A client recently approached us with a great question: “Are any brands using social media to directly drive sales?” We thought the answer was worth sharing with you, our readers. The answer is, of course, yes… but for many of these pioneering brands, success still hangs in the balance. Here’s a short list of a few we think are worth paying attention to:
1.) Dell Outlet Twitter
You may be familiar with Dell’s incredibly successful Twitter program. The @DellOutlet Twitter profile has generated over $3 million in sales for Dell in a short period of time. One of the secrets to their success is the use of more coupons exclusive to Twitter, which has driven their followers to retweet the deals and made them one of the top 50 most followed brands on Twitter. We’ll see more examples like this as companies implement unique coupon codes and tracking to see how Twitter is affecting sales.
2.) 1-800-Flowers Facebook Page
1-800-Flowers is one of the most recent brands to introduce e-commerce functionality on their Facebook Page. They’ve added a “Shop!” tab on the Facebook Page which allows visitors to browse products and purchase directly through Facebook. We’ll be following this closely, as there’s no indication that their very “traditional” approach to e-commerce will work on this new social media platform.
3.) Pizza Hut Facebook Application
Pizza Hut last year launched an application on Facebook that allows users to purchase a Pizza directly through Facebook. The application requires that you already be a registered user, as it ties into their existing online ordering system. Although the effort was launched in late 2008, there haven’t been any formal announcement of sales results from the application.
Although many of these efforts are still early, we continue to see new brands jump into the pursuit of sales through social media. One of the more interesting developments out there is the public testing Facebook has begun for a payment functionality that may drive even more brands to devise sales strategies related to Facebook. Whatever the case, we think it’s worth brands putting together a strategy to address the sales side of their social media efforts, in addition to their brand and loyalty strategies. We’ll be watching the space to see what lessons are being learned in this new sales frontier.
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August 4th, 2009 at 11:39 am
[...] 7. Social Media Campaigns That Drive Sales A client recently approached us with a great question: “Are any brands using social media to directly drive sales?” We thought the answer was worth sharing with you, our readers. The answer is, of course, yes… but for many of these pioneering brands, success still hangs in the balance. Here’s a short list of a few we think are worth paying attention to… AKPC_IDS += "134,"; [...]
August 18th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
John, interesting post. You could add Amazon MP3 and FatWallet to your list.
It will be interesting to see how these efforts evolve over time.
In the early days of the web, I signed up for emails from retailers and etailers that I liked. In short order my email became a clogged nightmare.
Can we be friends with people who are pushing products on us constantly?
August 19th, 2009 at 1:26 am
Hi,
Dell is defintely one of the most relevant examples. I have posted a nice deck on Twitter for businesses with an elaboration of the dell example.