Below the free downloads of the video conference 100 things! Enjoy!

Here are the links (they are FLV files so you’ll need VLC – http://www.videolan.org/vlc/-  to play them, which is free):

• 10 Ways to Diversify Your Audience – David Hauser and Angela Benton – http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7038102/DavidHauser_AngelaBenton.flv
• 10 Ways to Leverage Social Networks to the Max for Your Business – Gary Vaynerchuk – http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7038102/GaryVaynerchuk.flv
• 10 Ways to Massively Increase Traffic to Your Site – Jason Calacanis and Ben Huh – http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7038102/JasonCalacanis_BenHuh.flv
• 10 Things You Need to Know About Mergers and Acquisitions – Jeff Veen – http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7038102/JeffVeen.flv
• 10 Ways to Build a Thriving Successful Online Community – Joel Spolsky <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7038102/JoelSpolsky.flv
• 10 Ways to Preserve Freedom and Build Your Business – Matt Mullenweg – http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7038102/MattMullenweg.flv
• 10 Business Metrics You Need to be Measuring in Your Business – Mike McDerment – http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7038102/MikeMcDerment.flv
• 10 Things that will Kill Your Startup (and How to Avoid Them) – Paul Graham <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7038102/PaulGraham.flv

Vemoedelijk – althans zo hoop ik tenminste – zal er free-wifi aanwezig zijn zodat ik jullie via Twitter (@janbaeten) enkele live-tweets kan doorsturen. Na het evenement komen uiteraard mijn bevindingen online.

Sta me toe dit artikel integraal over te nemen

Shopping can be one of the most social activities. Then again, I often shop alone. It really depends on what I am going for. On the more social side you have:

• asking friends what they think of a particular Victorinox rolly bag

• reviewing ratings or reviews by strangers or friends
• group buying which is really a form of crowd-buying – still quite social
• finding endorsements from friends or ’strangers with expertise’
• Wish lists and registries
• Affiliate sales networks (e.g. Amazon)
• Relevant recommendations (e.g. iTunes Genius function)

As word of mouth is one of the most influential purchase drivers across many product categories, it only makes sense that we will all continue to push the intersection of social media and shopping.From product reviews like the robust ones found in Amazon, YELP and TripAdvisor to the offshoots like Trusted Opinion, review have been around since the dawn of time. For any brand that sells a product or service, I would rank reviews as the most underleveraged social strategy just behind search engine optimization. If you don’t have one, get a product review strategy especially if you are a retailer or sell a retail product of some kind.

If product reviews are fundamental, then what is next? Three things I can see emerging fast:

• Real-time Recommendations via Facebook, Twitter and other social networks
• A new wave of Affiliate Marketing
• Event Shopping

Real-time Recommendations

While reviews may have defined social shopping over the past 10 years, now it is about “real-time recommendations” – a phrase I first heard from Sean Muzzy at Neo@Ogilvy. When I am shopping – that search, assess, decide and purchase activity – how can I tap into my own social graph to get an opinion or some type of feedback?

Some retailers are doing this by integrating Facebook Connect like the backpack manufacturer Jansport. By embeding the Facebook login in the ecommerce pages, I can share my interest in the 22″ Purple Sunflower via facebook. I can see what my friends may have said or if they have “liked” it. This will become standard practice for many of us on those products where we value a second opinion. As a business traveler, luggage is one of tehose categories (and I would hope as a Facebook friend you would wave me off the purple sunflower motif for my own good).

Many of us in digital marketing especially on the social media side of life have been creating and stewarding programs for brands that pay off in the middle or top of the funnel – Engagement up to Awareness. Or our approach to driving action or conversion has been a click-through or coupon download or similar action. Now we really can apply “social” to not just shopping but to conversion or sales.

Affiliate Marketing
While the power of building authentic positive word of mouth and even recommendation for a product will drive product preference (see our Conversation Impact measurement model), using social to drive sales will become a new focus for many of us.

As a blogger, would I raise my hand to become an affiliate marketer for the brands, I myself, use and appreciate? Yes. As marketers continue to over-do influencer outreach – trying to capture the attention of influentials like mombloggers and food bloggers such that they authentically talk about products – we will see some simpler and more direct solutions to transparently engage those influencers as affiliate marketers. The benefit back to them is a percentage of sales – all very transparent, of course. Clearly that works best for retail brands vs. manufacturers. I could easily imagine having a Hugo Boss store widget on my site ads the ultimate storefront for black jeans (hell, just my clickthroughs alone would move the needle).

Curated Event Shopping
Remember the Amazon “Gold Box”? It was a collection of time-sensitive specials on Amazon that you could browse through. I never bought anything and I guess others didn’t fare much better as the feature is gone.

Now I subscribe to ideeli.com. They send me emails of sales events on great stuff – mostly for women. I have bought some great jewelry there for my wife. If I knew anything about bags, I am certain I could score some gems there as the always seem to have some great ones. The pricess are advantageous – but like the Home Shopping Network, sales are timed so you need to act promptly. The goods are curated and high quality. The combination of timeliness and quality curation makes it sweet. I have told many people about ideeli.com which is another way the “social” quality of the service works. (Essentially, it gives me a little bit of ’social capital’ to spend with people I know.)

There are a lot more innovations on social shopping happening than just these three trends. In fact, the social shopping space is exploding with innovation.

Vooral het feit dat 70% geloof hecht aan reviews van niet-vrienden is een bevestiging dat Social Commerce dichter bij de deur staat dan dat we misschien allemaal denken.

Jonathan Carson, president of Online, International Nielsen Company,  verwoordt het als volgt :  The explosion in Consumer Generated Media over the last couple of years means consumers’ reliance on word of mouth in the decision-making process, either from people they know or online consumers they don’t, has increased significantly

Een opmerkelijke vaststelling is dat slechts 54% gelooft in de klassieke nieuwsbrieven waar men zich voor heeft ingeschreven. Even opmerkelijk vind ik dat toch een groot aantal mensen zich laat leiden door Adwords.

Mobile Commerce is voor velen in 2009 nog een ver van m’n bed show. Slechts 24% wordt het liefst geïnformeerd via sms berichten. Benieuwd hoe dit zal evolueren de komende 2-3 jaar. Met de steile opgang van mobile internet moet dit meer en meer op de voorgrond gaan treden. Trends om naar uit te kijken!

Wat onderscheidt hen van de rest?

Zonder te willen vervallen in promo-talk bespreek ik toch graag kort een referentie van hen. Met de website Momslikeme.com scoort Ripple6 namelijk behoorlijk hoog met integratie van Social Media tools en meer dan degelijke CMS.

Een volledige functionele beschrijving van de website lijkt me overbodig, maar neem gerust eens een kijkje. Dit zijn communities waar vele bedrijven nog een puntje kunnen aan zuigen. De link met e-commerce is er helaas nog niet, maar uit hun blog () mag ik verstaan dat ze 100 % pro zijn en er zeker nu al mee bezig zijn. Ik citeer uit hun blogartikel ‘The Era of Social Commerce is Upon Us’ :

….The first websites to deploy social commerce technology will be live this year, and their competitors will need to jump on the bandwagon very quickly to have any hope of competing with game changing technology like this.   We feel that social commerce will be such a great advantage that sites will be forced to deploy in 2010 in large numbers to stay competitive….

Over FourRoads ben ik zeer enthousiast. Zeer prettig te zien dat ze op hun homepage meteen melding maken van Social Commerce.  Hun visie over Social Commerce :

Why Social Commerce? Customers trust voices that sound like their own (Edelman Trust Barometer, 2007). They tune out marketing speak, corporate talk and the opinions of critics. So, in a world where marketing is resisted, social commerce works by letting customers do the marketing themselves. Think Amazon and eBay – companies which marry the social to the commercial with reviews, profiles and user groups.

Met de websites Dog.com en Stuff.tv bewijzen ze hun goede intenties. Vooral Dog.com vind ik zeer nauw aansluiten naar een goed en degelijke Social Commerce platform. Dog.com pakt uit met een knappe webshop met een bijhorende community. De community is nog niet 1 op 1, maar de manier waarop ze het aanpakken is zeer elegant en hoopgevend voor de toekomst.

Vooreerst lijkt het me interessant wat anderen op het internet vertellen.

“Social commerce is a subset of Electronic commerce in which the active participation of customers and their personal relationships are at the forefront. The main element is the involvement of a customer in the marketing of products being sold. e.g. recommendations and comments from customers. This happens for example when customers publish weblogs with their shopping lists.” (bron Wikipedia)

“Social commerce is a method of e-commerce and of traditional shopping in which consumers shop in a social networking environment similar to MySpace. Using the wisdom of crowds, users communicate and aggregate information about products, prices, and deals. Many sites allow users to create custom shopping lists and share them with friends.^[1]. Others concentrate on the user interactions consisting information and recommendations that are hard to acquire from the actual sales personnel. Some services even allow users to shop together synchronously to complete the social environment Social shopping sites can generate revenue not only from advertising and click throughs, but also by sharing information about their users with retailers.” (bron Wikipedia)

Senior marketing strategist (en blogger) Steve Rubel definieerde het begrip ’social commerce’ als volgt:

“Social commerce can take several forms, but in sum it means creating places where people can collaborate online, get advice from trusted individuals, find goods and services and then purchase them. It shrinks the research and purchasing cycle by creating a single destination powered by the power of many.”

Websites zoals Kaboodle , Naturalbornshopper , Reallywantthat.com zijn leuke voorbeeld projecten. Wat ik echter mis zijn websites die een écht social commerce platform zijn. Een site waar men zowel alle voordelen heeft zoals op Kaboodle maar tevens ook een webshop is. In de huidige voorbeelden wordt er telkens doorverwezen naar externe shops, en dit vind ik persoonlijk jammer.

Het lijkt me essentieel in de doorgroei van Social Commerce dat de Social Media aspecten (het web 2.0 verhaaltje) en de klassieke webshop integreren tot één grote website.  Zoniet dreigt het een verhaal te worden waar een webshop en community naast elkaar blijven staan elkaar dus nooit zullen versterken.

Jan Baeten
http://www.twitter.com/janbaeten

Interessante weetjes over Social Commerce? Neem gerust contact op via Twitter (@janbaeten) of via contactform. Extra bloggers steeds welgekomen!

Omdat dit initiatief – net zoals de trend-  nog zeer pril is wil ik daarom een warme oproep lanceren aan enthousiaste mensen om mee te helpen bloggen over dit interessante onderwerp.

Groeten

Jan
http://www.twitter.com/janbaeten