Following the news that Joanna Shields (EMEA vice president and managing director) at Facebook has claimed that the website is the ‘centre’ of marketing activity due to the positive affect it has on sales and brand preference, please see this comment from Richard Britton, managing director at CloudSense, on the true value that social networks provide to marketers
“Facebook is right to highlight the influence that social media is having on marketers strategies. As brands prioritise their outreach across social channels, it is clear that social is quickly emerging as the killer outbound channel for driving customers to other acquisition avenues.
Brands that can engage customers across social media by delivering relevant information in real-time develop the ability to influence discussions and become established as opinion formers within customer networks. This then encourages customers and prospects to engage with the company across other channels such as email, mobile or in-store.
It is important to note that social commerce is not necessarily about converting sales, it’s about monitoring the interactions that take place and using this data as part of a holistic marketing programme. By adopting this kind of approach in the future, organisations will be able to build key performance indicators such as developing share of voice or increasing brand awareness around social media and showcase its value to the business.
Social interactions
Brands also need to go one step further by truly incorporating social interactions within the sales process to be successful. With more customers accessing social networks on mobile devices and businesses developing new capabilities for mobile apps and m-commerce websites, it is imperative that brands can enable a cross-channel customer experience. For example, if a potential customer sees someone from their social network ‘like’ a product, that company should enable the prospect to easily click through to its website or download its app to discover more information about the brand and potentially complete a transaction.
However, in order to do this effectively companies need to introduce sophisticated order processing systems that allow users to search products, add the item to their shopping cart and pay for the product, fulfil it and bill across the different channels. Only by taking advantage of new technologies that streamline the back office and improve collaboration between different departments can brands truly take advantage of everything social media has to offer.”
Richard Britton
Richard Britton is Managing Director of CloudSense. Richard is responsible for leading the progressive technology consulting business focused on cloud computing.
