Pinterest and E-Commerce

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Dave Palic

Pinterest recently raised $200 million dollars to their 2.5 billion dollar net worth. But if the company seriously starts to monetize what marketers like Sephora are finding in the social shopping platform, two and a half billion dollars is too cheap.

Beauty products retailer and digital trailblazer Sephora says that per-capita, its Pinterest followers spend more money than its Facebook followers, and not just a little bit more. In fact, Pinterest users spend 15 times more on Sephora products than Facebook followers, according to Sephora’s head of digital Julie Bornstein.

“The reality is that when you’re in the Pinterest mindset, you’re actually interested in acquiring items, which is not what people go to Facebook for,” Bornstein said. “Facebook continues to be just a great customer interaction tool that gives us the real-time ability to dialog with our customer; it’s a big customer-service venue for us.”

Sephora jumped on Pinterest hard, mostly because its largely-female marketing team were enthusiastic early adopters. When the company re-launched its website in April last year, it was one of the first retailers to integrate the ‘Pin It’ button sitewide. Individual users share their lists of what Sephora products they love and why — rather than just a putting together a list of fashion products, they can use Pinterest to tell a visual story about why a certain eyeshadow is so great and seek to inspire others. And a dedicated resource on the Sephora digital team helps Sephora staff craft Pinterest strategies.

Sephora’s following on Facebook is still huge and significant, at 4.7 million fans. And it’s a critical early-warning system for the company. “We hear instantly” about what people love and don’t love, Bornstein says, and Sephora clients connect with each other on the platform, giving each other fashion and beauty tips and advice.

If Pinterest and Facebook were left to fight to the death, Pinterest would be currently unmatched. “E-commerce really is still in the first innings of really leveraging the power of social,” Bornstein says. “But we’ve experimented a lot with social shopping, and this is the first one that has really gotten to scale.”

More and more companies are channeling ways to get their products into the niche of Pinterest for that extra boost in sales. Pinterest is truly rising in eCommerce.

If you like to see how the Social Annex Pin It to Win It tool helps retailers drive new traffic that converts quickly you can check it out here.

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Vine – This is Your Six Seconds of Fame

Posted on June 8, 2013 by Dave Palic

In today’s news, the jury is still out on Vine. So much can happen in 6 seconds. You can like a post or feed your goldfish. Or, you can record a short video clip and tweet it to your followers. How are businesses utilizing this new platform? Is there any value here? Well if you’ve been an avid reader of this blog, then you’ll know that companies should NEVER underestimate the power of social!

We saw a prime example of this on Wednesday June 6th when Mashable and (Red) teamed up to set a world record for the most Vines sent for a social cause in 24 hours, and it worked! So of course there are ways to use Vine to promote yourself or your business. And since Vine is still relatively untested ground for brands, the opportunity for disruption is ripe. People are eager to see clever examples of how it can be used. Choose a message and give your brand its six seconds of fame!

Via uncrate.com

However, I’ve noticed that whenever a new platform or social app is introduced is that resistance will keep companies from capitalizing on a golden opportunity. Adaptation is the key. The more quickly you adapt, the more change becomes your saving grace. Some great leaders are getting innovative with their companies and are using Vine.

One great example is ASOS. They are a UK based online retailer and broke down some of the barriers between the online and brick and mortar shopping experience by posting a vine clip where you can see an order being unboxed. Taking it further they can show someone trying on clothes or bringing friends to the store.

Via Digitaltrends.com

Some others include General Electric, Urban Outfitters, Malibu Rum, Dove, Taco Bell, and even Bacardi!

What are your thoughts on Vine? Underutilized opportunity or quickly fading fad?

By: Linze Peters

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How E-Commerce Marketers Can Improve Social Engagement [Infographic]

Posted on May 30, 2013 by Dave Palic

The world of e-commerce becomes increasingly competitive every day, and there is more pressure than ever to disrupt, stand apart from the crowd, and stay at consumer top of mind. As retail giants Amazon and Alibaba scale up and dominate on price points, shipping costs, and product availability, retaining core customers becomes even more essential. Remaining economically relevant and connected to influential consumers is a common challenge among retailers. Additionally, considering that it costs a business five to ten times more to acquire a new customer than it does to sell to an existing one; and that current customers spend 67% more than those who are new to a site, finding an incentive to keep repeat purchasers is extremely important. One way that we’ve been able to help our clients retain customers is through implementation of on-site social loyalty programs. In the infographic below, we highlight the benefits of a loyalty program and why its gaining popularity with retailers.

By: Dave Palic

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Facebook Graph Search: What Does Your Digital Fingerprint Say?

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Dave Palic

Although its cliche, the expression if youre not paying, youre the product, still proves to be true. Facebook recently announced that it will begin displaying pop-out video ads this summer, eliciting a firestorm of negative attention. Although Instagram is currently ad free and growing at an even faster rate than Facebook, consumers should expect advertisements in the pipeline. As if the evidence wasn’t already clear that the customer is the product on most (all?) social networks, Instagram has received negative criticism for its terms of use, which dictate that users’ private photos are owned by Instagram, and can thus be sold, and remarketed without users’ permission.

Although the temptation may be to toss your computer out the window and move to an isolated cabin in the woods, hold it right there! Here are some Facebook privacy tips, courtesy of ABC News’ Joanna Stern:

Set your default preferences to share with friends only. Underneath any status update or photo you share is a small toggle that allows you to select with who you would like to share that piece of content. Set it to “Friends” and it will automatically default to that setting on anything you share. You can always expand it to “Public” or “Friends of Friends” but it’s better to play it safe with the default setting.

Go through your likes. The Graph Search searches your likes. As Gizmodo points out, you can search for “People who like…” and it will return some shocking results. Maybe you “Liked” something in college, like “Weed” or something else that you wouldn’t like at this point in your life. This is the time to go clean that up. Unlike!

Go through your photos. Graph Search can also search photos. Now is the time to go through photos that are tagged of you and un-tag the ones you don’t like or may be inappropriate. Facebook’s new privacy tools have made this easier to do. Click the little lock icon in the upper right hand corner, select “Who can see my stuff?” and then “Where can I review all my posts and things I’m tagged in?” That will take you to the Activity Log, where you can select the photos tab. There you can see if photos are public or private.

Go through your friends and make lists. This is the one that can take the most time. You can create different lists of people who have different access to your information. Go to your Friends list from your Timeline and you can see which of your friends is on which list. You can even create new lists and permissions for each list. View your Timeline as a specific person by going back to that lock icon in the top right corner and selecting “What do other people see on my Timeline?”

Keep it up. Lastly make sure you keep an eye on what you share and with whom you share it. The search function is going to make finding information much easier on Facebook. Just make sure you want the info you share to be found.

By: Jay Glazer

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Optimizing Pinterest for E-Commerce Companies

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Dave Palic

As an avid user of the Pinterest, I’ve decided to give my perspective from both the business and the consumer standpoint because, as we all know, Pinterest is growing in popularity and a very beneficial platform for selling products online. I realized that I go to the site for 3 reasons: #1. to kill time because I’m bored, #2. because I’m looking for something, and/or #3. because someone or something prompted me to go there.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

#Problems: What I’ve found with my user experience when I stumble upon a product or I’m looking for a specific item on Pinterest and decide I want to buy it, it’s either not for sale or the company is no longer selling it and has nothing else I want to buy! Dead links are an extremely frustrating aspect of Pinterest.

Secondly, I’ve noticed that when I see a banner across a picture listing the price there is a bittersweet reaction. On one hand I’m excited that it’s available for purchase, but on the other hand it feels like I’m being peddled to with cheap marketing tactics. Not only that but it can definitely lower my perceived value of the product. I suggest, instead of a banner, maybe a small icon or something that serves the purpose of being a “for-sale” notification without the “on-clearance” feel. After researching opinions on this topic I found the following:

#HowTheyShouldFixIt: 48% of the most popular pins are linked to non-existent pages! That’s plain irresponsible. What I would suggest to Pinterest would be to:

(a) Redirect your user to a product page if they click on a pin, but give them a heads up if you’re going to redirect to another page like a homepage. I’ve had this happen to me before and then I go browsing the site looking for the product I came for, hence wasting my time and fueling frustration.

(b) If the product is no longer being sold online, redirect them to an “out of stock” page that gives them options to follow the product for when it is in stock or to like/share the product or to view products they may also like.

(c) My favorite option, take advantage of the click in any way possible, like gate your page or even give your users the ability to opt into a reminder of that product so you can take full advantage of when a consumer actually asks to be marketed to.

By: Linze Peters

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The Virtual, Visual Future

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Dave Palic

As we move further into 2013, new technology continues to inspire and amaze at an increasing rate. Not only are we witnessing the demise of the personal computer with the continued widespread adoption of tablets and smartphones, but technical advances made in all industries are exciting to watch as well. Fully electric cars are no longer an un-economical concept, but a completely viable option offered by several manufacturers. We are also becoming increasingly interconnected as high speed internet connections weave their way across the globe and internet-connected devices proliferate.

But one of the most exciting developing technologies is the ability to interact, control, and share highly visual experiences. We can see this in extremely high resolution video technologies, augmented reality, and gesture-based software like Xbox Kinect.

This innovation has made its way into the office with products like Panacast — offering a unique panoramic video conferencing experience. It utilizes a special webcam that connects to any iOS device via the Panacast app. What makes this webcam unique is that it is composed of six different cameras that have had their feeds synchronized for one 200 degree video image that’s 2700 pixels wide and 540 pixels tall. Any part of the resulting high resolution image can be zoomed and scrolled to using the app. It is technology like this that will humanize our remote interactions, by bringing a more realistic experience to videoconferences.

In e-commerce, images have now become fully fledged online stores thanks to companies like Stipple. We all know that sharing images of products has never been easier and never have we had as many channels to do so, but now Stipple has taken that sharing to the next level by enabling people to browse multiple images of a product, view related products, and actually make purchases on Facebook or Twitter right from a single shared image. The in-image stores integrate with the merchant’s existing purchase system, so Stipple isn’t the one handling user data. If we have learned anything from the quick rise and fall of F-Commerce, it is still yet to be determined whether there will be a mass buy-in for technologies like this.

To look even further into the e-commerce future, companies like Augment are targeting e-commerce sites, catalogs and sales people out in the field, offering a platform where 3D models can be uploaded to let customers visualize products/designs embedded in their environment in “real size”. The applications of this technology are limitless, and have significant conversion rate and engagement benefits (because if you know what the couch will look like in your living room before you buy it, you’re much more likely to keep it).

The interplay of all these rapidly developing technologies and enhanced user experiences over time will certainly give us an idea of what will resonate with consumers and what to expect in the future. What we can say with certainty is that the divide between online and offline is rapidly disappearing and the line between augmented and actual reality is becoming increasingly blurred. As for what the future will “look” like, we’ll just have to wait and see.

By: David Palic

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A Tumblr how-to for marketers

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Jay Glazer

David Karp, the founder and CEO of Tumblr recently announced that users spend an average of 14 minutes per visit on Tumblr, which is over a minute longer than the average Facebook visit and a few minutes more than users average on Twitter. Despite this few companies, b2b, b2c or otherwise, have any presence on the blog. With over 50 million distinct Tumblr blogs I can guarantee you that at least a portion of your target demographic is active on the site.

The platform can be intimidating to marketers because of the artsy inhabitants, the seeming lack of structure, and perhaps the largest hurdle – Tumblr remains a user driven ecosystem where users are exposed text and images based purely on the actions of their peers. This a departure from sites like Facebook and Pinterest that have taken steps to accommodate marketers with business pages, paid space and other marketing friendly features.

So how exactly can a modern marketer go against the current and use Tumblr to engage with customers and maybe even bring in new ones? Here are a few pro tips to get you started on your lonely journey:

Determine how many posts you need per week and designate a person to be accountable for fulfilling this goal. You are nearly invisible on Tumblr unless you are consistently posting relatively frequently.
Create a profile of your target audience on Tumblr. What are your customers on Tumblr interested in? What sorts of images are most likely to interest them?
Keep your focus narrow. The category of content that your Tumblr produces should be obvious at a glance.
Come up with a creative name. A clever name on Tumblr can go a long way, don’t be afraid to depart from YourCompany.tumblr.com

By Kevin Flaherty

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Loyalty programs – an essential ingredient for e-commerce success

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Jay Glazer

What is a customer loyalty program?

For consumers, it’s a chance to get rewarded for making purchases and now, even taking certain actions like writing reviews, liking brands on Facebook and more. To an e-commerce site, it’s an opportunity to create a deeper relationship with customers. Here are the biggest benefits of a loyalty program for e-commerce sites:

Create loyal customers:

Rewarding people for engaging with you builds loyalty to your brand and a greater willingness to continue buying from you.

Inspire referrals:

When a customer gets excited about being rewarded, he or she is going to talk about it. A loyalty program gets customers excited, which makes them happy to share their experiences with friends and family and spread the good word.

Increase the percentage of repeat customers:

Perks, benefits and special incentives offered in a loyalty program will cause customers to spend more time and money on a website. This is a greatest opportunity to increase sales without the need to increase traffic.

Loyalty programs give you a gold mine of customer data:

A good rewards program will allow e-commerce sites to gather valuable data about its customers. Armed with data from demographics to purchasing trends, retailer’s can segment their customer list in powerful ways to target promotions and messages to customers based on their behavior. Retailers can also use this data to make their product offerings much more suited to the needs of their most loyal customers.

Loyalty programs represent a great opportunity to put brands at the forefront of customers’ minds and even better, get them excited to tell their stories for years to come.

By Andrew Tsai

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It’s more than just sharing

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Jay Glazer

When individuals think of Social Commerce the first thing that comes to mind is Social Sharing.

“Yes, I have sharing widgets on my product pages. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, they all get some traction but how do I increase the engagement and see a true monetary value”

This is the response that I get a lot of the time I speak with people who are looking to expand on their Social Commerce initiatives. Although most of the concern is surrounding social sharing and how to increase the engagement one of the main focus points at Social Annex is how to use social to fuel retention.

Retention is the key to creating real brand advocates. Consumers who buy from you once a year or once every couple years are not the customers that are going to be willing to recommend your products to their friends and family.

Social Commerce programs like Loyalty Programs are one of the key drivers of retention. However, when it comes to the Loyalty Program of a successful eCommerce site we are looking at much more than just giving points for purchases and actions like registering for email campaigns. When expanding on a Loyalty Program with Social Commerce Elements, Retailers now have the ability to reward users for their Social Sharing, Friend Referrals, Like’s and Follows, as well as taking actions such as writing ratings and reviews. Such a Program is what just generated tons of excitement with the new release of Kate Spades “Saturday” line.

Although this is new adventure for companies like Kate Spade, clients of ours such as Abe’s Market have been killing it with very similar Social Loyalty Programs. At Social Annex we understand the pain and importance of retaining customers which is the main reason why we have built successful programs that are unique and enticing for your customers. We are here to help and we would love to chat. For more questions surrounding Social Loyalty or Social Commerce feel free to reach out, we would love to chat!

By Jake Madrigal