The Altimeter Group just wrapped up its “Rise of Social Commerce” event, and there’s no question that there is a groundswell of interest in adopting and adapting social networking to drive new business.
Altimeter partner Lora Cecere provided a four-stage continuum to assess where companies are at in their social business growth. The four key phases are as follows (by the way, she noted in her presentation, most companies are still in Stage 1):
- Stage 1 — “Let’s Be Social”: Companies “are using social technologies for the sake of being the social. The focus is on the brand, and building a community and its value.” Questions to be asked include: “What are the best tactics to use?” and “How do I influence
the most influential?” - Stage 2 – “Enlightened Engagement”: Companies “recognize that customers seek to be informed during the shopping experience, and integrate an information layer onto the two-way dialog. This is done through external voices, from customers, prospects, subject matter experts, in the form of reviews or opinions, for example.” Questions to be asked include: “How do I make this easier for the shopper to engage?”, “How do I effectively connect the shopper to enterprise processes?”
and “How do I use social technologies to improve dialogue with the value chain?” - Stage 3 — “Store of the Community”: Customers “help drive product selection, assortment, and merchandising. Few companies are ready for this phase, as it requires a complete rewiring of the organization.” Questions to be asked include: “How do I use shopper insights?”, “Which shopper input best reflects market opportunity?” and “How do I engage trading
partners to deliver against the store of the community?” - Stage 4 — “Frictionless Commerce”: The buying experience “is completely redesigned to create a fully customer-centric experience. Companies will need to start with a blank slate to truly envision what this will look like.” Questions to be asked include: “How do I redesign the buying experience?”, “How do I enrich enlightened engagement processes without slowing buying cycles?”
I like Ted Rubin’s wrap-up of the discourse being heard through the conference, and he surfaces the ROR metric (Return on Relationship), which pairs nicely with the network-effect Return on Investment in Interaction that my colleague Jon Husband has discussed here at FastForward. Rubin talked about the relationship aspect of social business:
“The view/perspective I keep hearing is all about leveraging consumer’s social graph to sell more product. But when I hear the case studies, and see where true progress is being made, I hear more about interaction, engagement, and sharing… i.e. relationships. When I think about social commerce what seems to be the greatest opportunity is growing/nurturing the connection, participation and loyalty of a consumer, which in turn will build ROR… Return on Relationship. This is the first step required to make all this social integration sustainable and long lasting. Relationships are what will lead to the ability to sell more, not using customers to sell more product, but by facilitating/enabling feedback, sharing, reviews, and therefore build dynamic advocates who openly sell product they love and are passionate about.”
Warren Knight thanks Joe McKendrick