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Ultimately, companies need to see social commerce
as integral to the way in which they communicate and
transact with consumers. This means developing a
coherent social strategy, acknowledging social’s role at
each stage of the marketing funnel and understanding
where it intersects with e-commerce and physical
environments. It can often coincide -- in-store, for
example, where social platforms can be used to educate
shoppers and close transactions.
Social commerce needs to become an “and,” not
an “or.” Marketers will benefit from mastering social
media and managing social tools. It’s no longer about
creating a single, central, industrialized e-commerce
site to serve every possible function. Now, it’s all about
common tools and strategies deployed across multiple
sites, apps, platforms and fora to give targeted
customers specific and rich experiences.
This will call for agile efforts that evolve to match
consumers’ changing needs. Powerful analytic tools
will play a vital role, helping marketers to understand
what forms of marketing work best in particular social
environments, as well as enabling them to analyze
granular data and develop optimized solutions that
sustain relevance to customers.
Social sales are happening already. And they’ll soon
become much more sophisticated – and far-reaching.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia, for example,
announced its plans to enable banking services through
Facebook. And public service delivery in the social
space cannot be far behind.
Social consumers are still up for grabs, but not for
long. Many leading businesses are starting to “get” the
rules of the game -- with the frontrunners increasing
their investments in social platforms and social design
mechanics so they can manage consumer interactions
across all communication channels.
What the C-suite can do now:
1. Introduce a clear top-down stance that defines the
priority of social initiatives.
2. Launch a “consumer interaction” inventory to
capture how consumers interact with your
organization.
3. Survey your company to understand how it uses
social and compare this with best practices.
4. Identify and assess tools and players in the social
space.
5. Study the best practices of social’s early adopters.
6. Prepare for “social listening.” Figure out what
conversations your consumers are already having
about your company (and where). Start
participating in those conversations (no selling
allowed!).
7. Create better experiences for consumers by
utilizing new social channels in combination with
existing digital and physical commerce channels.
8. Identify, foster, and support advocates among your
consumers.
9. Identify meaningful metrics for tracking social’s
success.
10. nable closer relationships between Marketing and
E
Technology functions.
Gavin Michael is Chief Technology Innovation Officer at Accenture. Follow Gavin on Twitter @gavinmichael.