Just how valuable is positive social media buzz… and is it worth paying for? Richard Jackson, director at Session Digital examines the effectiveness of social commerce used by brands to offer incentivised referrals to online customers at the check-out.
Social commerce is the new buzzword in e-commerce, and many new companies are offering tools that facilitate incentivised referrals to online customers at checkout. Although in principle I would applaud any effort to help retailers increase sales, this type of paid advocacy could in reality end up doing more harm than good to premium brands that really value their reputation and their relationship with their customers.
To really achieve strong advocacy, the entire ecommerce activity should be focused on the customer from its core, delivering an engaging and positive experience that is easy-to-use, rewarding and enjoyable. Brands need to have a valuable proposition for their customers to react to. It’s too facile to assume you can attain true brand loyalty from a simple offer incentive. Being a Facebook fan doesn’t necessarily mean you’re engaged with the brand itself – you’re probably just hanging around for the next offer. That’s not active engagement, it’s passive, and this type of relationship is much harder to convert into brand advocacy than one based on an engaging experience with an applicable reward structure.
Naturally as socially-connected human beings it is an inevitable part of the process that we share our great experiences with friends and family and encourage them to participate too. By all means make it easier for your customers to do this, but is paying them for it really the answer?
Where does the real value of ecommerce lie for a brand online? Multiple sales at a discounted rate, which may ultimately cheapen your offering? Or genuine, lasting advocacy that arises from a high quality, personal shopping experience? And what are consumers most likely to respond to? With the ubiquity of social networking, consumers are increasingly web savvy and desensitised to the strength of a ‘like’ referral. They are also fiercely protective over their personal social network – it’s a network of trust and brands tread a perilous path if they assume they can just intrude in this space.
Having said all this, there is no doubt there is still a place for group loyalty schemes and some retailers will benefit from the discounting model. But taking the concept of ‘social commerce’ too far and violating this personal aspect will ultimately upturn the values that social networking is built upon and online retailers will have to think again.
Richard Jackson
Director
Session Digital
www.sessiondigital.com/
