The best ideas, especially when it comes to retail are often the most simple.  Retailer Urban Outfitters has made the Facebook ‘Like’ button central to the way the company is marketing its products online. Visitors to the Urban Outfitters web site are now greeted by a large thumbs up asking them to “See our most Liked items.” It’s  a slightly less advanced version of  Apple’s genius button on i-tunes but nonetheless the effect is the same.

The company has already installed the Like button by its products on the company web site and this new feature is essentially a grouping of the most Liked items into one place.

So far more than 313,000 Like Urban Outfitters on Facebook, where the company does promote its company web site. Exclusive offers for Facebook fans are also offered and the company shares new merchandise with photos often with fans as well.

Inside Facebook

Social media has unquestionably revolutionized communication. How big is the revolution you ask? Check out the videos below to see some of the staggering statistics. The first video was done by Social Media Energy this year and the second was done by Eric Qualman from Socialnomics last year.

Some info garnered that is particularly Shopbabbles-relavent are the following:

• 34% of bloggers (out of over 200 million) post opinions about products & brands
• 83% of all companies use Facebook
• Successful companies in social media listen first and sell second
• Consultants and marketing professionals are the most active users of social media
• Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
• 90% of people that can TiVo ads do

There are many more interesting facts about the global social revolution below.

This is an interesting infographic, around twitter’s journey to over 100 million unique users with breakdowns on key events, reasons for growth in social and mobile and a nice breakdown of twitter users in the US. One of the stand out points, is that Twitter has an awareness of 87% while Facebook is just 88% – considering the number of Facebook users, it’s a huge feat for twitter to even come close, and I suspect we can put that down to the media hype (and the celebs) surrounding twitter in the last 18 months.

Click image to enlarge

And if that isn’t enough, you can view the full presentation here on slideshare

When the writer of Viral Loop, Adam Penenberg, interviewed neuroeconomics expert Paul J. Zak, he came to the conclusion that participation in social media often makes us feel loved by spiking our brains with oxytocin, also known as the “cuddle hormone”.  This could explain the addictive nature of social media and why twittering minute details became a daily occurrence.  A test conducted by Zak on Penenberg proved the medicinal aspect of Twitter – an increase of the cuddle hormone and a decrease in stress was evidenced by simply tweeting “overweight tourists in Speedos”.

Saatchi & Saatchi  believe in  Lovemarks – the ability to create communication the enables  brands to inspire loyalty beyond reason. It would seem then that there is enormous opportunity for brands to create deeper affinity and command both ‘love’ and ‘respect’ by harnessing the goodwill and emotion  that  results from participation in social media. But there’s often a fine line between love and hate where social media is concerned – United Airlines.   At least it  helps to get that image of “overweight tourists in Speedos” out of your mind.

How do social media crowds work? Who are the social media influencers? What leverage can we gain by implementing social media strategies for clients? These are the questions being asked every day as social media gains more and more PR attention across the industry.  Some great insight originally from forrester that helps to dissect some of the questions.

So what is a crowd & how does it work? A crowd is a bunch of people taking a particular level of interest in any specific topic online, within this social media crowd you’ll find near the center, what’s known as the social elite – the people who are writing blog posts, creating content, uploading videos and doing the thinking around these topics, these are the social media influencers of our networks.
From here, the further from the center of the crowd you get, you’ll find a declining level of skill and knowledge in the crowd, these people are more inclined to participate, rather than create – they rate posts and comment of articles and products, go out even further and you just get the users who tag webpages and use RSS feeds to get updates… Step out just a little bit more, and you’ll find your self sitting with the spectators – the web users who just read, watch and listen…
So when your looking at social media optimisation and launching campaigns, your looking to target the social influencers within networks, but the bigger the crowd, the harder the center is to find, which means leveraging those key influencers gets harder, because they are probably more of them. But find the right one, and they are your marketing ticket to success!
Some interesting stats from the chart:
• 13% of social crowds are Creators
• 19% of social crowds are Critics
• 34% of social crowds are Collectors & Joiners
• 33% of social crowds are Spectators and
• 52% are just inactive 

http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/how-do-crowds-work-in-social-media-networks/
 

A new study by Vivaldi Partners reveals that the brand which has the greatest ”social currency” is an unexpected one: JetBlue. Follow the link to find out what “social currency” is and why brands need it.  

JetBlue has also been recognized for its so-called “smart corporate twittering,”  click here for more on the topic.

Thanks to the case studies, we already have quite a good impression about how brands have been using the potential of social media within the last few months.  I was recently wondering what experts would have to say about  this phenomenon that is currently overrunning everything and everyone. Consequently I’ve asked some social media experts on their opinion on the topic. 

Today I would like to present to you the point of view of my first interviewee; Joseph Webb:

That’s Joseph:

Joe’s passion for all things online first manifested itself in 2005 with the development of an internet research business model and an application for £85,000 seed funding.  Following a break-up in the management team, Joe moved to TNS, the world’s largest supplier of custom research.  Since then he has focussed exclusively on the Technology and Media spaces, working with many of the big names of the New Media era, whilst designing and launching an innovation and knowledge sharing portal as an aside.  His particular expertise lies with brand interactions on social media, a subject in which he has been published in both research and marketing trade press.

That’s what Joseph has to say:

 1. What do you think, how is social media changing the way people interact with brands?
Social media are a new form of communication channel so this question is a little bit like asking, how did the invention of the telephone or the Television change the way people saw brands?  The key differentiating factor in comparison to earlier forms of media, of course, is that social media does allow for interaction, it is not simply one-to-many but many-to-many and it allows brands to offer individuals rich communicative experiences in a way that can also be very cost effective.  Whilst in the physical world brand-consumer interactions are limited to a few expensive experiences (such as Disneyland), online they can be provided cheaply and freely.  Nike+ is a great example of this as it combines excellent functional capacities (such as run mapping, racing and a community of a common interest) alongside strong emotional ties to the Nike brand itself, people can really live what the brand stands for.  Other, less high profile and high maintenance examples include MySpace or Bebo branded skins/wallpapers as well as brand profiles and fan groups, based either on the brand itself, or a representational avatar (see Vodafone’s Zoozoos in India for an excellent example).

 
2. What key trends are emerging that are changing the rules of the game?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      The brand behaviours mentioned above can be loosely classified into the following:

Brand acting as media channel and offering rich experiences

Brand acting as social network user and seeking to befriend other users

Brand acting as ‘add-on’ to the profile of others

All these actions share common characteristics; they all rely on individuals ‘opting-in’ – actively choosing to spend their time with a brand, as opposed to the ‘interruptive’ techniques better suited to TV, radio or print media (see Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing for more) and they all rely on brands being better content providers as a result.  Social network users will only engage with brands on social networks if they have a good reason to do so (not just because the message has been put in front of them) and that is a massive shift for brands, and the people who work in branding to understand.

 
3. What are the specific challenges that brands & retailers face in order to fully embrace these new trends?
The ‘good reason’ mentioned above is a good starting point.  These same SN users brands want to impress have a choice of 1000s of other websites they could be on, potentially 100s of other TV channels too, competition for eyeballs has never been so fierce!  At the same time social networks are very public arenas, many individuals are very careful about the persona they choose to project online and even those who aren’t are unlikely to want to associate with a brand, avatar, or message that will leave their friends unimpressed.  Brands have to therefore impress both individual users and the wider peer group in order to ensure a successful campaign.

 
4. Which are the categories that provide the biggest opportunities for social media?
Many brands have a heritage that is rich in social capital and this can be mobilised to tremendous effect on social networks.  Any brand considered ‘cool’, that people wish to be associated with already has that vital ‘good reason’ in its armoury.  Nike have already been mentioned as one example whilst Coca Cola has the second most popular Facebook page (after Barack Obama).  Those brands that aren’t considered cool or worthy of association have to work much harder (although, again, the Zoozoos are a great example of an avatar doing the job instead).

5. How do you think social media is changing the way people shop and how they make their shopping decisions?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             I think this is your area of expertise rather than mine (!) but those brands who have impressed on social networks can expect to find themselves much further up the awareness/consideration/purchase funnel when those same users are offline.  Online, social networks are excellent sources of information, an always available second opinion, and a great way to show off if you’ve just purchased an expensive car, item of clothing or holiday!

Thanks a lot, Joseph, for taking the time to answer these questions and sharing your point of view with us!