows two important findings as they relate to moms and social shopping: 1) Moms are more likely (than the general adult population) to use social networking sites like Twitter, MySpace and Facebook and 2) Almost all mothers (93.6 percent) seek advice from others when making a final decision, and even more (97.2 percent) provide advice to others on products and services.
These two findings are strong evidence to support a social shopping strategy for online businesses that target moms. Sites that make getting advice quicker and easier, while leveraging the major social networks, are sure to win over even the most difficult-to-please moms.
Two New Studies Point to ShopTogether
Two studies were released this week that caught our eye, as they touch on social shopping technologies like ShopTogether.
A benchmarking study put out by Omniture indicated that “a majority of e-retailers and other online businesses are failing to take advantage of analytics technology to optimize web site content to better convert shoppers to buyers.” Among the survey’s findings:
- 80% of companies don’t promote web site content based on analytics that show how particular content engages shoppers and converts them to buyers.
- 80% of companies don’t present personalized content based on shoppers’ interests as shown by analytics and clickstream data.
Since the study served to just benchmark the industry, we can only speculate on the reasons behind this: Complexity? Cost? Time constraints? Regardless of the reasons for the lack of action, one of the products in our ShopTogether family, ShopTogether Crowd, is an easy solution for e-retailers to merchandise the most popular items on the site in real-time, give online shoppers new ideas for what to buy and boost click-through rates and conversions. One DecisionStep customer using ShopTogether Crowd has seen 100 percent higher click-through rates and 100 percent higher conversion rates.
The other survey released this week shows that “Americans shopping online are missing the personalized experience of visiting a brick and mortar store, leading to a decrease in purchases.”
The findings show:
- About 4 in 5 online adults who have purchased items online in the past 6 months (77 percent) say they would be interested in getting help from a real person before making certain online purchases. Of these adults, over half say they’d want help from a real person before purchasing things like real estate (56 percent), automobiles (54 percent), and insurance (51 percent). Many would also like help from a real person when it comes to purchasing things like personal computers (42 percent), computer hardware/software (39 percent), home appliances (35 percent) and mobile phones (31 percent).
- While the majority of online adults who have purchased items online in the past 6 months say they would be interested in getting help from a real person before making the purchase, over 4 in 5 (82 percent) say there have been times when they have not been able to get the help from a real person.
- Most strikingly, over half (52 percent) of those who have not always been able to get the help they needed from a real person say it’s affected their decision to not purchase the product at least sometimes, while 16 percent say it’s affected their decision not to purchase the product almost always or often.
The study makes a pretty good case that dollars are being left on the table when online customers can’t get a second opinion. ShopTogether is an ideal tool for retailers looking to connect their shoppers with friends, family and customer service agents. The ability to mutually view a friend’s items in real time eliminates confusion about what products they’re looking at and there aren’t barriers like logging into a separate account or downloading software in order to use the technology.
It is reassuring to continue to see studies that support our vision for the ShopTogether family.
The Growth of the Social Web
A new study from Universal McCann shows that the volume of active Internet users aged 16-54 utilizing the social networks has surged in the past year, underscoring the growing importance of social media strategy for marketers.
The study finds that 71% of active Internet users aged 16-54 visited a friend’s profile page and 62.5% have profiles of their own. This means people are actively sharing ideas, pictures and items to buy online, and they likely place a significant importance on using the network for general communication.
For online retail, there are a few take-aways we have distilled:
- Marketing efforts need to include social networks in a growing way.
- Features and functions found on the networks will be expected throughout other web properties.
- Your demographic is on social networks. We talk to a surprising number of people who maintain that THEIR demographic isn’t using these social tools, but all you need to do is look at the numbers to see that the vast majority of people online are also is using social networks in some way.
So, this study supports your presence on Facebook and your staff’s twitter updates. But it also means that, as long as you engage in the right way, you can have a very large audience for marketing efforts like Twitter promotions and Facebook coupons. To deepen your customer experience and drive more site traffic, make sure your shoppers can easily share items they like or want feedback on through their network connections. DecisionStep enables this functionality as part of our ShopTogether Friends application. That way, even though they may not be a “fan” of your brand on Facebook, they can still easily act as a brand ambassador and disseminate product information to their friend networks. If they are a fan and visit your Facebook fan page, consider our new ShopTogether Crowd application. ShopTogether Crowd dynamically presents the most popular items (from your ecommerce site) out to your Facebook page and drives people back directly to the product page that they are most interested in.
With the mainstream adption of social networks, the features and functions associated with them will become prevalent throughout the rest of the Internet. The need for real-time communication beyond Facebook and Twitter is becoming obvious. With the assurance that the real-time Internet is not just a fad, you can be assured that users will demand the benefits of it everywhere they visit online. Shoppers standing in a retail store with their credit card in hand make phone calls, SMS images to their friends or ask the person standing next to them if they need the last push before swiping the card. E-commerce sites should allow them to do that online too. Allow them to message or share with friends, a sales clerk or an expert easily before they purchase. If you don’t have the sharing functionality up already, then add it. The next step is to include ShopTogether so your customers can connect in real-time with the people who matter most in the purchase-making decision.
And lastly, note that growth from the Universal McCann study cited above is in the user base ages 16-54. Over the past year, 16% more people have a social network profile, and clearly boomers want this functionality as well.
Big News and Little Rumors This Week in Social Media
Although it’s only Wednesday, this week has already seen several exciting developments in the world of social media. The Web is evolving into a place we can share information instanteously, just as we do face-to-face in the offline world.
We’ll start with a rumor, which came from the Boy Genius Report blog and cited widely in outlets like TechCrunch and BusinessWeek, that iTunes 9 will reflect a new social media strategy for Apple. The company has stayed largely away from integrating social tools into their products and services until now. Although details are thin, the new version of Apple’s music service is said to include the ability for users to broadcast songs to their friends on social networks. Since consumers are already figuring out ways to share their music online through hosting services like RapidShare and personalized radio stations like Blip.fm, it makes sense for Apple to get into the game and make it an easier process for their customers. We’ll withhold any judgments until the company announces hard news.
The FriendFeed acquisition by Facebook is also timely and interesting. FriendFeed is a real-time feed aggregator that pulls together a user’s RSS feeds, as well as the status updates and other information they post anywhere on the Web. Without speculating too much about Facebook’s strategy around the acquisition, what we feel it points to is the market coalescing around social applications and real-time communication (or the “instant Web”). We’ve posted about this before (here and here) and feel the time is ripe for online businesses to begin integrating this type of functionality on their sites. A number of brands already have real-time social shopping, and you can follow our blog and news pages for additional updates on this front. With these recent pieces of real-time news, it looks more like the instant Web is the next stage of online communication.
…and this just in: DecisionStep customer Charlotte Russe and our ShopTogether application were featured today in The San Diego Union-Tribune in a story about how companies are utilizing social networking to reach customers. Story here.
Shocking Study of the Week: Teens/Tweens Don’t Respond to Advertising on Social Networks
In MediaPost yesterday, Pangea Media released the results of a survey they did of tweens and teens who visit their site Quibblo.com. Of particular interest:
“Teens still rely the most on friends (77%) to find out about new brands, followed by seeing new brands in a store (71%) or on a TV commercial (51%).
However, it appears that social networks still have a long way to go when it comes to offering them ads and content around what’s cool. Asked to cite which social networking site had the ‘coolest’ information about new products or brands, 46% said neither [Facebook nor MySpace], followed by 23% who said MySpace. Accordingly, most (71%) responded that they are not ‘fans’ of a brand on a social networking site.”
We believe strongly that the main reason people are engaging in social networking is to…well, be “social,” i.e., to stay connected with friends and family, not to deepen their relationships with brands or to be marketed to. The teen/tween segment is no different.
The “hard sell” on social networks is not where the biggest bang for the buck is currently. Instead, it may make more sense for online brands to invest in technologies that help fans easily tell their story. For example, many retailers offer a “share” button which allows fans to send out products they like to their friend networks and include comments. Rather than a marketing message coming directly from the company, the shopper’s network of friends and followers is exposed to the product(s) and brand in their friend’s own voice. The link included with the product drives interested friends back to the brand’s site, where they can browse more products, and the brand can engage a potential new customer.
The next step is to provide real-time social shopping technology that lets friends chat and shop together on the retailer’s site, where they’ve chosen to go on their own terms, as opposed to the personal, private domain of their social network. This type of engagement can be the way to convert both the fan and the fan’s friend into new customers, without intruding on hallowed turf.
Using Social Shopping Technology to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment
Statistics around shopping cart abandonment show that anywhere from 50-75% of online shoppers abandon their carts before checking out. There is an abundance of research and opinions about why this happens, and following are some of the most common:
1) Shoppers change their mind or need a second opinion
2) The checkout process is too long
3) Shoppers experience sticker shock after seeing the final cost of all items in their cart
4) Shoppers are unsure about the reliability or security of a site
5) The checkout process asks for too much personal information
6) The checkout process is cumbersome
The majority of these issues (namely 2-6) can be mitigated with some simple tweaks to the design and marketing of the checkout system. Providing as much information about taxes, fees and delivery options up front; simplifying the checkout process by incorporating clear calls to actions, large buttons and fewer fields to fill out; and reassuring visitors about the site’s reliability through third parties like the Better Business Bureau, a product review from a reputable news organization, “click to chat” functionality and standard security icons will go a long way to ease customers through the checkout system.
But what about customers who change their mind or need a friend or family member’s opinion about a particular product? Online shoppers will often put a product in the shopping cart, utilizing it as their wish list with the intent of getting a second opinion. They may send an email with a link or even print out the product page while leaving the product in the online shopping cart, which they may or may not return to at a later date.
Much of the reason items in shopping carts aren’t abandoned in the physical world is because of the social nature of shopping and being able to get a second opinion from a friend or family member (or a customer service rep) on the spot. In a similar way, online shoppers who can quickly secure necessary buy-in from a second party via technologies like ShopTogether, will be less likely to abandon their shopping carts. In fact, we’re seeing considerably less abandonment on sites that have deployed ShopTogether.
Giving shoppers the ability to invite a friend to look at their shopping cart during the checkout process can also serve a similar role to providing product reviews or customer testimonials. Having a quick “thumbs up” from a friend will help mitigate concerns a shopper may have with the final purchase decision, and there are reams of data showing that the opinion of a friend can go much farther in influencing them than a third party.
We’re finding that mimicking offline social behavior in the online world, that is, allowing shoppers to more easily get a second opinion prior to placing the product in their online shopping cart, can go a long way in reducing abandonment.
Why do you abandon shopping carts online?
ZDNet on Social Shopping
ZDNet’s Tom Steinert-Threlkeld recently covered some of the great work Zappos is doing in the social shopping field. As followers of ZDNet’s Between the Lines blog and the news they post regarding emerging IT trends in retail and other business categories, we were excited to see Tom’s commentary, and even more excited to see that he took the “real-time” leap after seeing our ShopTogether technology.
Tom is someone that clearly gets the direction that technology in retail is headed, in both online and offline environments. His post last month on Systemax Technology Group talks about brick-and-click merchandising, i.e., stores integrating more online capabilities (search, price comparison, reviews) into physical retail stores like CompUSA and the benefits it gives consumers in the process of deciding what products to buy and how much to spend.
At DecisionStep we’re working towards the same goal of facilitating a shopper’s decision making process, but in the reverse. We help bring the fun and interactivity of shopping in the physical world to businesses online.
In yesterday’s story, Tom gives an overview of our ShopTogether social shopping application and concludes:
…These features won’t go away. Expect, over time, that all shopping sites will have closets with social communication built-in. And real-time chat on product images, specs and more, as well.
Welcome to Shopping 3.0. If you can’t make up your mind on your own, the barriers are being taken down. (Read the entire story here.)
The stark differences that once characterized offline and online shopping are quickly going away, and we’re thrilled to be working with those businesses leading the charge.
Best Buy Having Fun with Social Media
One of the great benefits for big brands that has come from the rise of social media is the revolution it has created in the communications industry. It’s now possible for brands to communicate directly with stakeholders in a much quicker, more human and arguably more effective way than ever before.
A recent example of just how far things have come happened a couple weeks ago between electronics retailer Best Buy and Gizmodo, one of the Web’s most-visited and influential resources of news and information on tech gadgets. Gizmodo blogger Adam Frucci posted a humorous, if unflattering, article about the seven types of employees that one can find at virtually any Best Buy in America, ranging from the “infuriatingly chipper and perky” customer service girl to the “terrifying loss-prevention guy” who will “snap your neck” if you cross him.
The damage to Best Buy’s brand from Gizmodo’s article on its own was probably pretty minimal. There’s nothing particularly incendiary or controversial in the story, but it adds to a perception that may exist among some consumers that having to deal with a Best Buy employee might not be a very fun experience.
In the pre-social media world, the PR and marketing teams might do one of the following things to quell any damage that such a story could cause: 1) Create a campaign combining PR and advertising to educate the general consumer, as well as Gizmodo and other media “gatekeepers” about the diversity of employees and their unique skill sets; 2) Ignore the story altogether if the impact is perceived to be low; or 3) In the worst case scenario, ”blacklist” the outlet, i.e., stop offering important news to the blog and pull any advertising dollars in favor of competing outlets.
But Best Buy took a different approach, made possible by the changing media and technology landscape. CMO Barry Judge posted a blog the next day about the characteristics of the “typical Gizmodo blogger,” which was equally funny, if not funnier than Gizmodo’s. You can read it for yourself here.
Comments to Best Buy’s blog and general feedback have been positive for the brand. Social media, namely a blog, provided the platform for Best Buy to create a lighthearted and funny riposte, underscoring how social media is driving people and brands to communicate online in a way much more akin to how we interact in the offline world.
It will be interesting to see how brands continue to evolve their communications strategies in light of the technological revolution taking place. It appears Best Buy’s evolution is well under way.
Nielsen Study Underscores Need for Businesses to Embrace Real-Time Communication
Nielsen, the television audience measurement company, released a study this week highlighting the importance of peer recommendations in the consumer decision-making process. According to their Global Online Consumer Survey of over 25,000 Internet consumers from 50 countries, ninety percent of those surveyed said they trust recommendations from people they know.
The power of word-of-mouth marketing is nothing new, and traditional grass roots programs have always been a part of most consumer brands’ marketing campaigns. But what is new are the channels that marketers have at their disposal to drive word-of-mouth in a much more targeted and effective way. Social networks like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have all become integral communications channels in consumers’ lives and play a role in how they share information, including information about the products and services they consume.
The important thing for e-tailers and other online businesses to consider is how they can impact not only consumer opinion in a positive way through things like customer service, superior product design and functionality, sponsorships and the like, but then also how to tap into consumers’ new communications channels to facilitate the process of viral marketing within peer networks and ultimately influence the purchase process.
Can your consumers easily distribute and talk about products they like, leveraging the major social networks? Have you integrated consumer ratings and reviews on your site? And do you empower your customers to communicate with their peers ON YOUR SITE, in REAL TIME, where they’re most likely to be at the critical point in their decision about whether or not to buy?
Given the overwhelming importance of getting advice from friends and family as underscored by the most recent Nielsen study, sites allowing real-time communication for customers and their friends (and even customer service experts) will eventually be the norm rather than the exception. The question now is which brands will innovate early and gain an advantage in the marketplace, and which ones will be late to the game.
Do something interesting
Given the general state of unemployment, the auto industry and consumer confidence, we are seeing lots of ideas on how to cope. However, an economy in turmoil is giving many retailers a chance to go beyond merely coping and to seriously reinvent.
We have been inundated with retailers just coming into the online game at what some would say is a crazy time. Contrary to what you may think, many seem actually motivated by the current economic condition. The employee talent on the market is awesome and not as expensive as two years ago, for one thing. Secondly, over the past nine months, many established online retailers have not invested heavily in their stores, marketing or brand efforts due to financial constraints and because very little in the way of new, “must-have” site technology or functionality has emerged. All of this gives new entrants with little to no infrastructure “baggage” a leg up on innovation, and has gone a long way to level the playing field.
In this environment, what can you — whether you’re the new kid on the block or an internet vet — do to differentiate your brand? I found an article published last week in MediaPost’s Marketing Daily that effectively shares “must have’s” from a marketing investment perspective. My favorite points (however the entire short article is worth reading) are:
- “Create products and marketing that spark engagement and enjoyment.”
- “Do something interesting, vital, alive, engaged, even risky. That is table stakes in this economy”
ShopTogether satisfies both these directives. Why not allow your online customers to bring friends along with them to shop IN YOUR STORE? What can be more “vital” or “alive” than friends socializing and shopping, with your brand as the backdrop for that interaction? ShopTogether provides an opportunity for you to engage with your consumer and let them have a real in-store experience in your online store. Fortunately, we can have you up and running within a couple weeks…plenty of time to differentiate your online brand, marketers!
Harnessing the Intelligence of the Crowd to Boost Competitiveness
I watched an interesting Webinar last Thursday put on by internet thought leaders Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle in advance of their Web 2.0 Summit coming up in October.
During the Webinar, the two discussed the content of their fantastic white paper, “Web Squared: Web 2.0 Five Years On,” a main focus of which was the rise of real-time data and how companies must begin to harness it to be competitive. According to O’Reilly and Battelle:
Collective intelligence applications depend on managing, understanding, and responding to massive amounts of user-generated data in real time. The “subsystems” of the emerging internet operating system are increasingly data subsystems: location, identity (of people, products, and places), and the skeins of meaning that tie them together. This leads to new levers of competitive advantage: Data is the “Intel Inside” of the next generation of computer applications.
One example of how we at DecisionStep are helping our clients harness the collective intelligence of its consumers is our ShopTogether Crowd technology. ShopTogether Crowd is a social application that displays the most popular products being viewed or purchased by customers in real time. The application can show the “hot” products moving in and out in a dynamic format, or show the crowd move from one section of the store (e.g., from electronics to home furnishings) in an animated “floorplan.” Since the demographics and interests of a store’s shopper typically change from the morning, into the workday, after school and then in the evenings, the products they want tend to change along with them, and ShopTogether Crowd illustrates those changes.
Beyond just a fun way for shoppers to see what’s hot now and push otherwise hesitant customers to purchase, the application gives our retail customers an opportunity to automatically merchandise and market the products most likely to sell right now and respond in real time to shifts in consumer demand. We believe this unique capability will be both a brand differentiator for clients adopting the technology early, and a way to increase online order sizes and sales.
Here is a link to how our client Charlotte Russe is using the technology, and we’re looking forward to showing you some of the exciting ways we’re working with other clients to apply the technology in the future.
ShopTogether Demonstration
Here is a video that shows you how the ShopTogether toolbar works. Special thanks to Charlotte Russe for being our “model” site. They were first in fashion. We have Buy.com coming online in the near term and we have a few more category leaders queued up. Of course you want your friends opinion while you are shopping…real time!
Charlotte Russe Leads Fashion Retailers With ShopTogether
ShopTogether makes online shopping more fun, improves online merchandising, helps build brand while presenting positive ROI according to the executives at Charlotte Russe. Today’s released was complimented by an article in Women’s Wear Daily hitting the fashion segment head on.
“Shopping for our customers is a fun, social event,” explains Emilia Fabricant, President and Chief Merchandising Officer of Charlotte Russe. “They want to play with different looks and get one another`s opinion. With the ShopTogether® application, we’ve taken our existing social shopping feature and improved it, making it easier for her to connect with her friends while connecting with our brand.”
See the release here: http://tinyurl.com/l3t76x
Yes retailers, Boomers are your social target!
I just read a very well written article on why boomer women in particular are ripe targets for social media.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=107426
The key findings are:
Vibrant Women, as this sector of the 50-plus crowd is dubbed, are better connected than marketers presume, and their connections are growing with age.After personal experience, Boomer women depend on the opinions of “women like them” (even strangers) more than anything else. Vibrant Women tap into existing relationships and seek out new connections not just because of social orientation, but because their needs and interests change as they age.
We have spoken to many retailers who look at proof of real-time technology working in the marketplace and initially think that their demographic won’t adopt the notion of online shopping with other shoppers. This article explains why that is going to quickly become a misconception. This demographic has been through many things in their work life. As they progress toward retirement, they won’t shy away from demanding the same in person type experience online that they get in the brick and mortar store. They will want to weigh in on china patterns with their daughters and get their girlfriend’s opinion on reunion outfits — even though they live hundreds of miles away.
The times are changing. These women aren’t just cutting coupons—so retailers are going to need to look to collaborative online technologies.
Marketing new functionality – Charlotte Russe Home Page
Charlotte Russe launched a new home page dedicated to their “sweet, new social bar”. No it’s not a bar with drinks or ice cream. It’s the toolbar at the bottom of the site that lets people collaborate on purchases or just chat, shop together, etc. Enjoy!
Which segment will demand social interaction first?
Which segment will demand social interaction first?
You know that demographics matter. For some purchases however, we all benefit from a second (or third) friend’s opinion. We are seeing some segments adopt social shopping early…however it will be the major differentiator for holiday 2009 in a couple areas:
- Adding interested, influenced, new shoppers to your followers
- Positively influencing average order size
No matter what segment you serve, your customers will expect to be able to shop with their friends realtime. They already use YouTube Realtime; they already use Twitter; they already text message. Speaking of demographics, my dad has more facebook friends than I do! Give them the ability to ShopTogether® on your site.
See the newest version of ShopTogether live at www.charlotterusse.com.
YouTube Goes Real-time
Last week YouTube began sending out invitations to users for a new technology called RealTime. (TechCrunch story here.) Currently in early beta, RealTime allows users to see what videos their friends are watching and to send invitations to come watch the video they’re watching. It’s clear that one of YouTube’s goals is to increase the collaboration occurring on the site itself, as much of the discussion today about videos from YouTube occurs outside of the site, on IM, blogs, Twitter, Facebook and even offline at the water cooler.
We find that brands using ShopTogether today are seeing longer sessions, less abandonment and higher sales because they’re bringing the social nature of what happens in the offline world back to their sites. While social networks like Facebook and Twitter have done this for general social networking, technologies like ShopTogether and now YouTube’s RealTime are doing this for more specific purposes and replicating a “real-world” environment in their online communities.
As significant sites like YouTube begin incorporating social collaboration technologies, users will come to expect these features on other sites they visit, and the brands that begin adopting this technology early will be seen as leaders in their respective categories.
Target Social Influencers
Here is an article that I found interesting and particularly relevant to our retail clients’ social effort. A few things beyond the article summary were compelling:
- The ad networks will begin to optimize your advertisement placement around friend/social networks—especially for products that are heavily dependent on other people’s opinions. So your ad spend will be positively affected by the social networks in the future. In the meantime, you should be looking for ways to engage your shoppers friends if you fall into that “heavily dependent” category.
- “Friends of people who are already customers are more likely to convert than people who are socially disconnected from your product.”
- The ShopTogether social toolbar could help you leverage your current shoppers’ networks as well as give them a way to participate in each other’s decisions. And it takes a couple days to get live!