I decided to look at some direct evidence for social media and its positive effects with eCommerce online businesses both for “Business to Consumer” (B2C) companies as well as “Business to Business” (B2B) companies and I came across these rather diverse examples where social media was very evidential in producing results.
Firstly Mark Logan from BarkleyUS provides us with some insights from a presentation
Case Study One: Zappos (Online Shoe Store)
Why is Zappos so successful at Social Media? .. What is their strategic approach? ..It comes down to two things..Service and Culture and they believe they are one and the same thing and because their culture is unique and offers the company a competitive advantage, they use Social media to project that culture out into the world..
So what are some of the elements of this approach
- Service
- They have a Twitter account dedicated to Service Issues
- To uncover service opportunities
- Initiate response
- Amplify praise
- Reinforce Service reputation
- Culture
- The companies 400 employees all have Twitter accounts
- Who they hire is consistent with this culture of service
- Most of their social media initiatives are about exposing the people at Zappos, who through their actions reinforce the companys competitive advantage.. It makes the company real.
- The CEO leads by example he communicates about his passions.. he is personally invested in Social Media
- They do measure social media but don’t calculate it’s ROI on Sales as they don’t consider it a traditional marketing channel
The primary purpose of their blogs and twitter is so that outsiders can get a glimpse of their company’s culture
“Quote from Twitter while I am typing here from a Zappos Employee…… “Good morning Zappos Fans! My name is Danika, and I am here to answer any questions you have about Zappos/Canada! “
Case Study Two: Dell (not telling you what they do)
They are very strong on Social Media .. they have a “Conversations and Communities” team of 40 and they have several blogs, including a direct to consumer blog and several special interest blogs and engage in almost every major social media channel
Some other Highlights
- Over 65 corporate twitter accounts
- More than 400,000 followers
- They do promote on Twitter eg “15% off any Dell Outlet Inspiron 15 – 1545 laptop. Enter code at checkout: S2?70S6LK1VWVS – only at http://bit.ly/SM28A – exp 8/315:05 AM Aug 28th from CoTweet”
- Have sold Over $3 Million in Sales via Twitter
Case Study Three: WetSeal
They are an online E-Commerce store that sells Teen Clothing For Girls
They launched a community section of their site where fans can design their own…
