Edelman Digital » Jason Dojc

Friday Five: Smart Social Commerce Programs

Jason Dojc — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 15:04:02 +0000

Shoppers of the world unite. For many people, shopping is a solitary activity; one where the individual hunter-gatherer sets off on a mission to find that perfect something…and then brings home that perfect something (plus a few other things that caught his/her eye).

But now there’s less reason to be a lonely shopper. You can make shopping a group effort, complete with communal decision making but without the need for an actual parade of people moving store to store behind you. Social shopping allows consumers to harness the wisdom of the crowds (or at least their friends) and gives retailers a new tool to foster loyalty, acquire new customers, and enhance the shopping experience.

Amazon

When you sign up for Amazon’s Facebook Connect you get a very deep connection. Based on the published likes and dislikes of your Facebook friends, their collective favourite books, movies and music are revealed. You also get access to their wish lists in case you need to buy a personal birthday gift, a great way to get that “How did you know!!” reaction. At first this almost sounds overly intrusive, however, Amazon only shares what people have agreed to post on their public profiles.

Sephora

Sephora gets a nod for incorporating social and mobile attributes within the in-store experience. Type in a SKU, product name, or brand name into their mobile app and see reviews from others. You can also Facebook Like a product from within the mobile app so you can get feedback from your friends.

JustBought.it

Part Twitter, part TwitPic, and part Google Maps, JustBought.it encourages users to tweet whenever they’ve “just bought something” with a picture of the product and the location where they purchased it. What emerges is a local shopping community. An iPhone app is available with BlackBerry (client) and Android versions to come. The Android version will come with an augmented reality function that lets users walk into a store and see what others on the site have already purchased.

Threadless

Have a T-shirt design idea? Post it to Threadless.com. In seven days the community scores your design. If it scores high enough, Threadless will feature it and sell your T-shirt and the designer gets paid.

Tobi.com Fashionista

Augmented reality comes to online shopping with Zugara’s Fashionista app (now in alpha mode) that lets you try on virtual clothes from the comfort of your home. This takes the convenience of online shopping to a whole new level.

Image credit: Mashable

Digital Digest: August 2

Jason Dojc — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 15:32:43 +0000

Ethan Zuckerman: Listening to Global Voices

Sure, the web connects the globe, but most of us end up hearing mainly from people just like ourselves. Blogger and technologist Ethan Zuckerman wants to help share the stories of the whole wide world. He talks about clever strategies to open up your digital world.

The Hybrid Theory Manifesto: The Future of Marketing, Advertising, and Communications

In this three part series, Brian Solis attempts to come up with a unifying theory of how social media will work in marketing organizations. Remember the 4 P’s of marketing, the 5th P is “People”.

Site Connects Athletes with Brands Seeking Endorsements

It’s long been recognized that celebrity endorsements can help sell products, but typically it’s only the biggest brands and the brightest stars that are lucky enough to strike such deals. Aiming to bring celebrity endorsements into the realm of possibility for all the other brands and professional athletes out there, Brand Affinity Technologies has created a platform focused on creating the right match.

How Social Media Drives New Business

According to a recent University of Maryland study, social media adoption by small businesses has doubled from 12% to 24% in the last year and some have managed not just to connect with customers but to generate leads and sales.

Digital Digest: July 20

Jason Dojc — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:10:16 +0000

Derek Sivers: How to Start a Movement

With help from footage from Pemberton Music Festival in BC, Derek Sivers explains how movements really get started. (Hint: it takes two). We talk a lot about influencer engagement but to make a movement, the first followers are as important as the influencer.

Six Steps For Dealing With Detractors

Dealing with detractors is perhaps one of the biggest pain points for companies just starting and even well entrenched in social media marketing. Jason Falls points to Forrester’s classification of detractors and offers some advice.

The Real Life Social Network

On Facebook everyone gets lumped into one big bucket called your friends. In real life, you have multiple independent groups of friends that form around life stages (school friends, work friends, camp friends, neighbourhood friends, hockey friends). Furthermore, within each group you have strong ties, weak ties, and temporary ties).

Word of Mouth and Social Media: A Tale of Two Burger Joints

Sobleman’s has been a staple in Milwaukee for the last 12 years building a steady customer base through word-of-mouth. AJ Bombers also built it’s brand through word-of-mouth, but in a considerably shorter time. Social media was the accelerator. And AJ’s owner doesn’t measure ROI. “This is a restaurant built by social media. This is the only way we know it. We can’t say what it would be like without it.”

Digital Digest: July 12

Jason Dojc — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 19:51:55 +0000

How to Organize A Successful Meetup

While the social media world is a great place to forge connections with people. Eventually, you want to meet up with them IRL (in real life). Enter the meetup, an event geared to get to know your friends, likers, and followers in person. Mashable offers a how-to post.

Brands Offer Incentives for Location-based Check-ins

Now there’s a reason to check-in (while others start gaming the system). Starbucks (client) introduced its first-ever national “mayor special” with Foursquare that rewards store mayors with dollar discounts on Frappucinos. In the U.K., Domino’s has a Foursquare promotion running that offers free pizzas and discounts to Foursquare users who check in at its locations.

Social Media Platforms 101

Eloqua has put together a neat 38 page e-book covering all the main social media platforms and how they work. Great reference for training newbies.

Social Networking Affects Brains Like Falling in Love

“Neuroeconomist” Paul Zak has discovered, for the first time, that social networking triggers the release of the generosity-trust chemical, oxytocin, in our brains. And that should be a wake-up call for every company. Professor Zak recently visited Edelman’s New York office and his findings mesh well with Edelman’s trust barometer.

Win with Web Metrics: Ensure a Clear Line of Sight to Net Income

Web measurement guru, Avinash Kaushik, preaches with evangelical fervor on the need for businesses to compute the economic value of their web presences. Web interactions should be bucketed into price, cost, market share or market size which have a clear line of sight to net income. If you can’t find that line of sight then maybe it’s not a very important metric.

The Rise of Fake PR and How to Manage it

Fake PR cases seem to be on the rise.The most notable of course have been the following: the fake BP Global PR Twitter account, the General Mills press release hoax, and now, the fake PR account for AT&T.

Friday Five: On The Road

Jason Dojc — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 11:30:04 +0000

Your luggage is packed and you’ve kissed your loved ones good-bye. Plane Tickets? Check. Hotel and Car Rental Reservations? Check. Map? Check. Guidebook? Check. Those were the good ‘ol days of traveling and according to a CondeNast Traveler article last year they were still necessary evils of traveling. Well mobile technology has caught up and nowadays, it’s all you need.

Tripit

Available for: Blackberry (client), iPhone, Android, Mobile Web (Any phone with a mobile browser)

After setting up an account with Tripit, forward all your confirmation emails (flight, hotel, rental car, even Broadway tickets) to plans@tripit.com. The system scrapes through the emails and creates an itinerary complete with all your flight details (with links to web check-ins) and reservation numbers that you can print, email, or access through your mobile device

Oanada

Available for: Blackberry, iPhone, Android, Mobile Web

Want to know what that jacket really costs in your home currency? Get up-to-the-second currency rates and adjust them for credit card or debit card rates.

iLingual

Available for: iPhone

Voice to voice translation apps are in development now. In the meantime, we have to contend with text-based translation apps of which there are a lot to choose from. iLingual takes some of embarrassment out of not knowing the local lingo by having an animated version of your mouth speak the phrase, demonstrated in the video above.

Expensify

Available for: Blackberry, iPhone, Android

Every business travel knows, tracking expenses are a pain. You need to keep all your receipts, so you can justify to accounting that because of that important client’s particular taste in vintage wine, the dinner for two really did run $200. Enter Expensify. Take a picture of the receipt with your mobile camera and connect it to a particular expense. Then, when you get to the office, print off your report. Connect your credit card to your account and Expensify can issue IRS compliant e-receipts related to each line item.

FlightCaster

Available for: Blackberry, iPhone

This is a great app for anyone meeting you at the other end. FlightCaster not only lets you know when a flight is delayed. It gives you the probability of the flight being delayed “nearly 6 hours before the airline alerts.”

Image credit: Frank Spee