Social Commerce Insight & Data Roundup & the LUV IT Strategy

Keeping up with developments in the fast-moving social commerce space can be daunting.  So here’s a quick e-briefing of the latest presentations, articles and factoids of note…

• Paul Chaney on Social Media’s Effect on Holiday Sales: Traffic from Social Sites = 10x Conversion, Onsite Social Tools = +10% conversion, Referral Traffic from Social Sites =  4.39% total.  The keys to monetizing social value -advertising deals in social media and enabling customers to leverage their social graph for product discovery, research, and validation
• Josh Constine on The Year in Facebook-Powered Shopping: Over 50% of top and fastest growing retailers have integrated with Facebook, either through storefront page tabs or open-graph enabled site shopping (like Etsy’s Gift Ideas for Facebook Friends). Over Black Friday weekend, 20% of transactions from student e-tailer Kembrel came through their Facebook store, and these Facebook store transactions were 7-10% bigger than on site shopping
• Wade Gerten on Going Beyond the Inbox with Social Commerce: Between June 2009 and June 2010, time spent online with email has dropped 28%, and risen 43% for social media – US Facebook users spend 1/3 of online time on Facebook. Hautelook’s new Alvenda powered FB store brings news and e-commerce to where people are (i.e. not the inbox), with new FB syndication feature that provides updates to people who like both the retailer and the brand being sold.
• Toby Beresford on the The Seven Basic Social Commerce Actions:  Wish (List), Gift, Group-Buy, Advise, Recommend, Share, Review
• James Poulter on Turning conversations into cash – social commerce and the recommendation economy (Presentation): Three areas of social commerce – social intelligence (using social circle as a discovery engine and decision tool), social capital (shareable assets with cash value – rewards, deals etc), and social buying (group-buy)
• Matt McDougall on Social Commerce in China (Presentation): Two types of social commerce – social layer on e-commerce platforms (Taobao social network), and e-commerce on social platforms (Renren social network has a new group-buy ‘Groupon’ style feature). LUV IT strategy – Listen, Understand, be Visible, use Incentives, gain Trust
• Gary Farmer on Groupon (Groupon Sales Pitch out in the Wild) (Presentation): Groupon: 86% more effective than print, 94% more effective than broadcast, 90% more effective than online advertising
• Janice Diner on Facebook beyond the Wall: Facebook emerging as the primary digital platform for integrated marketing communications – from messaging to transactions, loyalty, reward programs, CRM, and point of purchase (via FB Places)
• Invoke Social Commerce Study (US: n=302 adults, Sep 2010) (Presentation): social networking services are used to source and share product information by 60% of users. 10% of users unwilling to engage with brands via social networks. Product quality, uniqueness and financial incentives are key factors for sharing brand information. Beyond discounts, consumers want to engage with brands as innovation advisors.
• Kimberly Maul on Google Boutiques: Right Trend, Wrong Approach: Personalised stores based on taste, and the ability to follow brands, celebrities and other users is fine, but without a genuine social layer to source buying advice, there’s something missing. The future is Fashism, not Google Boutiques.
• Kaitlyn Bonneville on Should luxury brands explore Facebook as a retail channel? Yes, attractive demographic, coupled with the need to learn and develop. Hautelook has opened up a store on Facebook