Many of us in the online retail space have discussed at length the many strategic and tactical aspects of designing, developing, and managing social media for our businesses (no less so right here within the Shop.org team!).  We wanted to step back and understand better who social media users at this point are (surely social media has evolved far beyond something just for teens or young singles, right?), and what they are doing (is it just connecting with friends, or – further to business purposes – are we also connecting more between retailers and consumers?). 

As part of our ongoing consumer research series, this month we asked consumers quite simply, “What do you do on social media sites (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Kaboodle, or others)?”  A total of 4,034 adults over the age of 18 in the U.S. told us just that in a survey conducted in June 2009 by BIGresearch on behalf of NRF and Shop.org. 

Judging from the results, social media appears to be on the path to becoming increasingly mainstream media.  While there is much growth ahead yet, social media is by now woven into the lives of adults across age, sex, household income, marital and parental status, and region.  And while much of that activity to date centers on connecting with friends (both old and new), chatting, and sharing photos, consumers do recognize that social media is helpful for a number of shopping related activities as well. 

BIGresearch broke out the responses to this question into the overall respondent group (adults over the age of 18), as well as a second group, dubbed “social media users”.  A “social media user” is defined as any respondent who indicated that they did two or more things on the list of answer options provided.   

What did we learn about social media users?  Social media users skew somewhat more female than male.  Close to half are married, and another quarter describe themselves as “single, never married.”  They range in age, with a heavier concentration between 18 and 54 years, and heaviest use among 35 to 44 year olds specifically.  If one couples this data point with the knowledge that social media users skew female and that quite a few are married, one could surmise that social media users include a fair number of moms, as well.  Social media users are found in every household income bracket, although with somewhat fewer represented in the $100,000+ bracket. 

How do these social media users specifically spend their time when using social media sites? (Shop.org members may download the full set of data results from the Shop.org Web site.)  A sampling of answers:   

• Connect with friends – 64.5%
• Share photos – 39.5%
• Reconnect with old classmates / friends – 39.1%
• Look for sales / promotions / coupons – 17.9%
• Look for product advice / recommendations – 13.3%
• I like to follow my favorite retailers – 8.4%
• Post ratings or reviews of shopping and dining experiences – 7.0%

So if you – or perhaps your senior management – have been wondering just who wants to engage with you and is looking for your product information via social media, it appears it’s just about everyone one would pass walking down Main Street.  The absolute numbers of course are still growing – but for retailers it’s increasingly an opportunity to connect with both existing and new customers, many of whom have real purchasing power and actively want to engage with you.  As a retailer, it’s up to you to show them that you really want to engage with them as well.  

As always, looking forward to your thoughts and comments on this subject. 

Are you accountable for the ROI of your company’s online marketing efforts?  Do you struggle with how to measure the incremental impact of your media dollars when multiple influences or touch-points occur during the conversion process?  If you answered “yes” to either of these questions, I invite you to join forces with your Shop.org peers in a new Online Marketing Attribution SIG, and participate in developing a series of best practices for online marketing measurement.

At the 2009 Shop.org Marketing Workshop, John Lazarchic (Petco), John Ardis (ValueClick), Dustin Engle (Range Online Media) and I participated in a panel titled “Measuring What Matters:  The Secret to Online Marketing Channel Attribution.”  In our panel, we explored current online measurement practices (and pitfalls), and discussed the importance of going beyond last-click conversion in determining the true impact of your marketing dollars. 

Our conclusion:  by measuring just the last-click (long the industry standard), marketers are very likely undervaluing the “introducers,” which occur at the beginning of the buying funnel;  overvaluing the “closers,” which occur closest to the conversion point, and largely ignoring the “influencers,” which occur mid-cycle.  As a result, marketers may reduce spending precisely where it is most likely to drive incremental sales.    

Fortunately, many marketers have already evolved to more sophisticated measurement techniques which allocate sales across the buying cycle:  introducers (first click), influencers (non-converting clicks) and closers (converting clicks).  To date, however, there is no common framework for either the tools or the allocation process, and minimal capacity for evaluating the influence of offline media.  As the methodologies and tools emerge to make these sophisticated multi-channel allocation methodologies accessible to all marketers, we need to join together to define the standards for our industry. 

Our call to action:  as marketers and members of the Shop.org community, we are best positioned to define the new allocation standards for the online retailing industry.  Working together, we can develop a set of guidelines for marketing allocation best practices, a requirements list that meets retailer ROI measurement needs, and a directory of non-proprietary tools and techniques.  Our findings can serve as a reference point for e-tailers and vendors—creating a non-proprietary measurement approach which can be tailored to the buying lifecycle for each retailer.     

Members of this SIG will:

• Review current multi-channel allocation methodologies for determining incremental sales, highlighting the pros and cons of various approaches;
• Review available and emerging technologies for tracking and allocation;
• Recommend best practices for retailers to implement in their organizations to effectively measure the incremental impact of their marketing dollars.

I hope you’ll join us!  Leave a comment or email me at anneashbey@jeffnet.org to express your interest in participating.

Coming directly from member requests, this month we are proud to bring SHOP.ORG MEMBERS a webinar on “Evolving Retail Trends Regarding Social Media and Mobile Shopping“.

Join us on Wednesday, June 24, 2009, as we bring you a panel of industry experts from ForeSee Results, Newell Rubbermaid, Sherwin-Williams Paint Stores, and Peet’s Coffee & Tea to share research, case studies, and some key takeaways and answer some specific questions including:

–What are some of the key findings from Top 100 Online Retail Satisfaction Index Spring 2009 report?
–Who has managed to stay in the Top 100 in spite of tough economy?
–Social Media – what was its role as acquisition source?
–How are Sharpie, Graco and Rubbermaid are using YouTube, Facebook, Twitter to deepen relationships with customers?
–How do you measure the success of your social media programs?
–How do you measure the success of your mobile applications?
–What are the key steps retailers can take to measure and maximize the impact of social media and mobile applications on sales and on shopper loyalty.

Register on our website to join us for the members-only webinar on June 24th at 1pm EST and make sure sure share this with teams (your membership gives everyone on your team access to these webinars).

And remember, for Shop.org members that that can’t make it - you can register anytime after the webinar for a full playback.

Last week, on June 18th, the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection held a hearing on “Behavioral Advertising: Industry Practices and Consumers’ Expectations”

Prior to the hearing, Shop.org and numerous other associations signed a letter to the Subcommittee calling for “…extreme caution when contemplating any legislative proposals or regulatory changes in this arena.”

Coverage of the hearing:

WSJ: Lawmakers Blast Internet Data Collection

Business Week: Internet Marketing: Is Regulation Coming?

PC World: U.S. Lawmakers Call for Online Ad Privacy Rules

NY Times: Congress Questions How Web Sites Use Personal Data

For all of the Shop.org member companies that have multiple employees tweeting, Bazaarvoice has developed TwitterVoice, an open-source application for your website.  You can read more about it at Bazaarblog, or click on the screen-shot below to see it live and download the sourcecode.  This is perfect for analyst or consulting firms (and even the Shop.org team), as well as the many progressing retail members and vendors that agree that the collective voice of their employees is one of the major representations of their brand (perhaps secondary to their collective customers’ voice).

Example of TwitterVoice, as deployed by Bazaarvoice