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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Information: the source of all power in this day and age. The gatekeepers of information have been able to control its flow and access over millennia and as such, decide how power is distributed.

This is what the companies of the old world knew. This is how they developed their empires. The consumer was the slave, born in the bondage of capitalism.  The organisation, the dark lord which possessed the ring of power.

In the old world, information, like time, was one directional.

This world has come crumbling down. We have witnessed the revolution that the power of information-sharing, collaborating, influencing and engaging can bring. And this unlimited power source is wholly owned by its creators, its sharers, its spreaders and its controllers – today’s consumer.

Last week, I exercised my right as a consumer to battle not one, but two, of Australia’s big banks. David beat Goliath with a stone. My weapon of choice – Social Media.

In summary, my funds were transferred (by me) into an invalid account. Sure this was my fault. But when this happens, surely basic customer service dictates that companies, especially banks, should not abandon their customers.

After a couple of phone calls to each bank, I was told my funds were in limbo by both banks. No one wanted to claim responsibility. Furthermore, neither bank was pro-active in helping me, their loyal customer.

As such, I turned to Social Media. Not as a form of attack, but rather a test. I wanted to see how well both banks would stand against one single consumer in the big bad world. So why did I choose Social Media?

Social Media is fast becoming a large part of many companies’ marketing strategy. Why? Because this is where their consumers are. They are not in front of a TV awaiting a one directional message to be beamed into their lounge room in the form of an advertisement. They are hunting for information, growing ever more hungrier and feeding off any data they can find online about brands, products, services, companies etc.

As such, companies, crippled at the knees, have bowed down and been forced to be open, transparent and provide as much information as possible to the ever more knowledgeable consumer. If this consumer hunger for information is not satisfied, the company is easily passed over, as the consumer finds the next company that can satisfy their needs.

But the consumer does not stop at sourcing information. This was the dawn of the internet age. We now live in the age of attention, where this information is interchanged. This information is shared. This digital currency can make or break companies with 140 characters. The power of the digital opinion is now mightier than the pen and sword combined.

Common sense dictates that each company would have some form of Social Media presence, monitoring and engaging. Why? Because if something goes wrong, the consumer now has the technology to spread this negative PR globally at incredible speeds. Social Media and the internet have now armed the consumer with Zeus’s lightning. Social Media has now shifted the power from companies to the consumer.

Companies need to be able to not only react quickly, but also to become more pro-actively engaged in online conversations, in developing relationships with their consumers and in staying ahead of trend bubbles, which rise and pop at immense speeds. Yesterday’s fad was a lifetime ago, tomorrows sensation could be the difference between a million and a billion dollars. It’s explosive and the zenith continues to climb!

I turned to Social Media not only to directly confront these two banks in a public forum, but also to share my experiences with anyone else who feels the same way. Sure, this may have not have happened to other consumers, but the thought of it happening was enough for them to join the conversation and also to express their opinion about it.

My experience provided me with two different approaches that these companies took with their social media. One bank just scraped through to keep me as their customer. The other, well, let’s just say after a lifetime of banking with them, they have lost a long-term promoter of their company.

Let’s begin with the everyday bank. Even though I stated their name in my posts and used hashtags on twitter, never did I hear from them. To them, I am a single drop in the ocean, and one they are happy to live without.

How could such a huge organisation let negative publicity slip past? How could they allow such comments to be distributed across the internet for thousands to read? If I were to place an ad in the paper with my comments, would this company still allow it to occur, or would they counter-attack with their own ad?

There is only one thing worse than negative publicity, and that’s not managing it at all. This company indulged in the cardinal sin of social media by allowing the issue to slip past as they slept through the night, living the Stepford dream that their customers are the happiest people in the world.

The online bank however, did engage using social media. Did they do it in a way that their customer was happy? No. But 10 points for attempting. I at least have respect for that. Sure, they might have a training issue when it comes to their Social Media usage, but at least they are using Social Media.

The issue with the online bank was that their social media representative made an assumption that they understood their industry more than their consumer. However, one should never underestimate the knowledge and power of the consumer, especially in a world where information freely flows.

Just because a company is using Social Media does not mean they need to abuse this use by assuming they still hold all the information. This old method of one-way communication was not what I was looking for.  Rather, I was asking the bank to use social media to turn my bad experience into a positive issue for the bank.

It finally took the founder of the bank and the current general manager to provide me with a personalised, accountable service with a solution. Yes, I got my money back the next day. Yes, the online bank’s general manager was helpful. But did I really have to go to such extremes? Shouldn’t the Social Media representative have been able to provide me with this service to begin with?

Some lessons for companies from a digital consumer’s point of view:

1. Definitely have a Social Media presence that is being monitored, engaging and pro-active. There are a multitude of free online tools which any business can use and utilise to listen carefully. If companies want to make a real investment, there are some great software purchases which will help fine tune this to the business’s core needs.

2. Just because you’re in Social Media, don’t assume you know everything. Information is now exchanged at rates faster than you can imagine, and sharing, collaborating and interacting now form part of that information. The quickest solution to this is to be as transparent as you can with your customers.

3. Do not underestimate the power of the Digital Opinion. Word of mouth information is many folds more trustworthy, and moves at faster speeds around the globe due to our hyper connections.

This is where these two companies failed their consumer. This is where I now have the power to spread my information about my experience to other consumers to ensure they are not treated in the same manner. This is the power shift from the business to the consumer in the digital age of attention. And most importantly this is the power of Social Media.

Naturally, I will ask you to Enjoy + Share.