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The Perfect Match: Ecommerce & Social Media

Internet Merchants Association Conference Las Vegas 2010

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The Perfect Match: Ecommerce & Social Media

Social Commerce – Taking your Ecommerce business social

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Domains• Find-a-domain

services− Certified Offer− Backorder− Premium Domains

• Domain Web Forwarding

• Private Registration

Domains• Find-a-domain

services− Certified Offer− Backorder− Premium Domains

• Domain Web Forwarding

• Private Registration

Communication• Business E-mail• Secure E-mail

Sell Online • E-commerce website

packages• E-commerce Tools

Merchant Account• Do It For Me E-

Commerce Website Design Service

Marketing • Search Engine

Optimization• Pay Per Click

Advertising• Optimized Press

Releases• Directory Services:

Monster Marketplace & ThinkLocal

• Enhanced Business Listings

• Link Building• Content Creation

Marketing • Search Engine

Optimization• Pay Per Click

Advertising• Optimized Press

Releases• Directory Services:

Monster Marketplace & ThinkLocal

• Enhanced Business Listings

• Link Building• Content Creation

Security• SSL Certificate• PC Security

Websites• Website Hosting• Statistics and Website

tools• Professional Website

Design Services• Professional Logo

Design Services• Mobile Websites

Network Solutions

PR Measurement SummitJune 20093

• We service over 3 million SMB customers and manage 7.5 million domain names.

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What Skeptics Say About Social Media ?

No way to measure? Is there any ROI?

All these will pass

They are not mainstream, nobody pays attention to them

We cannot not control the message, lack of consistency, danger of going haywire

You can only promote the company or products

Multiple stake holder approval of the message

Tools are expensive

Photo Credit : http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonnygoldstein/2546693421/

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Community Media audience is growing

• Gartner : By 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary communications vehicle for 20 % of business users.

• With 400M users Facebook could be the 3rd largest country in population (China and India are larger for now)

• LinkedIn Now 60 Million Strong

• Nearly three quarters (73%) of online teens and (72%) of young adults use social network sites

• http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1293114 • http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Social-Media-and-Young-Adults.aspx

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“69% percent of consumers who buy mostly online visit social networking sites”

– IBM e-Commerce Survey 2009

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See the full study at http://www.GrowSmartBusiness.com

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25% Small Business use social media presence – Doubled since last year

• Network Solutions – University of Maryland Small Business Success index http://growsmartbusiness.com

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Once you have a web presence your business is global

• Web searches for a local business• Searches on Maps

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Mobile strategy

The world has 1.4 Billion Tvs

2.5 billion cell phones

When people shop they don’t take their PC along

Customers see desperate need to compare prices

Buyers their social network for advice

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3 C’s of Social Commerce

Connections

Conversations

Conversions

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Case Studies

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Network Solutions Ecommerce customer - Having a business & taking care of a baby

17thandRiggs.com : •First order came from a Twitter conversation,•SSL certs & seals for credibility

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Case Study:Independent Sci-Film Browncoats: Redemption

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Background:Independent Sci-Film for Charity

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• Goal Sell 32,000 DVD units – proceeds go to charity

• Built a community of supporters

• Give them good content

• Get them involved

• Transfer ownership to community

• Share the success

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Ready to jump on the Social Media Bandwagon ?

Graphic credit : http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthamm/2945559128/

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Reasons why

Free (requires time commitment)

Flexible options

Help Your Search Engine Rankings 

Traffic to your website / business

Good Word of mouth

Leads

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Business Objectives

Connect with customers

Get ideas, trends, buzz

Find peers and network

Easy distribution of content

Greater reach

New Clients

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Become an expert yourself

• You have to learn the tools• Spend your own time• Find other enthusiasts/partners in crime• Invest time in attending offline events

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3 step process

Integrate Social media into your marketing campaign

Make your existing marketing collateral social

Engage with your existing customers

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Make your email social

Consolidate all your contact lists

Tweet news about your email offers

Make your email available online

Tip : Add your social media links to your email signatures

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Add your social media channels to your website

Encourage visitors to join your social media

properties

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Make your product pages shareable

Share options on product pages

Add

Tip : Encourage your customers to review your products. Offer them a coupon post sale.

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Share your happy moments

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Use Google Alerts as a business intelligence tool

• Get alerted to conversations about your product

•Trends and competitionTip : Use Google alerts to get content ideas

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Social Business Intelligence Tools

Radian 6 http://www.radian6.com/

Backtype.com http://www.backtype.com/

Alterian SM2 http://www.alterian-social-media.com/

Tip: Recommended blog - http://kdpaine.blogs.com/

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Build your profile in sites like Linkedin

Links to your website and appear in searches

for LinkedIn users

Tip : Ask for recommendations to include you in Service provider directory

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Document sharing Sites

Tip : Add a custom offer for each channel

and monitor traffic from these sites

Docstoc – http://www.docstoc.com

Slide Share – http://www.Slideshare.net

Scribd - http://www.Scribd.com

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Websites and BlogsCall to Action to

visit the company website

Blog has a call to action

about the bloggers

Business – i.e Ordering

prints

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Engage with blog visitors

Talk to your audience whoread your content

Comments

Reviews

Newsletters

Tip : Look for other blogs where you can be a guest poster and get links to your

blog/business

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Twitter

Business Info here – Your conversations will lead

your connections to your page

Tip : Consider having a separate account for your products and tweet a special offers and blog feeds

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Twitter has made Dell $2 million in 2009

•http://venturebeat.com/2008/12/15/twitter-has-made-dell-1-million-in-revenue/

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If chips can have their own page so can you!

Tip : A Facebook page is different from your personal profile. You can create

multiple Facebook pages

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Facebook

•Add a newsletter sign up widget•Give special Facebook offers•Ask for feedback•Ask website visitors to become your Facebook fan• Encourage customers to join the Facebook page

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Videos : Tell your Story

Kodak Zi8 HD Pocket Video Camera 

Tip : Create a How to video, talk about your community

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Podcasts & Your Own Radio Shows

Flickr photo by Mark J Hunter http://www.flickr.com/photos/tartanpodcast/283456030/

Tip : Interview your users, promote their business

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Story telling with photos - Flickr

Tip : Make your story interesting with pictures . Flickr cannot be used for commerce

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Document sharing Sites

Docstoc – http://www.docstoc.com

Slide Share – http://www.Slideshare.net

Scribd - http://www.Scribd.com

Tip : Track visitors from these sites. Add custom offers to these documents

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Community Building strategy

Survey your customersSurveymonkey

Twitpoll

You can build your own customer community Ning.com

Groupsites.com

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Review Sites

Tips : Claim your profile , thank reviewers and answer any negative comments with grace

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Social Customer Service

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Social Media press release

Tips : Use other free releases

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Social bookmarking

Delicious

Stumbleupon

Bizsugar

Amplify

Bx.Businessweek.com

Tips : Use browser bookmarklets to make it efficient

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Social Aggregators

FriendFeed

Google Buzz

Tips : Power of the Google profile – complete profile , add links and use sidewiki

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You can do cool things like widgets

http://flickr.com/photos/geoliv/3038217361/in/set-72157609295681854/

Tips : Test with free sites like Widgetbox, Clearspring.com

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Your Social Media Plan

•Setup Alerts •Join and setup profiles in 3 social networks •15-20 minutes a day tracing the alerts and responding •Choose 3 blogs on your field to read and comment•Converse, don’t sell•Answer questions and become an expert in your niche on LinkedIn•2 hours a week - Learn and write about the products you promote•Measure your efforts

o How many times were you mentionedo How many people read your postso Inbounds linkso Are your customers evangelizing

•Attend one local event a month•Ask for help from the community if you need it

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Future trends

•Location based searcho Example : Realtime results for "indian food"

near:"dc" within:15mi

•Geo taggingo Foursquare, Google latitude

•Mobile social networking•Niche Social networks

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Blogs to Follow

Small Business Trends http://www.smallbiztrends.com

Get Elastic http://www.getelastic.com/

SMART Ecommerce Blog ( Network Solutions ) http://www.smartecommerceblog.com

GrowSmartBusiness http://www.growsmartbusiness.com

This presentation will be on http://blog.networksolutions.com tomorrow

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Follow us on Twitter

@netsolcares

@nsoffers ( Coupons and Offers )

@WgBiz

@GrowSmartBiz

Special Offers for you at http://www.networksolutions.comFree Setup and 10% off for nsCommerce Starter: Coupon: COMMERCE10 Get a new domain name for $9.99 using coupon : WOWDOMAINS

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Questions ?

• Shashi Bellamkonda shashib@networksolutions.com• Twitter: @shashib• Small Business Success Index : http://www.GrowSmartBusiness.com• Network Solutions Blog : http://blog.networksolutions.com• Web Community Network : http://www.LinkTogether.com• Small Business Network : http://www.MySolutionSpot.com• Women Entrepreneurs : http://www.WomenGrowBusiness.com

•Other Media:o Technology & Social Media: http://www.shashi.nameo Digital Thoughts: http://readythoughts.blogspot.como Restaurant Reviews: http://www.carryoncurry.como Examiner Column : http://bit.ly/dcexaminer

Tech Cocktail Column: http://bit.ly/shashitechcocktailWhat I am reading: http://shashib.amplify.com