Steve Fisher, from AppSolve and Network Solutions, is up next to discuss the social commerce, the intersection of social media and ecommerce, here at the Social Commerce Camp in DC.

Following the quick run down on social media from Sashi from Network Solutions, we’re moving forward to the social commerce element of this conference.

Quick Fact: 66% of consumers who use e-commerce also use social media web sites.

This means that e-commerce consumers are more likely to discuss your product or service on their social networks, and are therefore an important market to reach and influence.

Foundations of social commerce:

• The years from 2000-2005 were characterized by the Community Era: Forums and Forms online. People asked questions and interacted with each other about products.
• The years from 2006-2009 were characterized by The Crowdsourcing Area. People used their social networks to ask for opinions about a certain topic.
• However, The Collective Era, estimated to characterize social commerce from 2010-2015, will demonstrate a collective voice related to products and services.

Keeping the forthcoming Collective Era in mind, Steve identified 6 Components of social commerce.  Here are the building blocks of social commerce, with brief descriptions.

• Social Shopping; Individuals who buy their products based on recommendations from others.
• Ratings and Reviews; Yelp.com, for example, is a social networking site where people can add their reviews about a product or service. Including these reviews in your site add credibility because reviewers are brutally honest in their opinions, and demonstrate a third-party testimonial of what you offer.
• Recommendations and Referrals; www.pandora.com, for example, provides recommendations of related products, that gives the user pertinent content and can relate your product to others.
• Forums and Communities; These online niche communities can be converted into your own marketing team because of their relationships with their communities who share similar interests and are a trusted source of information from their followers.
• Social Media; sharing reviews and posting reviews on social media sites. Repost your reviews, allow people to share what they have bought or what event they are going to attend. This way, you’re increasing your WOM about your product or service.
• Social Advertising; paying for social media advertising space, but being transparent about.

That said, these 6 building blocks are imperative to the best practices of social commerce. Social Commerce must:

• Be authentic in social communication; if you’re paying for posts, it is not a transparent or authentic way of communicating a message about your product.
• Go beyond your .com; It’s not just about your site, it’s about how you’re appealing to your constituencies on social networks as well.
• Recruit and Empower Your Advocates; If your community is not behind you, you have so many more barriers to entry on the social commerce site. However, if you’re able to convert influencers to be fans of your product, then you’re able to nurture those relationships with those individuals and create positive communities advocating for your cause!

Overall, a great presentation.

I was looking up some general information on the benefits of small business blogging, and came across this post that gave some great statistics.

Small Business Trends explained the statistics in the following way.

Small businesses that blog have:

• 55% more visitors to their website.
• 97% more links to their website which is a primary factor in where your website shows up in search results. (Want a higher ranking, get quality links to your site).
• 434% more indexed pages – this is the number of pages that show up in search engines. Just because you have a site doesn’t guarantee it is being indexed (findable). Just because some of your pages are in search engines doesn’t mean all of your pages are.

Here’s the general idea:

It would appear that business blogging is potentially a great avenue to invest in. However, I agree with Small Business Trends that business blogging isn’t for everyone, especially those who are new to the social media arena. Here are some questions to ask yourself before beginning a blog:

1. Do you know your audience? Who are you writing to, and what do they need to know?

2. How often should you post? Do you know your industry blogging standards?

3. How will you generate content? Will you have the time to devote to writing blog posts?

If you’re unsure of the answers to any of these questions, perhaps you should consider hiring a consultant to get your social media efforts underway. (note: shameless plug)

Note: This will probably turn into on post in a multi-series. I believe the conversation I was having with this individual will most likely be ongoing. However, he did approve this first post.

I had an intriguing conversation the other day with an acquaintance. We were discussing traditional marketing and branding campaigns in relation to those that utilize social media. He claimed that the traditional marketing campaigns (in particular: branding through corporate storytelling) were more effective for companies that seek to foster engaging relationships with their constituencies.

I happened to disagree with him.

I think his statement was putting a blanket on social media campaigns. First off, I don’t think that a social media campaign should be *the only* element of a marketing strategy, it’s a tactic that may be employed to enhance pre-existing strategies.

Second, I believe that social media allows for the creation of unique, personalized messages to a company’s constituencies. For example, Comcast has created a brilliant form of proactive customer service strategy through the tactic of Twitter. This strategy enhances their preexisting corporate story as defined in the Comcast Credo.

Third, he did say that there used to be extreme thought and strategy development before implementing a corporate story. I didn’t disagree with him. But I did find it a bit disconcerting that he thought social media campaigns weren’t highly strategized. If anything, they are the reverse.

Before beginning a social media marketing campaign, it’s important that companies do a considerable amount of listening and monitoring to ensure that any message will reverberate among their community. Understanding their network and generating authentic relationships with their customers on an individualized basis is the underlying principle.

Here are some of the most basic lessons of social media use, many that are misunderstood by a variety of social media practitioners:

1. Lead with Relationships: If a company wants to utilize these social media tools, they must first lead their efforts through building successful, valuable relationships with influencers in their field. Every SM tool has its own value and using SM shouldn’t detract from interpersonal relationships, only adds to ability to connect with people.

2. Authenticity is Imperative: Being transparent in interactions one has with their constituencies is absolutely key. For example, if you’re blogging about one of your clients, it’s imperative to disclose that they are a client, to ensure that the reader is not being tainted with what could be potentially biased information. Lead your SM efforts with the utmost truth.

3. 2 Ears, 1 Mouth Principle: It all starts and ends with listening. Understanding the needs of your constituencies will only help you level and reach them on the most personalized basis possible. Recognizing that you need your constituencies more than they need you means that companies have to spend twice as much time listening to their constituencies, ensuring that the content they deliver to their constituencies is effective the first time it is distributed.

Update 08.13: I wanted to include a link to a pertinent post written by Josh Bernoff from Groundswell on this topic.

The other day I met with Lou, President of ValueStar, a customer ratings and reviews service from confirmed customers. (Disclosure: personal acquaintance).

The directory service provides companies (such as Company XYZ) the opportunity to have Company XYZ’s previous customers rate their experience on ValueStar’s Web site. This service varies from other social network rating systems, because it ensures that actual customers of Company XYZ are rating the company. Of course, it’s up to Company XYZ to complete quality work to obtain good reviews, and not all of the reviews on the site are positive.

Lou and I were discussing social media and it was enlightening to discuss the marketing element of a directory service, due to the variety of constituencies such service like ValueStar has to reach.

On the one hand, ValueStar has to draw customers to their web site and ask them to review a company with whom they have had an interaction, and use the companies listed on the Web site. On the other, the company has to obtain companies seeking the marketing opportunity ValueStar has to offer.

The problem arises where Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) strategy is concerned: How does one company diversify their message to such different constituencies? It would seem an IMC campaign that unifies messages across platforms would leave something to be desired for each constituency ValueStar is trying to reach. Juggling the communication needs of either constituency would be dangerous.

Because I’m an advocate of using the same communication messages across platforms, here’s my take on the situation:

Everyone is a customer of some sort. At some given time, we’ve all been the purchaser in a transaction. In my opinion, then, I think that ValueStar should focus its marketing efforts to the customers of the “Company XYZ’s” on the Web site. Utilizing a SM strategy that fosters genuine human interaction, ValueStar could cultivate relationships with this constituency and encourage them to become reviewers and users of other companies listed on the site. (Insert the 80/20 rule here). This communication strategy would inevitably include company owners and marketers who will see the value in the site, and want to become certified and listed on the directory.

A social media campaign would then be able to identify the business owners among the primary communication target. A specific, tailored message could be constructed for these new constituencies. Due to the highly-specific nature of these messages, they should resonate with the constituencies–eliminating the need for message repetition. After all, that’s the whole purpose of social media: building meaningful relationships with potential customers, and reach those customers with valuable messages.

But that’s my take, anyway. I’m curious to hear your input on this type of communication campaign.

photo via Mark Pummell

The Blog-off contest at Community Marketing Blog ended on the 30th of May.

Over the course of the two week competition, I ended up posting 3 times. These posts ranged in scope. One covered mobile advertising (or ‘app’vertising). It discussed the recent trends in the mobile marketing industry and how companies can increase brand awareness through effective mobile applications.

The second post talked about journalism in the social media era. I talked about how traditional journalism is being replaced by citizen journalism and how I thought this was a good thing in terms of marketing and branding campaigns. Citizen journalism increases transparency and strength of message from influencer bloggers.

My third post talked about the importance of digital monitoring due to digital WOM (word of mouth). It also touched on how companies must understand their online digital conversation before they engage their customers online.

I learned a lot from this competition. I’m proud of the conversation that was generated in the comments as well as how many people read the posts!

In my next post, I’ll talk about some of the ‘blogger best practices’ and my strategy for the competition.

Also, I’ll write a post and let you know who the winners of the contest are. If I am picked to be a permanent writer to the blog, I’ll have a press release with my bio sent out to 1+ million people on Linked-In and other prominent industry blogs. It will be very exciting.

Okay, Okay, the title of this post seems contradictory with the entire purpose of this blog. But just hear me out.

On Monday, The San Diego Business Journal wrote an article after an interview with Michael Olguin, who heads Formula PR. Formula PR was ranked No. 1 on the Business Journal’s 2008 Public Relations Agencies List.

The article discussed Olguin’s opinions on social media, who does claim that social media is as important as any other element of PR. However, he doesn’t think that social media is for everyone. According to the article:

Olguin is a firm believer that Internet media, whether it’s social networking, online versions of print publications, or columnists and reporters who maintain their own blogs, is vital to his business. But he also concentrates his client roster on national firms, or locally based companies that are national.

I agree with this framework completely. There are a lot of companies who are hearing a lot of buzz words and want to get active in the sphere. But companies may not benefit from having a social media presence, especially those in the B-2-B sector. I also think that Olguin is wise to implement social media campaigns for national firms and companies.

However, I do think that all companies should understand social media. Just because an active presence on the sphere may not be in the cards for your integrated marketing communications right now, it doesn’t mean that companies can just ignore the sphere altogether.

This is especially true for companies who are B-2-C. Chances are, your consumers are talking about your company on online communities. Companies should therefore instill a social media monitoring system to be aware of the online conversation and the ‘loudest’ allies and opponents. Having this system in place will make the entrance into the social media sphere more seamless as it becomes necessary.