Social Commerce: Converting the Last Mile

In the combative world of online marketing managers like me, a measurable and effective channel to the "last mile" of conversion is critical. While I know, my Tweets and Facebook updates are creating interest and possible traffic to my site, I cannot with a 100% certainty have an attribution mapping system for these sources. Group buying combined with daily deals has of course seen positive traction, but I am curious as to how else the social graph can be leveraged for a quantitative solution like say Pay-Per-Click (e.g. Google AdWords).

 

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Klout Perks, for instance, in my opinion, is a determined effort to develop a platform for social commerce by incentivising (Or maybe bribing!) the influencers. While the system rightly attempts to measure one's ability to drive action on social media, the scoring model and even the expected outcome is possibly flawed. Are Klout scores measured with consistency? Can Influence be generalized? As in, lets say, can and should an influential chef endorse the test drive of a Chevy? Even if all of the above are put into place, how can I as a manager attribute sales to influence? So my quest continues.

Taking rewarding influence to the next level is Curebit.com. The system gives redeemable points if purchases happened as a result of one's influence on social media. It goes totally in the direction of quantifiable, attributable model with strong Analytics which explain where my buyers came from and under the influence of whom. The dashboard can be easily integrated with most online shop fronts and gives fantastic analytics to support campaign decisions for the seller. This is moving very close to eliminating the guessing game and making the social graph work for me on the last mile to conversion.

There are other very interesting early stage hybrids in this movement towards making the social network quantifiable. Likebids.com is a refreshingly disruptive model where offer coupons are unlocked once the offer has a minimum threshold of Likes. Technically, what this means is that the sharing happens before  transactions, unlike, lets say Curebit.com where sharing happens post the purchase. In some ways, the brand is assured of decent visibility due to the cascading effect of social media. I, as a marketer, will certainly love the potential visibility, if there is a backend that can give me precise data of my success.

As more online businesses lock horns via social networks, a platform that can establish a clear, effective and quantifiable conversion generating and tracking system will be able to offer a larger chunk of the pie. I cant wait to see some astonishing innovations and investments in this space.

Image Courtesy: Central-e-commerce.com

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