http://www.slideshare.net/FiBendall/onlineretailpresentation2010 – it is here!

Also please find notes below from the panel session I did the day before:

Introduction: The FACTS

Sources: Nielsen, Hitwise, Social Examiner, Lightspeed, iMediaConnection, Weber Shandwick, Forrester, Millward Brown

Internationally, ecommerce is a massive industry, for example in the UK alone it accounts for annual revenues of 48bn GBP and in the USA some $200BN USD with 90% of consumers thinking online shopping offers best value, 83% of consumers research a product for purchase online and 72% of them purchase as a result online.

However when it comes to social media 51% of consumers find advertising on social networks annoying and half of advertisers branded pages on social networks attract less than 1000 friends, while the European average was 6,494.

However, think of social in a different context of user generated content, as opposed to big social networks, aka Facebook. Take user rating and reviews and 84% of consumers are more likely to search for a product review and 75% of respondents would be deterred from purchasing after reading 3 bad reviews. Take the concept of user ratings and reviews off your site and social web-wide and “pure word of mouth” is vibrant and potentially damaging to your profitability with the research telling us that online message boards, blogs and communities were the most likely source of negative reviews.

In Australia, consumers spend more time on social networks than any other country with social networking in Australia fast catching up to search accounting for 11.38% of share of visits compared to 12.55% share of visits generated by Search. In the Reader Digest most trusted Australian brands for 2010, Bunnings topped the retail table, with Big W and Target up there. Yet only one of these three companies offers an online e-commerce platform and none of them have any consequential fan numbers on Facebook for example.

Question 1 – Best Practices

So given these facts, what are the best practices from overseas that Australian retailers can learn from when it comes to ecommerce and using social media to drive a sale or qualified lead?

Who is doing online retail and social media really well, that Australian companies can learn from? (In fact are these retailers taking Australian dollars overseas? – Are they the new competitor?)

Amazon is, without question, the leader in things like customer reviews, recommendations, wish lists, and even the Gold Box daily deals. All of these have a bit of the social media element you’re describing above, but the key takeaway from Amazon is their customer reviews. Customer reviews, when done well, can add a element of unique content to any/all product pages, thus enhancing the SEO value of those pages.

Question 2

How do we marry the social web with the commercial web?

Are there retailers that shouldn’t get involved?

People simply do not trust advertisers that attempt to leverage social media in a direct advertorial manner. Company pages on a site like Facebook may attract thousands of fans, but I wonder how many direct sales these companies are able to drive from their Facebook pages. The exception, of course, are the social gaming examples like Zynga (Farmville, Fishville, Mafia Wars, etc.) Zynga has grown to the #2 merchant in total PayPal transaction value, ahead of Walmart.com now, and behind only eBay. Two things to note about social games: 1) they’re games, not traditional commerce in the product-based sense; and 2) transaction values are extremely low, less than $1 for fish food or treasure, for example. For us non-social gaming companies, perhaps the best use of social media is as a brand awareness and brand interaction tool. Increasing the amount of time your customers engage and interact with your brand, even when they’re not actually purchasing. And to the points above, the extent to which your fans or customers use social media to share your brand with their own friends (passing along a review of your product, for example). If we can figure out how to do that, then we have a recipe for success in social media.

Question 3

Top Tips of turning Social Media into Social Commerce?

Fi Bendall

1. Listen to consumers online

- Do they want to purchase your products online, if they do, give them the ability to do so

- What are they saying about you – what is your social rating?

2. Find your brand fans, drive advocacy, and let them do the talking for you through their social networks

3. Think of your content, think of yourself as a publisher and how you can distribute your content web-wide in the context of you consumer’s time and social spaces

Tom Funk

1. Sponsor a contest or giveaway via your online community (Terry Bicycles wardrobe giveaway; Victoria’s Secret “You Like This” panties). Or latch your social media program to a larger cause (eco-friendliness, education, breast cancer research…) Examples: Patagonia, LL Bean, Pepsi Refresh project.

2. Engage customers on your social media platforms with helping you make merchandising decisions. Examples: Boston Proper, April Cornell, and Gardener’s Supply asking their online community to choose the best of a few catalog cover designs. BubbleRoom and Uncommon Goods sourcing product ideas from their community.

3. Take your relationship with your online community to the “next level” by moving from the solely digital world to the physical, bricks-and-mortar world, with Meetups or Tweetups, retail store events, etc. Examples: Sumac Ridge wine tasting, Victoria’s Secet “meet the models”, Meetup.org and sponsorships.

1. Mike KarnsUse social networking as a cost-limiting tool. Specifically, as a way to handle customer support issues.

Jennie Bewes

1) Research, Research, Research

Establish the digital touch-points of your target consumers, and, critically, how & when they use them at each stage of the consumer lifecycle

2) Plan

Use your understanding of your target consumer and their use of digital touch-points, to plan & prioritise a roadmap of relevant and value-adding experiences throughout their journey

3) Test, Learn, Refine

Take your experiences to market; encourage and engage with consumer feedback; adapt and evolve your experiences; keep your community informed of the changes they’ve influence; repeat.

Question 4

What are some of the best tools you can use to help your understanding of social media?

Free

Google Blog Search / Google Alerts, Google Advanced Search Tools – (Lefthandside of menu), Twitterstream maps, Search.twitter
Slideshare – lots of social media presentations, Spezify
· Facebook Insights: fan page engagement metrics: Post Quality and Interactions
· Google Analytics or other web stats program (track visits, sales, leads, email signups coming from social media).
· Custom Segments or Event Tracking to track use of “Add This” or social-media logos on your site
TinyUrl.com, Bit.ly, or other URL shorteners (or build your own!)
Check out http://wiki.kenburbary.com/social-meda-monitoring-wiki for a wiki on all social media monitoring tools, free and paid, cross platform

·

Paid

Radian6, Techrigy / SM2, Social Radar
Clickable (paid advertising dashboard including social media advertising)