Social Sharing The Next Big Thing?…ideas from ShoppeSafe

Social Sharing according to Harvard Business Review is part of a new more macro trend called ubiquitous sharing: What are you doing? Where are you doing it? Who are you doing it with? What do you like? Who do you “Like”? Who are you “Following” and who are “Followers” of you? These used to be things we kept to ourselves or shared with only our friends and family. Now we’re willing to broadcast them to whoever is willing to listen.

Social media has led to “social sharing,” the broadcasting of our thoughts and activities. It’s not a fad it’s growing and growing. Social networking is a social phenomenon.

For further proof, just take a look at Nielsen research. It says Americans spend nearly a quarter of the time they’re on the Internet, or about six hours a month, on social-networking sites and blogs. That’s a quantum leap from a year ago and underscores the growing power of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The research also reveals U.S. consumers spend the plurality of their time online, or 36% of it, communicating and networking across social networks, blogs, personal e-mail and instant messaging.

The rise of social networks has enhanced consumption of videos, movies and news and sports articles. “Friends and family are endorsing content to others,” says Dave Martin, vice president of primary research at Nielsen.

And the face of that audience is getting older: Twice as many Americans over 50 visited social networks than kids under 18, Nielsen says.

It’s a sociological phenomenon, accelerating at light speed. For even more data points you just have to look around the Social Coupons sites and the players who are deeply involved with them from Google to Amazon and now Facebook. One just wonders how long will Groupon be able to stand on its own?

All of this points to just how social sharing is and will continue to change the ecommerce landscape.

So let’s step back and ask the obvious questions what is your Social Sharing strategy? How much time and expense will it take before your Social Sharing strategy is online? How will measure your Social Sharing Success?

Struggling with those answers…hold the thought as ShoppeSafe has an offer for you and it is guaranteed…simply see below!

Social Currency. Sharing on the social web acts as a form of currency. Sharing useful information that might help someone within your network scores you points and builds equity. Sharing is also the new giving. Finding a deal and sharing that with others can put you in someone’s favor, and maybe then they will find you a deal. It’s important to recognize that all this sharing isn’t some useless impulse. There are reasons why people are willing to share so much. Creative expression is part of it but also, there’s often a benefit, value, to the individual who shares. Sharing is the new giving.

Social sharing according to the Harvard Business Review is a major behavioral shift, the most important so far of the 21st century. And the information we choose to share with friends, co-workers and even strangers, is re-defining the idea of what’s private and public before our very eyes.

Charlie Brown ShoppeSimple Network’s – VP of Interactive and Creative Services weighs in with his blog post.

Social Sharing: Sharing is a part of our DNA.

We are hardwired to cooperate and to share. If someone has something you fancy…you offer to share it. Now, sharing isn’t like trading–you don’t have to give up something to get something else (unless it’s your money you are giving up to buy something).

Sharing is a way of getting along–we share a meal– we share a border with Canada and Mexico. It makes us feel good to share. Facebook didn’t invent sharing–they just exploited it.

Sometimes sharing is boasting or bragging. We take pride in the fact that we got a good deal. It’s one of the ways we make ourselves feel good and someone else at the same time.

If I don’t share I am keeping a secret–it’s difficult to keep a secret–it takes energy. It’s a relief when we can finally share it and release the burden of not being able to tell anyone. I can hardly wait to get home and share with my wife what I just heard–now don’t tell anyone (of course, I will).

As cavemen we sat around the fire at night (like sitting in front of our brightly lit monitor at home) and sharing hunting stories (shopping is like a hunt). Sometimes we embellish the hunting story–like making a comment on Facebook. We add our part (part of our personality) to the story. And then the story gets retold many times at it becomes a “legend” (a huge story that we love to listen to again and again).

Sometimes they become rumors and everyone loves a big fat juicy rumor. It’s like telling a joke. It’s entertaining, people laugh and we get accepted into the community of our friends.

But you may be thinking just how does ShoppeSafe help our site with Social Sharing and how do we get started?

Well it is really quite simple and it starts by placing a ShoppeSafe button on your website or your email or on your Facebook page. Then your consumer just pushes the button…

But wait a button on my website? Why would take the consumer away from my website. Why would I do that?

Another colleague Steve Neseth had a dialog with a prospective client on just this point this week so I am going to quote his response…I couldn’t have said it better myself…”This is a common concern we hear as traditional thinking says drive more traffic to your website and you will generate more sales.  The trend, however, is that website traffic for many merchants is a struggle to maintain let alone increase.   At least some of this is due to the growing amount of time consumers are spending on social media channels and on their mobile devices away from merchant websites.  The ShoppeSafe program is geared to complement everything you’re doing online already by linking your online store to these exciting, new marketing channels that consumers can access easily wherever they are.”

“One of our best practices, as we discussed, is to put a ShoppeSafe button on the merchant home page and on each product category page (Signals.com, for example, has placed a button on all of these pages).  This enables consumers to subscribe (or bookmark) to receive relevant product offers by category.  Consumers then receive products of interest multiple times a day/365 days a year that they buy and easily share on Facebook, Twitter, through email, or text.  They literally extend your marketing reach to their friends by creating “trusted referrals”.  Sales builds virally.  A recent survey by Lightspeed Research reported that 61% of the consumers they polled said opinions, referrals and experience of other consumers play a vital role when considering a purchase.  Our program can help a merchant create these trusted referrals that sell more merchandise.”

“Having said all that, placing a button on the website home page is not required to participate in our program.  We would not recommend it but that choice is yours.  Some merchants actually prefer to step into our program through email or Facebook to prove that we can drive sales before they put any links on their website.  So, a merchant has several options available in our program all of which will build online sales very cost effectively.

Putting Our Money Where Our Mouth Is!

I know that many of you have been reading my blog posts on a weekly or monthly basis. But what is also interesting is to watch are your behaviors. To understand why you have not kicked the ShoppeSafe program into gear or at least formulated a trial program with us to see for yourself the benefits of the ShoppeSafe program.

So in our internal meetings this week, I asked our Sales Team what do they think they needed to do to make a sales deal happen and the following is another real life example that went to a prospective client.

And from my point of view if this opportunity is good enough for a prospective client it is good enough for any of you who are reading this today. All you have to do is get in contact with me to start your test program.

“Mary, the forecasted amount of sales that I provided and that would come through the ShoppeSafe program you indicated was higher than you thought it could be.  You pointed out that our monthly minimum meant that you’d have to hit a monthly sales target that was higher than you thought you could attain given your other online program’s performance.

I told you that I’m so confident that the sales forecasted was reasonable based on what others are generating in the program. I also want to reiterate that these forecasts are not based on channel shift but on real incremental program increases from higher average order or more frequency of purchasing plus adding new customers and reactivating older buyers.  In our call, I was so confident that I actually told you on the spot that we’d cut the minimum in half because I don’t think it will even come into play.  But, I’ll do even better than that.  We won’t charge you a dime until the sales generated in the program covers the monthly minimum for an unlimited amount of time as long as this is a win/win for both our companies. I also feel strongly that a company of your size would easily build up to a level that exceeds this minimum very soon.  This assumes, of course, that we’re implementing some of the best practices we would recommend during the start up of the program so the program has a reasonable chance for success.  But you’ll have the final say on what we do.

We also talked about order attribution and how difficult it is to differentiate one ecommerce program’s impact from the next.  Here again, we’ve had success separating out the incremental gains we create through our program like I showed you in my initial forecast. The ShoppeSafe program produces higher average order values, higher frequency of ordering and improves conversion rates.  Improvements in any of these areas will easily cover any cost of the program many times over as my conservative forecast illustrated.”

So there you have it. And I will say it again…what is good for this prospective client is good for your business too. So this opportunity is available to you because we know and have proven time and again that we can help you drive incremental social commerce. We know this because we haven’t lost a client since March of 2010 and we are so confidant we also do this for your business we are putting our skin in the game to prove it to you and as such I hope you will give us a try.

What do you have to loose? And remember we are not recommending to replace what you are doing in social but we have found a successful way to enhance what you are doing.

So why not check out ShoppeSimplenetwork.com to learn more about what we do for you. To get started all you have to do is email at sales@shoppesimplenetwork.com or call me at 612-349-2740.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Best,

Jeffery

PS. Your ShoppeSafe Social Sharing program will be plugged into your business in less than 10 days and without any up front implementation fees