June 10th, 2008 by Richard Lee
Internet Retailer 2008 – Social Sites for Retailing
Internet Retailer 2008
Social Sites for Retailing
Find a message to promote such as being carbon neutral as a company or being involved in the Green movement.
Dell.com/regeneration (re-generation)
ReGeneration.org
Enlist and encourage participation within the social networks
Dell used Facebook to start a contest: “What does green means to you”
They first used the Graffiti add-on to promote writing and pictures, then later used more of an essay style contest. Numerous of Facebook users spent their time online to express themselves about what “Green” meant to them through Dell’s contest.
Social Network Statistics:
MySpace & Facebook Stats:
8 to 9% overall online US market share, 80 to 90% of social network traffic
Bebo & Facebook = UK’s largest social network market share (not myspace)
Facebook & MyYear book, high growth in the US
Gaya Online (an anime website) uses coins to give users to spend to motivate online social activity. They also offer limited edition coins as a special status within the community.
Social Networks has on average 2.6x pages than search engine traffic and 8 to 9x page views of news and media.
Monthly Retention Rates:
95% for Myspace
94% for Facebook
MySpace Demographic Growth:
18-24 (-13%)
25-34 (+9% growth)
Facebook Demographic Growth:
18-24 (-28%)
25-34 (+7% growth)
Adoption:
14% find videos useful
Of the 14%, there is 57% Use video to become your Brand Advocate
Of the 14%, there is 47% that tell others of a new site i.e. send a link to tell friends
Social Network Demographics:
Younger & Weathier
38% = Age 25-34
19% = Income over $100K
Entertainment related products recieve greatest share of referrals
Top areas: Music, Ticketing, Apparel, Computers, Sport and Fitness
Some Companies Utilizing Social Networks (Digital content to advocate your brand):
Delivery.com (earn points)
Amazon created apps for wish list, birthday reminders, buy gifts for friends
Sears uses facebook for social shopping for prom dresses
Pink from Victoria’s Secret (photos)
DiGiono (apps when pizza is ready, and provide coupons)
Guiness (petition to make st. patricks day an official holiday)
Zappos (badges to spread your brand message on websites)
More stats: ilovedata.com = hitwise data blog
Trends:
Convergence of Entertainment and shopping experience
Uses:
Enhance Customer Experience:
Honeyshed (product video, and click to buy)
Martin + OSA (Shop by outfit / video)
VS Pink (user generated content)
misses: madewell (no buy button, must call them to buy)
Increase Transaction Conversion:
QVC how to videos
Walmart canopy drill in details on product photos
Other:
How to fold a casual cuff, bowtie, etc.
Top 3 Social Areas:
Social networks
Ratings and reviews
Blogs
Others:
Wikis
Widgets/Applets (website, mobile, desktop)
Social Shopping:
Shopping 1.0
Surgical shopping, Know exactly what you want (lost pleasure of shopping)
Shopping 2.0
Kaboodle (60+% market share of this space)
(wish list, comments, similar interests)
anyknockoff
Product Design 2.0:
Let customers design, share, vote on and the co produces it (Levis)
1. product comparison
2. build a place for customers to play/share (behr paint)
3. Engage in the conversation (talk to your customers i.e. Racked)
4. give users and influencers the ability to leverage content from you (to become advocates, i.e. content for facebook page i.e. home depot, karma loop i.e. earn points)
Ajax SEO Problems:
crawling
bookmarking
no unique url
Turn off javascript in browser to see page in the eyes of SE (also can use firefox plug-in)
Other tools: googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com
Other Misc Notes (SEO):
B2B:
GalaSource.com
2nd largest distributorship ecommerce site ($18M), food service equipment & supplies dealer serving hospitality industry (design services, equipment, from concept to completion).
DiscountedRestaurantEquipment.com ($30K/mo on eBay)
Galasource.com, avg 6800 to 9000 visits/day
PPC: $80 to$150K/mo
SEO: 63% Organic
Product Data Feeds, froogle, pricegrabber, business.com
GalaDesigns.net 300 vendors, 300,000 products
25,000 keywords in PPC
5,355 keyword focus (747 on 1st page)
92,000 product pages (seec)
7% of 2007 rev
20+% some months
only 1.7% of budget (sales, 5 to 6% of rev for mktg)
Automated Page Generation
Performance basis, by click basis
Higher page rank, the more pages will be index (i.e. url rewriting)
B2C:
Trulythefinest.com
teakalook.com
gonauticalgifts.com
oneofakindbuys.com