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Using Social Media To Translate “Posts” Into Profits

In a webinar aired live today, executives from Microsoft Dynamics and Junction Solutions shared the latest trends and strategies for retailers looking to profit from social media involvement. The webinar, titled: Social Media For Retail: Translating “Posts” Into Profits, is the second session in the nine-part Connected Consumer Webinar Series hosted by Retail TouchPoints this week.

“As the Internet has evolved, so has shopping,” said Leslie Belcher, Retail Industry Market Development Manager for Microsoft. “The era of social web has arrived. Retail brands can no longer ignore their customers and need to engage with people discussing their brands.”

To emphasize his point, Belcher shared some statistics. Today there are more than 1 billion Facebook users, 140 million Twitter active users and more than 1 billion unique users who visit YouTube each month.

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“With the advent of social media, consumers have established their own voice and can have a dramatic effect on how a brand is perceived, Belcher added. “Brands and retailers are quickly realizing that a concern raised on Facebook and Twitter” needs to be taken as seriously as comments sent via other channels.

Social media allows retailers to deliver more personalized offers and information. New technologies, such as QR codes, can help in these efforts.

These personalized communications can help improve customer loyalty, but, Belcher asked: “What do we mean by customer loyalty? Loyalty not only includes repurchasing, it also means an emotional connection to the brand.”

To increase customer loyalty through social media, Belcher recommended and explained the following tactics:

  • Crowdsourcing;
  • Online communities or forums;
  • Coordinated events;
  • Platforms that turn loyal shoppers into evangelists;
  • Gamification; and
  • User-generated content.

Starbucks, for example, collects shopper ideas with the My Starbucks Idea platform.

George Casey, CTO and SVP of Junction Solutions added that the new 360-degree view of the customer includes four components: descriptive data, behavioral data, attitudinal data and interaction data.

In one example, Sephora.com added “Pin It” buttons to tens of thousands of pages and as a result Pinterest became a top 10 referring site for the retailer in 2012.

Casey explained how to use advanced Excel capabilities to analyze social data comments and conversation. He recommended that retailers use data mining to determine inflection groups between consumers’ behavior and attitudes, then use that information to segment customers based on behavior and determine event triggers.

During the live Q&A, Casey noted that the retailers successfully engaging in social media strategies are “actively engaging in the channel. They are changing product design, promo and the way they do marketing.”

When asked how social media affects other aspects of retail business, Casey said that social media “really gives us the opportunity to react in a much faster way” regarding supply chain issues. “Now we can see the crest of the wave in advance. As a supply chain manager, I can anticipate and react.”

There’s still time to register to receive access to all nine CCS sessions. Click here to access the CCS agenda, or here to register. Qualified registrants who attend at least two sessions will be entered to win one of three great prizes. Attendees are encouraged to share sessions with peers and post them to social profiles.

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