We all know the Facebook story (I would recommend the movie if you haven’t seen it), just 7 years ago, when Zuckerberg was a 19-year-old sophomore at Harvard; he started a Web service from his dorm. It was called Thefacebook.com, and it was billed as “an online directory that connects people through social networks at colleges.”
This month, Facebook — minus the the — added its 550 millionth member. One out of every twelve people around the world has a Facebook account. These consumers speak 75 languages and last month Facebook accounted for 1 out of 4 American Internet page views. It’s even more staggering to watch its membership grow at a rate of about 700,000 people a day and they expect to reach 1 Billion members in 2011.
Now even my parents are posting pictures, sharing recipes and shopping deals, not to mention sharing coupons with their friends and family. Of course, marketers, (at least early adopters from all over the globe), are licking their chops at the opportunity to tap these consumers who spend over 700 billion minutes a month on Facebook.
Stop…Freeze! How much time have YOU spent selling socially?
Now also look around. It’s not just Facebook that’s having an impact on traditional marketing. In fact, all social media is growing at exponential rates – from Twitter and blogs, to customer reviews and recommendations, social customer service and certainly not least YouTube – all of these social communication platforms are having a supercharged effect on how consumers interact, find products, get deals and shop.
What does this mean for your business?
- Does it mean you can apply the same old rules to social commerce as you have been doing with your online marketing over the last decade?
- Does it mean you will continue to push your product catalog at consumers on these new social communities?
- Does it mean you will force them to return to your website to engage with your brand?
- Does it mean the new social consumer will feel comfortable doing business with you in 2011?
Heretic or Sheep Walking?
So who is going to be the Heretic for Social on your marketing team? The one who STANDS UP as the advocate for Social? Is it you? Shouldn’t it be you? If not you then who?
Who on your marketing team…
Ø Is going to slam their fist and ask why our social icons are buried at the bottom of our website?
Ø Will determine how our social consumers will even know how to engage with us?
Ø Will add something new to your marketing mix that will capture social sales?
Ø Is devising a strategy to defend against the competitive threat of a social flanking strategy?
Social is Mobile
According to Facebook, there are more than 200 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices, and further these mobile users are twice as active as non-mobile users.
Today, not only are we constantly connected via our mobile devices, but also as friends discover content, deals, and discounts, they share them with their friends – spreading offers directly from phone-to-phone. The viral power of this is incredible and it further speaks to social power. People are beginning to expect that relevant content/deals coupons, will reach them via the friends or contacts they trust.
In some companies social success is beginning to surpass paid marketing channels like search engine marketing, display and print advertising. There is even discussion that social is the new search. In the recent Trend Report from Morgan Stanley, they predict m-Commerce will be half of all ecommerce by 2014.
So how close are you to disengaging from the same “old school” traditional marketing? Walking away from the “old school” push product marketing and into something new like “Pull and Place™” marketing? If after reading the above you are still convinced that pushing product offers at your consumers while also forcing them back to your website is the appropriate strategy for this new social decade, sadly I am afraid you could be missing what is going on in social marketing and your business maybe Sheep Walking.
At ShoppeSimple we have cracked the code around the ShoppeSimple Network, which includes ShoppeSocial, ShoppeMobi, ShoppePublishing, ShoppeCoupon and ShoppeSimple.com. Each of these integrated network components have been successful driving Social and Mobile Commerce for our clients.
In just a brief conversation, we can assess the opportunity for your business to tap into social marketing and learn what our other clients have already experienced; Serious Ka-Ching. To know how you can join the ShoppeSimple Network simply respond to this email or give me a call 612-349-2740.
Best Regards,
Jeffery