社交商务新规则

    Facebook的上市和随后在股市上的表现继续受到媒体的广泛关注。同时有一个不那么引人注意的消息：Facebook放弃了自己的虚拟货币Facebook Credits，转而使用当地货币定价，这其实是Facebook向提供全方位在线付款功能迈进的关键一步。这也是“社交销售”（在社交网站发生的金融交易）成为现实的最明显信号。

    多数公司在社交领域的早期努力只不过是把它当作“宣传册”发放的另一种形式（和他们上世纪90年代在互联网上的所作所为如出一辙）。虽然复杂程度有所升级，比如戴尔（Dell）通过Twitter实现了600万美元的销售，大多数社交商务实验还远非完善。实际情况经常会是这样：当购物者已经准备好在零售商的社交主页上购物了，结果却被转到其它网站去完成交易，本来天衣无缝的购物体验被活生生地打断了。

    商家的目标是通过包括社交渠道在内的所有渠道实现、保持和消费者之间的完整对话，从而建立起能推动社交销售的互利关系。怎么实现这个目标呢？

    第一步就是要认识到，虽然在社交网络中，很多影响产品知名度和需求的因素不再受到商家的控制（而是进入消费者之间的交流空间），社交对话带来的关注仍是一个重大的竞争优势。某家知名汽车厂商就很理解这一点。公司一直在社交媒体上监视顾客的看法，实时获得他们对产品的批评意见，并据此迅速采取行动，而不是等到下一个产品发布周期。最近的例子是，通过分析顾客在社交网络的反馈，这家公司确认了他们对某款汽车坐垫舒适度的不满，进而在新车型中引入了新式座椅。

    社交媒体在顾客从产品认知到考虑购买的转化过程中同样起着重要的作用。大约90%的消费者相信他人的推荐（而仅仅14%的人相信广告），而商家也能通过参与这种消费者之间的对话来实现价值。主要的目标是帮助创造社交资本，同时增强潜在顾客和他们的圈子内那些喜欢推荐专门产品的人之间的社交联系。

    其次，调查如何使用社交媒体来压缩销售周期，使得购物者能够迅速地（和完全数字化地）实现从认知到推荐再到购买的转变。公司如果能够控制这一过程，创造从营销漏斗到电子商厦的便捷、快速的旅程，就能降低销售和推广成本，同时增加销售量。

    购物一直就是一个社会现象。社交媒体增强了这一体验，让考虑、挑选和购买的整个过程更具互动性，更富于乐趣。选对方法，实现便捷，就能为公司带来强有力的新工具：也就是在数码世界促进冲动购物的能力。

    最后，公司应该把社交商务看成他们与顾客交流和交易方式中不可分割的一部分。这意味着开发自洽的社交战略，承认社交在营销漏斗的各个阶段的作用，而且还要了解社交商务和电子商务以及实体环境的交叉领域。所以这些都可以同时发生，比如在店内，社交平台可以用来教育购物者以及推动交易的完成。

    社交商务需要成为“合心协力”，而不是“非此即彼”。商家将通过掌握社交媒体、管理社交工具而获利。创造一个单一、集中和工业化的电子商务网站来实现大包大揽已经过时了。现在的做法是：通过在各种网站、应用、平台和论坛使用共同的工具和战略，向目标顾客提供专门而丰富的体验。

    这就需要迅捷的努力，不断演变以适应顾客要求的变化。强大的分析工具将起到关键作用，帮助商家了解在特定的社交环境中什么形式的营销效果最好，使得他们能够分析精细数据并开发优化的解决方案，始终与顾客的需求保持同步。

    Facebook's IPO and subsequent stock market performance continues to be widely reported. What has attracted less coverage is that it soon will be dropping Facebook Credits in favor of local currency pricing -- a vital step towards offering full-service payment functionality online. A clearer signpost to the reality of "social sales" -- financial transactions taking place within a social site -- is hard to imagine.

    Most companies' early efforts with social have been the equivalent of "brochureware" (just as they were on the internet back in the 1990s). And although levels of sophistication are growing -- Dell's (DELL) $6 million-plus in sales via Twitter, for example -- most social commerce experiments have a long way to go. All too often, when shoppers on a retailer's social pages are ready to buy, they're sent elsewhere to complete the transaction, disrupting what should be a seamless experience.

    The goal is to enable and sustain integrated conversations with consumers across all channels – social and otherwise – establishing the mutually rewarding relationships that drive social sales. So how to get there?

    The first step is to recognize that while social moves many of the factors influencing product awareness and demand beyond providers' control (and into the C2C space), the buzz of social conversation is also a great competitive advantage. One well-known car manufacturer understands this. The company monitors consumers on social media to learn their criticisms in real-time -- and acts on them at speed, instead of waiting for the next product-launch cycle. In one recent example, the company used analysis of customer feedback on social networks to corroborate evidence of dissatisfaction with the comfort of seats in one of its vehicles, before introducing new seats to future models.

    Social also plays a key role in moving consumers from awareness to consideration. Some 90% of consumers trust peer recommendations (just 14% trust advertisements)* and businesses can start to realize value through participation in these peer-to-peer conversations. The key objective is to help create social capital and increase social connections between potential customers and those within their networks who are naturally inclined to recommend specific products.

    Next, investigate how social can be used to compress the sales cycle so shoppers can move rapidly (and entirely digitally) from awareness to recommendation to purchase. Companies that can control that journey, creating easier and faster trips down the marketing funnel to the digital mall, will lower sales and marketing costs and boost sales volumes.

    Shopping has always been a social phenomenon. Social amps up the experience, making the whole process of consideration, selection and purchase more interactive -- and more fun. Getting it right, and making it easy, opens a powerful new tool for businesses… the ability to enable impulse buys in a digital world.

    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.