Referly describes the new API scheme as “customer acquisition as a service.” Free to use while the product is in beta, it is constructed loosely around a Google AdWords-style business model: businesses decide how much they are willing to pay to get a new customer (represented by a signup, or upgrade or whatever else is chosen). The businesses ”fund their account with a pre-paid deposit,” the company says. Referly subsequently takes from that account with each reward that is paid out: users get cash rewards when they generate actions like sign-ups or sales.

The service is open to all merchants, but Morrill notes that it will specifically be targeting software-as-a-service companies, which rarely have social referral programs and could benefit from them.

“The Dropbox referral program and Living Social referral program are awesome examples of how this tactic can be very successful,” she tells me. “We want to make it much more widespread and accessible to web-based companies of all kinds.”

Of course, Referly will also be looking to work with e-commerce sites, but some of that territory has already been trod by others. “We find they usually already have affiliate programs we can integrate with,” she says.

Since launching earlier this year, Morrill tells me the company has added “thousands of users.” She notes that referrals typically have been converting “very well,” and yield three to five times the eCPMs one sees with search engine marketing.

“There is a very simple reason for this,” she says. “People are only recommending products they believe in, to people who trust them. Individuals are more creative and have better targeting with their tweets, Facebook status updates and emails than any automated ad network.”

And in what must be music to some of your ears, so far Referly has seen very little spam. “Spammers don’t win when it comes to referrals and they find out very quickly,” she heeds. The reason for that is because if you post too many recommendations to your Facebook feed, your friends will name and shame you. “There is a social contract when using these tools that requires you to do something interesting, or risk getting unfriended. It’s a natural deterrent to spam,” she says.

As these services grow, it will be interesting to see if that continues to be the case. The movement for more social shopping, indeed, is being approached from many angles, from sites like Facebook and work on a so-called “want” button, to sites rewarding for referrals like Referly, to sites like Pinterest and Lyst that let users see what other friends looking at and endorsing.

In that context, the focus on more sophisticated browsing on its own site makes sense. The new service, with categories like apps, art, beauty, books and electronics (and adult, it turns out), will give a bigger, easier to read picture of what people are endorsing across Referly. One example here:

Morrill tells me that there are already some companies signed up for the merchant API but they cannot be named because they are mostly in the same class as Referly in the Y-Combinator program, and so they have not yet been launched. These should be coming out soon, however.

Although the beta version of the API is free, longer term, Morrill tells me that Referly will charge. She says the company is exploring two different models: pay-as-you-go where Referly takes a percentage of rewards; and flat rate where a business pays would a flat amount for various transaction thresholds.

The company is taking a refreshingly fluid approach to how it takes that next. “We’re open to exploring other models, too. This is a big reason why we are not waiting any longer to launch. We need to start figuring out pricing and the market can help us with that,” she says.

Totally love Motilo… they do like the best giveaways ever!

If you didn’t know already, Motilo is a cool, innovative website for fashion lovers like yourself and I, where you can create outfits, shop fab brands and chat with your friends online! Motilo is literally the world’s first social shopping site where friends can shop online… together! How amazing? No more over-the-phone descriptions to the besties, oh no. Motilo provides us with a great platform to get that all important second opinion, in real-time. So make sure you check them out!

Now, onto the giveaway. Well friends, you did indeed read the title correctly (it’s not a typo), Motilo are really giving away £2000 to one lucky fashionista, to spend in the Motilo Shop! To enter, you’ve got to be following both Motilo and MrsMotilo on Twitter and do so before August 13th (when the competition ends).

For more deets head here, or if you’ve got the gist of it, just click that follow button… twice and cross all your fingers and toes! Good luck lovelies!

Sit Back, Relax and Watch your customers drive your sales via Social Media

Just Bought It – Harness the power of Social Marketing

After months of hard work; We are extremely happy to announce that Justbought.it BETA has finally launched and is available for use! Its Free to use in BETA. (Limited Places)

What is JustBought.it all about?

Justbought.it is an easy to install widget that sits on your checkout confirmation page and engages your customers to share  what they have just bought when their word of mouth advocacy is most authentic. After they have just bought.

Justbought.it enables your customer to share your brand or the products they have just bought from you with all their social networks; giving your business immediate exposure to potential customers just like your customer – their likeminded friends and followers.

For example; a customer at an online sporting shop shares the new trainers he has just bought with his friends on facebook. Chances are that some of his friends share a similar passion for running or other sports and will click on the link to check out the shoes he has bought and the online retailer he has bought from –  leading to discovery and sales for this online sporting shop.

Justbought.it builds your brand, generates traffic to your website and most importantly creates revenue for your e-store from social media without you having to create blog content, promotions, copy or any of the other stuff that detracts you from your core business.

Not only that; Justbought.it demonstrates how social sharing has generated revenue for your business via a rich analytical dashboard that offers insights into how you can more effectively manage your other online advertising campaigns. For example how would you like to find out which of your products can drive the most traffic to your web store or which of your customer base are most likely to respond to a facebook campaign? Our Analytics dashboard will provide just that.

To learn more about our product; visit our website or Sign up for your  commitment free trial.

We hope you enjoy using Justbought.it as much as we enjoyed making it.

Core benefits of using justbought.it:

• EASY – Justbought.it is simple to install (less than 30 mins) and easy to manage so you can concentrate on running your business not your social media campaigns.
• EFFECTIVE – Justbought.it generates highly targeted promotion of your products and brand on the only place that really matters in Social Media, your customer’s walls.
• SELF PROPELLED - Justbought.it creates self-propelled word of mouth traffic and sales for your business by your customers.
• AUTHENTIC – Your customer’s voice is your most authentic advertising voice and justbought.it helps your business unleash it.
• MEASURABLE - The Justbought.it analytics dashboard; helps you measure your success with Justbought.it and identify opportunities for your other online advertising campaigns.
• COST EFFECTIVE – Justbought.it is completely FREE to use during BETA-1. £50 (or equivalent) credit waiting for you in your account as soon as you sign up and this will be topped up each time you run out. That’s £830+ of sales generated for you absolutely free of charge.
• COMMITMENT FREE - No Contracts, No Commitments. Cancel at any time.

Hey Ladies (and Gents too!),

I have recently come across a great opportunity for my readers. Mallzee is an awesome shopping website that is about to launch.

One of my biggest turn-offs for online shopping is how little you have your friends’ opinions, or how it’s almost impossible to meet up, gab and have some coffee on the internet. While coffee may still be impossible, Mallzee is trying to create that social shopping environment that we all crave.

Among the (many) cool features is a personal style quiz/questionnaire that you fill out in the beginning.  This, in turn, creates a shopping mall that has your style preferences, and your friends’ too. Plus, once you find an amazing deal or item, you can chat with your friends using Mallzee’s chat features.

On top of all the socializing you’ll be doing, you will be getting clothes from your favorite brands, like Urban Outfitters, Liberty London, French Connection and over 200 more. PLUS, after you’ve been delivered a personalized mall, chatted with your friends about what you want to buy, and checked out a few great brands, you’d also get fantastic discounts!

So what’s the catch? There really isn’t one. I’m blogging about this because I think it’s such a great opportunity. I mean, we already do a lot of online shopping, but why not now make it interactive? Plus, if you get your own friends to sign up, you get paid for every time your friends buy something. I know. That sounds like not a bad idea!

All you got to do is go to www.mallzee.com, sign up for the limited edition pre-launch invite. Ok, and if that’s not good enough, when we sign up, we automatically get entered for a competition to win a great shopping experience. What that means, I’m not sure, but I really can’t wait to find out. Shopping spree maybe? Great discount? Who knows, but I am really excited for this to launch.

It is definitely worth it for you to check it out!

-Ana

click on the picture to go there!

]]> http://myleftone.com/2012/07/18/social-media-marketing-for-commerce-or-community/ Wed, 18 Jul 2012 15:22:14 +0000 Tom Bishop http://myleftone.com/2012/07/18/social-media-marketing-for-commerce-or-community/ Why doesn’t social commerce work? Theories abound. Among the most popular are “People use social sites to communicate, not to shop,” and “People don’t want to use their credit cards on a social network.”

I’d have to say I agree with these assessments, and I understand the fear of a new concept. It’s primarily about behavior. When social media users visit their favorite sites, it’s to share jokes, keep their friends notified about what they are doing, no matter how mundane, and to see what other people are up to.

There’s even a theory that despite the emphasis on communication, social media is really just the latest manifestation of the ‘cult of me’. Whether you’re a showoff, a drama queen, a troll, or a humblebraggart, it may be the little shot of adrenaline you get from being noticed that drives everything social media is about.

How does a brand, whether a B2C or B2B business, cut through all of that and do some real business on social media platforms?

The answer is: You don’t. At least not yet.

Some tricklings of s-commerce (or f-commerce) are starting to occur, as some companies have either figured out a formula for selling through Facebook, or were just lucky enough to be the right kind of brand for social selling from the get-go. Countless smaller brands came out of nowhere using social platforms, but many larger ones, strategy or not, have been stymied by their inability to monetize their social endeavors. GM, Nordstrom, The Gap, and JC Penney have all given up on selling through Facebook, for example, at least for now.

So is there hope?

The verdict on social commerce is in: a direct selling strategy, like a mall presence, does not work for social media. Social media is not a mall, it’s a playground. It’s where people go to watch their kids play and bump into friends. It’s also a place where they hang out with business colleagues, but the closest they get to a sale is to trade business cards and promise to talk later.

When you try to sell using a social network, you’re basically acting like a used car salesmen at a kid’s birthday party. Instead of commerce, you want to build your community. The way to fit in is to lose the tie, drop the product slicksheets and raise a glass. When you represent a business, how do you do this?

• Be a person. Nobody wants to be pals with a company logo. The most successful social brands are usually people, who create an aura of excellence, experience, leadership, humor, creativity, or some combination of these traits around themselves. The brand they represent is secondary, but they make themselves inseparable from it.
• Listen. This means find out what drives your followers on social platforms. If you are a person, it will be easier to engage them in discussions about their interests. The social networks may let you stalk people to find out more, without them knowing, but it’s better to just ask.
• Lose the fear. If you’re that person at the cocktail party who stands quietly by the cracker tray trying to avoid eye contact, that behavior needs to go. On a social platform, you’re better off being the person who strikes up conversations and commiserates easily.
• Be positive. It may be cathartic to lament things going on in the news or politics, and it is widely accepted to join a discussion where you can be harsh toward various people or organizations, but it’s best to leave the cynicism at the login screen. It’s not just because you’re representing a business, but because people who are positive are just more fun to be around.
• Be yourself. There is no need to go out of your way to pretend to like certain sports, art forms, or pop bands just to get along with your followers online. You should be a person people want to know and want to listen to, and it should not go against the suggestions listed above. Of course, if ‘yourself’ is a phony, self-centered, shy, negative, boring person, maybe you should find another person to be the face of your brand.

The quest to ‘fit in’ may bring back memories of awkward moments in high school, none of them positive. But here in the social realm, you get to be the jock, the cheerleader, the class president, the genius, and the teacher’s pet all at once. As you represent your organization in the social universe, it’s better to take the ‘extremely soft sell’ approach rather than the carnival barker. To gather people to your brand, just be somebody people want to know better.

Mr. Morton.

They grow up so fast, don’t they? Local social shopping site Lyst, which launched April 2011, has just raised a $5 million Series A. Led by London-based DFJ Esprit, with Accel Partners, Alex Zubillaga and Venrex participating, the round will allow Lyst to staff up and work on building out its back end.

Ironic, right? Considering they’re a fashion startup and all.

Like Pinterest or Tumblr, the site allows users to follow feeds from brands, stores, bloggers, and so forth. That creates a curated feed of products that you might like to perhaps purchase. If you like an item but not the price, you can add it to your “lyst” and receive a notice when it goes on sale.

That creates some technical challenges. Asked about his plans for the cash via email, CEO Chris Morton told us, “The funding will let us continue improving our site and the data behind it  - every single day tens of thousands of brand new items come onto Lyst so we’re dealing with some quite complex problems!”

“Our aim is to put the consumer at the centre of the shopping experience: everyone is different, they like different things, so we want to give everyone their own, personalized experience when they shop,” he added.

While they have everyone’s attention, the company also announced it’s been doubling its sales each month for the last three months. Of course, that could mean a lot of things. Mr. Morton told us,

“We don’t disclose our actual sales figures, but last quarter millions of people used Lyst, driving millions of dollars in sales. Our average order value is $300.”

In a statement released with the announcement, DFJ Esprit partner Nic Brisbourne called the company’s potential for expansion “tremendous,” and added,

“Social networking is part of all aspects of life today and fashion brands are keen to gain exposure through channels such as Facebook and Pinterest, with Lyst converting this exposure into purchases. The monies raised will be invested in development, marketing and partnerships to improve the user experience on Lyst and accelerate growth.”

The company will also continue to grow its teams in both New York and London.

every time. vazquez

via Tumblr by @marieiscool

via Tumblr by @marieiscool

According to Francisco Guerrero, Pintics’ CEO, ShopInterest isn’t a “pivot” for Pintics – that other service is still doing well, he says, and is now tracking the analytics associated with 750,000 pins. Instead, the two services, Pintics and ShopInterest, are aimed at different audiences. “Our Pinterest analytics service targets large e-commerce companies,” Guerrero says, “but after we saw the large volume of sales generated via Pinterest, we decided to help regular users join in the fun and profits.”

lol

via Tumblr by @marieiscool

Thank you for my:

• cheekbones
• creativity
• attitude
• willpower
• good looks
• passion
• work ethic
• smile
• voice

 (and also lots of other things)

via Tumblr by @marieiscool

Tiffany amber thiesen (from saved by the bell times, not now) for ariel 
Amanda Seyfried for rapunzel
Jewel Staite for Jane
Brandi for Tiana
Sarah Ramos for Snow White

who else I’m bored of thinking up actors 

via Tumblr by @marieiscool

i love me

via Tumblr by @marieiscool

thesmithian:

As part of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) an enormous outdoor installation of fish was constructed using discarded plastic bottles on Botafogo beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

more.

via Tumblr by @marieiscool

Before.

After.

truebluemeandyou:

sadierevier:

All the gluing is complete. And these are my lovely googly eye shoes. I’m very happy to add them to the collection.

Truebluemeandyou: I love googly eyes – mainly because I love to see what people make out of them. I personally think these look better than the Googly Eye Slingbacks by Christian Louboutin (that’s right – Christian Louboutin used them for his $1500 version!). Other posts with googly eyes here: truebluemeandyou.tumblr.com/tagged/googly-eyes

via Tumblr by @marieiscool

via Tumblr by @marieiscool

 Nearly two years after releasing their self-titled debut,TERRIBLE THINGS returns as a three piece with two new faces. Beating the “supergroup” curse of one album and done, Fred Mascherino (Taking Back Sunday, Breaking Pangaea, The Color Fred) is rejuvenated and back in the producer’s chair wearing his writing cap. “(via Another Reybee Productions present… TERRIBLE THINGS!!!)

uggggggh. so much yes.

I am sad that Brian Weaver is no longer involved, but I’m happy with who he has playing with him now, plus everyone knows that this is Fred’s baby. 

they are playing at SAINT VITUS in July. I think I peed a little. 

via Tumblr by @marieiscool

Justbought.it will be launching soon.

Signup on our splash page to be the first in line to hear about our launch.

gastrogirl:

orzo caprese in tomato cups.

via Tumblr by @marieiscool

The service, which went into alpha last September, had been building for a while around a simple-yet-complex idea: talking with your friends while you all watch a premium video online. Then along came Google+ (s GOOG), with its hangouts. And then came Airtime, with its idea of videochats around shared experiences.

Suddenly things looked a little trickier. Ahmed’s response?

Change direction and raise $500,000 from a syndicate of private investors to keep pushing the service into a new shape. The new, reinvigorated Lutebox — which goes into open beta on Wednesday — is no longer organizing itself around video, but instead wants to tap into another buzzy trend: social shopping.

“What we realized,” Ahmed told me, “Was that we didn’t have incredibly valuable content, and that we couldn’t afford to get it. We’re not Netflix (s NFLX), who can afford to pay millions to Warner Bros or Fox to get the latest movies.”

Instead he took cues from Pinterest and Fancy, developing a platform where you can talk to your friends about things you want to buy. You can see where he’s coming from: shopping in real-life is often a social experience, where you show your friends what you’re interested in and make collective decisions. What if that could apply online too?

To be honest, though, this is not actually as radical a change for Lutebox as it may seem: the core of the product is still a videochat service, where you can talk to up to six friends simultaneously about what’s on the page in front of you. The difference is what the subject of your chat can be. Now the site has added a shopping mall, where you can search for items from a range of different retailers (all U.K.-based at the moment) and discuss them with friends.

That means it’s got a better commercial model (Lutebox doesn’t have the same up-front costs as it did for video, and earns affiliate fees on every purchase made through its service) but it still faces some substantial obstacles.

The first is a broad one: is videochat really what people want to do? So many people have thrown themselves onto this bonfire, and yet — unsurprisingly — they’ve nearly all ended up being burned. While they may prove useful from time to time, videochats remain a niche pursuit. And videochats about specific topics narrow the field even more. Even Airtime, which had been hyped thanks to the involvement of Facebook (s FB) investor Sean Parker and Napster creator Shawn Fanning, met with a muted response.

And then there’s the platform problem.

Lutebox is not a plugin that allows you to launch a chat on, say, an Amazon (s AMZN) page. No, it requires you (and your friends) to be signed in to its service, and looking through its own catalog of stores. That means it has to become a destination, something which will require some serious and work to reduce the friction. The search needs a lot of work, the discovery requires some deep thinking, and the inventory needs to be carefully managed.

And if wants to follow in the footsteps of Pinterest and the like, I suspect that is going to need to appeal deeply to a specific user base, which means it is going to have to narrow itself even further to get more items in from specific, more popular stores. For example, I can see it having some use for fashion retail, but probably not for purchasing electrical equipment. Right now it’s a grab bag of items from across the board.

Still, it’s only just gone into beta — so there is clearly time and now money to work on improvements. If the site can overcome the natural inertia of videochat — perhaps by allowing people to talk not just with their friends, but also trusted guides (why not launch a chat with a fashion stylist, say, for advice on the dress you’re looking at?) it may be able to carve out a corner of the market.

And if it can partner with a retailer to produce a white label service, that may have some value too. (Ahmed says it’s a possibility, but he is not talking to retailers about it yet).

So, plenty of challenges. But I’ll give them time to take a breath: right now they’re still reeling from the decision to shift from video to shopping.

“The stress around the decision to pivot, it’s tough because you’ve invested so much time and energy and belief into something,” Ahmed told me. “We had 250 testers in alpha, who were using it a lot — but it was a realization, more than anything, that it wasn’t useful for users. It all boils down to that.”

Himself, unimpressed by the chants of “encore,” would not play another song until every person repeated after him in unison, “P-A-R-T-Y, we don’t need no alibi, we party!” When he was finally happy with the chant, he passed around high-fives and the partying continued for one last song.

via Tumblr by @marieiscool

My main goal in creating this product is to make it social…that is, social with your friends.  And I know Mr. Zuckerberg believes that a friend is any acquaintance that you can match a person’s face with their first and last name, however sharing everything with my 500+ friends seems a little anti-social to me.  In fact, in seems down right obnoxious.  So I am working on a more specific definition of social shopping, one that involves true friends.

Stay tuned for updates on where we’re at and when we’ll be launching!

Social media has made this element of sharing more powerful and accessible, with millions of users online and using social networks all over the world, online customer relations, new product launches, competitions and viral marketing have all been options for brands looking to reach more people, much faster. Twitter with trending hashtags around a specific brand or product can work wonders for marketing campaigns & sales.

Now with the upwards usage of visual social platforms sites like Instagram & Pinterest, virtual shop windows are now possible, and by tracking the pinning habits of Pinterest users, businesses can track and see what is popular and trending, much like a crowd sourced online focus group.

One of the biggest opportunities is seeing what is popular on these visual sites and can provide valuable insights to your potential audience, helping to fuel new product development, future trends & spending habits.

Brands, retailers and designers are all innovating to stay ahead of the game and to ensure they remain on consumer radars in an increasingly tough economic climate. They’re monitoring social media to find out what their consumers want. They have access to free and convenient focus groups like never before.

Some brands have been quick to establish themselves with a very strong social media presence and many have reaped the rewards by using most of the popular social campaigns platforms above.

Rob Kramer, the company’s co-founder and CEO, put it this way: “If Craigslist and Pinterest had a baby – that’s HipSwap.”

Since the site’s launch in March, he said, it’s expanded to cities nationwide, amassed more than $21 million worth of merchandise and attracts about one million monthly unique visitors. He declined to provide user numbers but said the user population is in the six figures and grows 2 to 3 percent a day. The site has also raised about $1.1 million in seed funding from Greycroft Partners, Founders Fund and others.

After bad experiences on eBay (s EBAY) and Craigslist, Kramer said he and his co-founder Andrew Skinner created the site to give people an easy, enjoyable way to sell goods online. Items can be new or old, from people’s homes or local vintage and secondhand shops, but he said the goal is a marketplace for “unique inventory at the neighborhood level.” It gives the hipster in Brooklyn a way to buy things from people her area, as well as Chicago, Los Angeles and neighborhoods across the country.

HipSwap overlaps with Etsy in that both marketplaces allow people to sell vintage goods, but Kramer said some Etsy sellers are finding they can sell certain things on HipSwap that they can’t sell on Etsy because HipSwap doesn’t focus on handmade items.

“We want to own the virtual supply chain for the secondary market of goods,” he said.

Sellers can take pictures of their stuff with HipSwap’s iPhone (s AAPL) or Android (s GOOG) app and then upload them to the website, where they can price, title and post their listings in their own online shop for free. Buyers can receive the items via meetups, shipping or delivery (but only if they live in Los Angeles in New York).

The site released several new features today, including:

• Gilt Groupe-like flash sales that last for 72 hours and offer products in a dedicated category, such as art or fashion.

• The ability to personalize user experiences by giving them the option to “Hip or Skip” items. It’s like Pandora’s thumbs up or down feature and lets the site create a customized marketplace that reflects their preferences.

• The option to tweet their collections, poll Facebook (s FB) friends for opinions or pin collections on Pinterest.

• An easy way to donate to charity. Every Saturday, HipSwap says it will pick up unwanted goods from users and deliver them to Goodwill for free.

• A quick way to cross-post on Craigslist. With one click, HipSwap sellers can post their items on Craigslist to share their more visual listings (and give HipSwap a bit of promotion).

As someone who loves to find great stuff locally and secondhand (I confess that I’ve even restored a coffee table found on my street), I appreciate the HipSwap idea. And I’m all for a Craigstlist-like marketplace that’s more visual and easier to use. But it will be interesting to see what happens to the site as it grows. Craigslist and eBay struggled to preserve their cultures when they got bigger. As Etsy scales, that’s an issue it’s grappling with as well.

I also wonder about what happens to the quality of goods as more people join. HipSwap bills itself as a way to discover “what’s inside the most fabulous closets, homes and shops in your neighborhood.” But that means a lot of secondhand items, not all of which may look as good in real life as they do online. The social, curation and personalization tools give sellers incentives to present goods that will help them build an audience on the site. And Kramer said sellers need to post the condition of the items. But, for buyers, it’s still hard to gauge the true condition of something from a picture and written report. To prevent the sale of fake goods, Kramer said they’ll be adding a verification process for brand-name items in the next couple of months.

The site doesn’t just want to be known for ease of use or beautiful design, he said, “One of our main goals is to be the most credible marketplace.”