There has always been a bit of a gap between Social Media & Selling through Social Media. Too many in the industry, to do both together is somewhat a bit of a taboo. But as Social Networks grow and flourish with users (Customers), businesses must learn to adapt to this market and have the ability to be able to not only use these platforms as a form of communication, but to monetize them.

Many people will read the above paragraph and think, “Social Media is not for sales” and simply not read on. However, we are fast entering a phase of Social Media where Social Commerce will become just as important as the media itself. Look around, we are already moving into a world where Mobile Wallets are being used, Social Media data is used for targeted advertising and big players like Amazon, Facebook and Google have implemented their own commerce facilities.

Recently, I was invited (and happily accepted) to participate in the beta release of a new Social Commerce Platform, called community engine.

What struck me first about this platform was the beauty of all being about me. If I wanted to follow a business, I would see its offers and notices. This has a deep connection with consumers such as myself, because frankly, I tune out to all the white noise online and only watch, listen, see, read and engage with the content that is relevant to me.

Coming from the world of Social Media & operating a Social Media company, I have used many platforms in my day to day activities. My phone has 32 Social Media related apps that I use at least once per day for both business and pleasure. But community engine seems to link all the pieces of the puzzle together in a perfect symphony that appeals to every one of my Social Media Receptors as a Consumer and a small business owner.

For the small business side – I am able to create my own piece of real estate on community engine and explain everything about my business. Surely this feature is available on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ but it is only on community engine that you are able to integrate this with a sense of Community amongst other businesses in your network. Be that current stakeholders or new invitees!

In fact you can build a community from scratch around your business, by creating the space and sending out invites. There is no intrusive ‘adding to a group’ feature like Facebook, or the constant begging of people to follow your business profile like that on LinkedIn. A simple email is delivered to the recipient and if it is in line with their interest, they accept and become part of your Community.

Think that none of your customers will want to visit yet another Social Platform? Here is where community engine has made it very simple. Import your existing mailing lists / database into community engine and the invite is sent automatically to them.  Such simplicity derives such beauty in the connections we need to make but struggle to find the time to do so in our daily activities.

community engine is not like a Facebook page where you can leave a post and your fans have to visit the page or see the post in the active news feed to interact with. No. community engine offers a real-time communication network with your community, your members through the usage of the noticeboard and newswire.

The newswire behaves like a status feed of all your connections recommendations and posts – be that news, a special offer or a notice. The left hand column provides a chronological history of real social qualitative data that your network has communicated – this ticks the first box because it reduces the white noise of everything else you really do not want to read about. The right hand column still gently reminds us that we are part of a network of businesses that have products / services we are interested in – deals, offers and promotions in an easy to digest presentation.

The Noticeboard, which behaves much like a Pinterest exploration tab, gives the user an overall easy to scan view of all the output the communities they follow have shared on community engine. This helps me as a time limited business owner to review visually the right information I need to make that engagement possible. No fluff, no time wasting.

To make this platform even more social, each business can claim their own business (most are already preloaded for you) and use the platform to customise their profiles, message, receive feedback and obtain recommendations from customers, in addition to the general social media buttons we have grown custom too (‘Like’ & ‘Recommend’). This completes the circle of Social Interaction between business and Customer. A direct social channel to help all forms of communication is now open through the community engine Platform.

And if you think all this has nothing to do with Social Commerce – community engine once again integrates the perfect facilitation of transactions between business and customer. The platform contains an online payment facility driving the customer to purchase from the business (through community engine) with the click of a few buttons. In the past many companies have struggled to obtain a merchant facility that can help drive this revenue back from the digital platforms into the ledger books. In fact attempting to obtain a merchant facility can prove to be bigger than Ben Hur these days. But the community engine platform has just revolutionised this with one quick step that when linked to offers and promotions. These purchases are based on offers directly created by the business and not based around the terms of a deals conglomerate (e.g. expiry date, limitations) with the intent on making a quick dollar.

Sure these might be a special offer, but as they are not created to be sold on mass, they won’t create a negative experience. If a business has a special deal to place, it places it directly, and within a 1 week turnaround time, Community Engine facilitates a smooth payment transition between business & customers. Goodbye Groupon. Hello respectful Social Commerce.

Thus there are many features that businesses can use on the community engine platform that help make life for business owners, in one word, simple. Yes as a business owner, it’s my favourite word to hear on a daily basis too.

As a consumer, I can tell you that these features are so in line with what I want. I don’t want to be harassed by business in any way, shape or form. This includes my Social Media newsfeeds being flooded with constant invaluable information or selling from companies. I don’t want to have to go through a middle man such as the Daily Deals companies where I may or may not receive the end product with ridiculous clauses and restrictions. I don’t want to have to scroll through a never ending feed of jargon that doesn’t apply to me.

I simply want to glance over the things I’m interested in, have special offers capture my attention, communicate with the communities I’m interested in (on my own terms) and use Social Media in my own way. After all, this is also my piece of digital real estate. I am your customer, but I am not just another statistic on your social metrics.

Speaking as a Social Media professional and as an everyday customer, community engine offers an extraordinary experience that feels respectful of my needs and wants. It has bridged the gap between Social Media, Social Commerce and the customer in a way that allows Social Media to be used as a selling tool without having to do the selling.

Most importantly for me, it opens up the doors to small business owners around the country to a new tool that allows them to harness the power of Social Media to something more than a communication channel. And teaches our customers that they are the biggest influencers and assets our businesses will always have.

Simple.

As always, Share + Enjoy.

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So this morning (Sydney Time) I got to tune into FMC (Facebook Marketing Conference) NYC for some of the upcoming changes on Facebook for Brands – and the big announcement is that Timeline is coming to Brands.

The biggest and most notable change of course will be the Timeline header – an image that will be the opening advert for your business. Remember the saying ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ – well in the land of Social Media, the time-deprived customer will take one look at your header image and if it’s not for them, they will not go any further. However, if you captivate them – they will be willing to spend a little extra time scrolling through the rest of your page and making it more ‘sticky’.

With this recent update, it’s now time to think about what is working and what isn’t for your Facebook page and campaigns and what you can do better. Seen something that your competitor did 3 months ago, and you really liked it? Work with that. Have a light bulb idea of a new campaign, build around it. Now is the time for change, and we are given an opportunity to prepare for it. Timeline for Brands goes live March 30.

Like any good cleaning work or seasonal changes, have a quick look over all your current info on your page – is it all relevant? Is there anything you need to update? Anything you need to delete or add? How are your apps performing? Anything that is gaining lots of activity vs. little activity? Can it be removed or replaced with something more efficient to your brand?

Talking about Facebook Apps – there may be some ‘transition issues’ with a few of them, so keep your eyes out for them – but these will be sorted out between the Third Party App Developers and Facebook, so you won’t need to worry about a thing. Be sure to record all your apps in case they do drop off – and locate proof of purchase, so you don’t have to repurchase them again!

There will also be an update to the information that page admins view and use. The display unit of the new insights looks more user friendly, more open and much easier to navigate your way around. I have a feeling that with the recently slow services experienced with Insights, Facebook might actually be implementing real-time reporting to launch with Timeline for Brands – but this is only a hypothetical!

Lastly – remember that on your personal Timeline you can highlight stories to make them bigger and more prominent. This feature will also be available on Pages Timeline, so take some time going back through your history and recording date & time of updates which you want to highlight. This will save you lots of time doing this when the roll out occurs. Remember, think to yourself:

What is my Facebook (& Social Media Strategy)?

 What Image of my brand do I want my page visitors to see / feel?

Is my Page attractive and sticky enough to keep someone longer than 10 seconds?

As always, Share + Enjoy

Let’s Connect:

Twitter: @cosmicrami

Google+: Rami Mandow

LinkedIn: Rami Mandow

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This morning Facebook finally announced its IPO for $5 Billion. After about 8 years since its creation, almost 800 million members and changing the way humans communicate forever, Mark Zuckerberg has decided to take his baby and unleash it to the markets.

So big was the news, it crashed the SEC website in the States, and the topic immediately started trending on Twitter.

But what does this mean closer to home here in Australia? Well, us Australian’s seem to be some of the highest Facebook users in the world, with Gizmodo reporting that between 8 – 10 million users are ‘active’ in Australia. That’s a large portion of our population (approx. 36% - 45%) and this number is growing. We also spend lots of time on Facebook, clocking up approx. 7 hours and 19 minutes per month recorded in April 2010. This number will have surely grown since then, as we seem to be using Facebook more in 2012. So it is safe to assume that anything this IPO brings down the track, will impact a large and active audience here in Australia.

However, it won’t be the impact of the Mega Social Network on our daily social media usage, but rather the downstream effect this IPO has on our up and coming generations – of which only know the technological way of living.

Mark Zuckerberg has now created an array of billionaires and every Gen Y Social Tech Geek will now be influenced by his actions today. Young up and coming entrepreneurs dream of achieving the Zuckerberg success and today’s IPO hype will only fuel that fire which drives an entrepreneur into wanting to create the next big thing.

The Australian economy and environment is perfectly situated for this boom, with lots of exciting and potentially huge start-ups already popping up around the technology hubs of its Capital cities. For perfect examples look at Big Commerce, Annitel & SurfStitch – all of which have been growing in the hundreds % range.

The Facebook IPO will now trigger a wave of young and inspired Entrepreneurs to build, design, develop and collaborate on new projects that will seize the technology opportunity and help flourish these garage-based start-ups into powerful entities that too will one day trade on the Australian Stock Exchange.

No longer are there limitations on funding and starting up a business. Start-up costs have been severely reduced with outsourced services that Start-Ups can now utilise – such as Cloud Based Services, Start-Up Incubators, Social Media and Mobile technology (Did I mention that Australian’s also have a very high Smartphone penetration rate?!)

Thus, the combination of the Aussie culture to work hard and make something of yourself, the low barriers to market entry now available, the high level of usage of emerging technologies and the drive to build a company not driven by money is the perfectly flammable environment for young up and coming entrepreneurs to start their own conglomerate. And Mark Zuckerberg just lit the first match to get that fire burning.

As always, Share + Enjoy

Let’s Connect:

Twitter: @cosmicrami

Google+: Rami Mandow

LinkedIn: Rami Mandow

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Facebook. The biggest social network in the world. With memberships skyrocketing towards the 1 billion mark, its current population makes it the third largest nation in the world!

What does this mean for your business? More than likely, lots of your customers are on Facebook. Also and more importantly – lots of your customers and potential customers can be talking about your business on the social network.

Many Social Media strategies will focus solely on having a Facebook page, a presence, to help with your customer engagement and marketing. But this is 2012. Having a Facebook presence was so 2011. Now is the time to start building your Facebook pages into locations on the web where you customers can interact, engage, be rewarded and drive your revenue through the usage of Social Commerce, and/or Facebook’s own commerce facility: F-Commerce.

Social Media is not about selling. It’s about building the relationships which then drive the sales. So why not beef up your Facebook page with some tailored Apps to make it more ‘sticky’ – that is, have more activity on there. You can even give your visitors the opportunity to directly purchase from you.

Here are a few Facebook Apps that will help you achieve this:

Livechat for Fan Pages (Paid) – want to provide customer service in real-time through Facebook. This app lets you talk to your customers. Imagine the potential of solving someone’s complaint through this instant messenger service.

Forums for Pages (Free) – Does your business have current hot topics or issues you want your customers to engage in? What about ideas your customers help build? This app allows your customers to contribute to your businesses discussions.

Fan of the Week for Pages (Free) – why not reward one of your pages fans once per week for their activity on your page. This not only helps build a stronger relationship with your fans, it also helps get them to promote their winnings to their network.

Events Calendar (Free) – do you have real world events that you want your customers to attend, but don’t want to send out a whole heap of Facebook event invites (annoying?). Build a Calendar and promote it. You can load your events, and customers can click through to each Facebook event you link.

Maichimp (Free) – Since your customers and potential customers are spending so much time on Facebook, why not get them to join your e-newsletter risk whilst they are there. A simple form delivers subscriber information straight into your Mailchimp Database.

Payvment (Free) – want to sell directly through Facebook? With over 1.1 million users of this app, Payvment allows you to set up a Facebook store and sell your products / services directly.

BigCommerce (Free) – one of Australia’s fastest growing companies, BigCommerce allows you to add a shopfront to your Facebook page, providing you with an optimum Social Commerce Solution.

So that’s just a few ways you can add some more value to your Facebook page, increase your customer activity, engage with potential new customers and make the page more shareable. If most of your customers are on Facebook, why not make your page a place they want to re-visit over and over again?

The more people there are talking about your brand, the stronger your brand becomes. My theory is – Build it and they will come.

Let’s Connect:

Twitter: @cosmicrami

Google+: Rami Mandow

LinkedIn: Rami Mandow

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Music Producer David Guetta, recently released an album through Facebook. With 24 million fans on his Facebook page, Guetta utilised the ability to use Social Platforms like Facebook to sell directly to the people whom want to buy his product – his biggest fans. The fans that spent the time to ‘like’ his page.

This is the start of the Social Commerce age.

But what is Social Commerce? Why should businesses take note of Social Commerce? Who is currently using Social Commerce and utilising tools like the Facebook Store (FB-Store)? And where is Social Commerce heading in the future?

Social Commerce is a new and emerging field that is the next step of evolution in Social Media. Whilst businesses and customers have now been thrown together at high velocity in what we term today as ‘Social Media’ this engagement will more than likely not be enough in the near future. And its businesses whom are driving this change.

As economies contract, businesses are looking for the most efficient and effective way to reach their customers utilising free media tools, such as Social Networking  and Microblogging sites. Whilst businesses today are starting to respond to the need to be ‘were the customer is’ they have still found it difficult to monetise this presence in Social Media.

A question I am nearly always asked when speaking to businesses about Social Media is:

“How can we make money from this?” or the more direct “Show me the ROI?”

This burning desire to capture every dollar out of every connection to the business is the holy grail of business revenue dreams – and Social Media the catalyst!

Enter stage right, Social Commerce.

Whilst many old school business owners would shudder at the thought of transacting over social networks or social media sites, this is the direction we are headed in.

Social Commerce moves businesses away from traditional ROI models of financials into 4 quadrants of Social ROI: Financials (of course); Brand Equity; Online Reputation Management and Digital Assets.

Social Commerce is thus then reflected through businesses transacting through platforms like Facebook (Social Networking Sites) and Mobile devices.

Social Commerce already exists, and several large companies like Coca-Cola, Startbucks and Disney are already transacting through their Facebook account. That is they are directly selling on Facebook.

Want more proof? Here are some statistics on Facebook Commerce:

Number of Diapers P&G sold on its FB-Store in under an hour: 1,000

Number of retailers who have opened up a FB-Store: 50,000

Starbucks customers using their e-commerce-enabled FB CRM loyalty program: 1M+

Customer using Wal-Mart’s group-buy FB app on day of launch: 5,000+

FB-Store conversion rates: 2% - 4%, which is on par with most web-stores: 3% - 4%

Click through rates on Facebook Walls: 6.5%

And it doesn’t end there. With the web now becoming the MobileWeb, we are all more connected to our Social Media platforms through our smartphones. The introduction of NFCs and the Mobile Wallet will mean that businesses and consumers now have a way to transact through the MobileWeb. And Social Media will lie at the heart of this.

So what should we expect to see in the next few years in Social Commerce?

More than likely it will branch into two types: The first will be based on consumer to consumer recommendations through Social Media – where connected friends on Social Networks will drive sales based on experience, preferred brands and the way businesses behave in Social Media. The Second will be based on special offers, loyalty and incentive programs. The most certain prediction is that both these scenarios will be played out on the mobile platform utilising mobile wallet and Smartphone technology.

To conclude, Social Commerce can be summarised in a great quote by Sumeet Jain, Principle of CMEA Capital:

“It’s a matter of time – within the next five years or so – before more business will be done on Facebook than Amazon”

Now businesses, I ask you: “What will be the impact on your ROI if you don’t get involved in Social Media Now?”

Next week, we look at an Introduction to Social Monitoring

As always, Share + Enjoy!

Let’s Connect:

Twitter: @cosmicrami

Google+: Rami Mandow

LinkedIn: Rami Mandow

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