Is Your Association Taking Advantage Of The Three Stages Of Social Commerce

I suspect that your association has taken advantage of eCommerce. It’s probably how all of your organization’s online transactions occur.

But has your organization leveraged sCommerce?

Defining Social Commerce (sCommerce)

Social commerce is the use of social networks in the context of eCommerce transactions. It involves using social media that supports social interactions and user contributions to assist in the online buying and selling of products and services. ~ Wikipedia

Yahoo was the first to introduce the term in 2005. Today sCommerce is used to describe digital collaborative tools like comments, customer ratings and reviews, shared pick lists, user recommendations and referrals, forums and communities, social advertising and other user generated content about products and services.

Three Stages Of Social Commerce

Author, speaker and technology expert Scott Klososky identifies three stages of sCommerce.

1. Consumer to Consumer – connecting with family, friends and colleagues.

• eWord of mouth
• eCommunities
• User Generated Content (UGC)
• Citizen journalism
• Discussion groups
• Online chats

2. Business To Consumer – socially directed buying.

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC)
• Social media
• eWord of mouth
• Organizational voice
• Online reputation managment
• Crowdsourcing
• Location Based Marketing
• Viral video

3. Business To Business – socially facilitated selling.

• Social CRM
• Social recruiting
• Rivers of information
• Online industry experts
• Organizational voice
• Online reputation management
• Virtual team support

The Bottom Line Of sCommerce

Bottom line, sCommerce is really about people. And it’s about connecting people to people.

An organization’s connection with its customers is becoming more important than its product or services. It’s about developing and maintaining those relationships. Ultimately, we have got to love our customers.

There is only one question that really matters and should be asked of all your customers: How likely is it that you would recommend (your organization) to a friend or colleague? (The Net Promoter Scale)

On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being extremely likely and 1 being not at all likely, anything that scores an 8 or lower is a customer that is vulnerable to competitive offerings, able to damage your brand or impede your growth through negative word of mouth.

Today your association lives or dies by its Net Promoter Scores. And often your scores are directly related to how socially enabled you are as well as how much you help and love your customers.

Why are so many associations set up to manage systems of record instead of systems of engagement? What will it take to move associations to sCommerce and systems of engagement?