the social commerce journey: the six levels of social commerce
DESCRIPTION
Download the full eBook here: http://bit.ly/1yv7eMJ The time has come for us to have a chat about selling via social. For years it’s been a taboo topic with the leading experts shouting, “social isn’t for selling, it’s for brand building and communication.” They were right. Kinda. As social media communities have matured over the years, both the brands that drive the communication and the communities who receive and engage have evolved to a point where conversations around selling are not just permissible, but encouraged. Social commerce is a reality and brands are starting to ask the tough questions of their social media teams. Can we convert some of our investment into these communities into revenue? It’s a fair question and one that can’t be dismissed with the flippant, “social isn’t for selling” response. It is possible to commercialise your social media platforms but, as always, it needs to be done correctly. The starting point for doing it correctly is to understand what is meant by social commerce. Social commerce is a catch-all phrase that describes any kind of commercial activities conducted on and via social media channels and platforms. The phrase casts a wide net. Almost too wide to be helpful. Based on almost a decade’s experience building social strategies for some of South Africa’s top brands, Cerebra developed the Social Commerce Journey, a paper detailing the six levels of social commerce. Our aim with this paper was to help businesses take the first critical step in developing social commerce strategy: understand what you’re dealing with.TRANSCRIPT
Social commerce isn’t one thing, it’s a catchall phrase that describes a number of different ways of using
social platforms to conduct commerce. The problem is that it’s quite broad, and when a company starts to talk
about commercialising their social platforms, the single phrase isn’t actually helpful because it
encompasses so many things.
In order to better understand the opportunities for social commerce within your business, you need to differentiate between the various categories of
“commerce” that are available to you in these channels.
At Cerebra, with just under a decade of experience helping corporate brands extract value from social, we
have identified six categories.
Social commerce - back to baSicS
Level 6: Social Transacting
Level 5: Social Currency
Level 4: Shop And Share
Level 3: e-Commerce In Social
Level 2: Social Advertising
Level 1: Social Sales Content
BuT fIrST IT’S ImporTAnT To underSTAnd The
Sequential Strategic StepS ThAT poSITIon your BuSIneSS for
SoCIAl CommerCe.
1 2 3 4 5 6
This initial stage of your strategy will focus on expanding audiences and acquiring likes, fans, and followers.
Growth:
enGaGement:
once you’ve acquired likes, fans and followers you’ll need to focus on increasing the percentage of that audience that speaks with or about you.
The next task is increasing the percentage or ratio of positive conversation in that engagement, which is obviously beneficial to the business.
Sentiment:
leadS:
Then you can look at converting reach, engagement and positive sentiment in social media into direct sales opportunities and transactions.
Social sales content is any form of content published by a brand with the purpose of promoting products or services. This would include, among other examples, adapting an advert from your above-the-line campaign in an update or post, writing about a special offer, or any post with a sales call-to-action.
LeveL one: SociaL SaLeS content----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LeveL two: SociaL advertiSing
Social advertising is the purchasing of advertising inventory within social media websites. most of these websites rely on advertising as their primary source of revenue, so they have a variety of advertising options available to brands.
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A number of brands (specifically facebook) have experimented with building e-commerce functionality directly into their social profiles. Instead of trying to get people to leave their social media habitat to go to your e-commerce site, you bring the e-commerce site to them and create a “shopping tab”.
LeveL three: e-CommerCe in soCiaL----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shop and share is an increasingly popular version of social commerce for brands looking to activate commerce through their social channels and encourage customers to promote their support or purchase on their personal social profiles.
LeveL four: Shop and Share----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are two different versions of social currency within this category. The first is where a user’s social updates act as a currency. The second version of social currency is where your community’s social activity earns an actual currency.
LeveL five: SociaL currency----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Social transacting is the ultimate goal in social commerce. This is where your communities can transact directly and completely in, or using, their social accounts.
LeveL six: sociaL transacting----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In order to embark on the journey towards commercialising your social media properties and making a return on your social media investments,
it’s important to not look at social commerce as a single, homogenous, term. Instead, look at the
various types of social commerce, understand how they relate and progress into each other, know
where your community is from a maturity level, and plan a course of action that not only benefits your
business but also adds value to the community you are trying to serve.
download the full report here:
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About CerebrA----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cerebra was founded in 2006 as a communication agency helping corporate brands enter the social media space. Since then, Cerebra has grown into Africa’s social business authority with a team of incredibly talented, hard-working personalities who share a passion for helping businesses transition from industrial age thinking to information age delivery.
The Cerebra business comprises four key components: Agency, Academy, Insights and Advisory, offering services covering social media marketing, training, research and strategic direction.
We are in the business of aiding companies in building communities, engaging with these communities and finally activating these communities through the appropriate communication channels, whether traditional or social media.
for more visit www.cerebra.co.za