Editorial Articles

Rich Rust, Social Reputation Manager at Yomego explains why understanding how customers think is critical for any brand seeking to monetise social commerce

Social commerce and reputation management go hand in hand. Understanding how customers think, how they make purchasing decisions and how they want to interact is critical for any brand looking to monetise social commerce. Without this basic level of insight, it’s impossible to effectively engage with existing, ex or future customers or to truly understand how they perceive a brand and the impact it may have on a company’s reputation.

The term ‘social commerce’ still has a level of ambiguity attached to it – for some, it clearly means commerce in a social space – selling products via Twitter and Facebook - whereas for others it means engagement with customers across the social sphere: reviews, forums, blogs etc are also considered social commerce, providing they can create genuine business impact, either from a reputation standpoint or to drive sales. Companies such as Dell and eBay have already clearly defined it as the former; conversely, for airlines, such as Lufthansa and Virgin Atlantic, the key to social commerce success is heavily routed in reputation management and enhancement, essentially building a positive relationship with consumers.

For any brand wishing to engage in this area, defining what social commerce means to your organisation has to be the key priority, supported by an appropriate engagement strategy.
With convergence moving at such blistering speed consumers are punishing those brands which can’t keep up. The importance placed on the platform is now critical. Over a third, or roughly 200 million users use Facebook mobile and over half of Twitter's 165 million users also use it on mobile. The challenge for brands is no longer around creating engaging content, but about creating content which can easily be consumed across a multitude of platforms.

Employees are also consumers – they engage in the same social spaces as your customers and want to share their opinions. Empowering employees to be active in social media, within a robust social media policy, will help positively promote your brand externally. From a reputation point of view, employees are extremely valuable.

Positive recommendations have business impact, both in terms of reputation enhancement and for driving sales. It’s important to keep in mind that consumers use social spaces as an extension of their offline lives – they make recommendations, criticise and share opinions. Brands which are intrinsically social, not just in their marketing activity but across all business practices, will have far greater success in social commerce and build better long term brand affinity with consumers.

www.yomego.com