PowerReviews Bi-Weekly Industry News Roundup
Welcome back to another edition of the PowerReviews Bi-Weekly Industry News Roundup! These last two weeks have been rife with interesting news in our exciting industry. From Google’s decision to rank UGC higher in their search results yet again, to consumers’ continued interest in making purchases on the go, PowerReviews has curated the best e-commerce/social shopping news so you are given only the crème de la crème. December was a big year for retailers, who saw a surge in the amount of sales made through mobile devices. Specifically, according to the IBM Benchmark report that tracks online sales of some … Continue reading
PowerReviews Bi-Weekly Industry News Roundup
And just like that the holidays are over and we’re back with another installment of the PowerReviews Bi-Weekly Industry News Roundup! Here’s the past two weeks’ worth of the most topical industry news for your reading pleasure. Dive in! While the majority of retailers are going “new school” with their guerrilla marketing by blasting their message out via social media, one retailer, Karmaloop, is going “old school” by hiring brand representatives–and it’s working. In fact, 27% of Karmaloop’s sales last year came from its network of over 96,500 representatives that promote Karmaloop in exchange for merchandise from the retailer. Anyone … Continue reading
Four Marketers Getting It Right (and Wrong) on Facebook
At this year’s Web 2.0, Mary Meeker shared a staggering statistic: the number of people on social networks today exceeds the number of Internet users in 2006. Seventy percent of those individuals use Facebook. Never before has a brand had such rapid adoption, frequent engagement and deep trust. The Facebook phenomenon has executives scrambling to respond to questions from their CEOs and boards, namely “What’s our social strategy? What are we doing with Facebook?” And this scrambling has ignited a rush of activity. Facebook has seen a massive influx of advertising dollars ($3.8bn projected this year). Ad agencies have … Continue reading
Top 10 Totally Surefire Holiday Gifts
It’s crunch time. The deadline to get your gifts together is fast approaching and you still don’t know what everyone wants. So we turned to our social commerce network that provides ratings, reviews and Q&As to over 5500 brands. Our team at PowerReviews took a look at a database of 35 million products to see what people were talking about. We looked at which products were most heavily reviewed and shared on Facebook. We also combed through all the questions and answers curious shoppers posted. The ten products below emerged as some of the most buzzed-about among people who were … Continue reading
Sony Goes Social: Enables True Open Sharing with Brandshare
Manufacturers Take Notice! Retailers and consumers alike want the reviews generated on your site displayed wherever a purchasing decision takes place. What does this mean for you Mr. and Mrs. Manufacturer? Apply the old saying, “Sharing is caring”! Well, reviews generated on your site are no different. Share your review content to retailers offering your products. Regardless of the platform that your reviews were generated on, let PowerReviews Open Commerce Platform help set your content free! Sony, our newest manufacturer on the Brandshare program has gone completely open. They’ve told us to share their reviews to anyone and everyone that … Continue reading
PowerReviews Bi-Weekly Industry News Roundup
And we’re back with another installment of the PowerReviews Bi-Weekly Industry News Roundup! Here’s the past two weeks’ worth of the most topical industry news for your reading pleasure. So dive in, posthaste! To the chagrin of brick and mortar retailers everywhere, the online retail giant Amazon introduced a promotion last week that gave shoppers up to $5 off if they scanned a bar code with its mobile application, and then purchased that item online. Already hurting from the reeling economy and consumer propensity to shop more online, small to mid-size businesses all over the country called foul. In response … Continue reading
A Word To The Wise: Brands Need To Be Social With Their Social Content
If you build it, will they come? With all of the social tools available and used in the market today it’s easy to think your customers will know what to do when your e-commerce site brings on a new tool, but that is not necessarily the case. It’s important when a retailer adds new social options such as reviews, question and answer or social engagement tools to their site they communicate this new functionality to their customer base. Announcing new features can lead to higher customer adoption, spur further conversation among their community and increase content to their site, all … Continue reading
How Social Content is Transforming SEO + 2 Tips To Stay Ahead of The Game
Cathy Halligan SVP, Sales & Marketing, PowerReviews Google is at the social game again with the recent unveiling of Google+, a big bet for the company and an effort to show that it can keep up with Facebook in this increasingly important space. However, it’s important to recognize that the launch of Google+ is not just a run at Facebook — it’s a reflection of the increasing importance the company places on social signals in how it indexes, ranks and presents information to consumers. And despite some well-publicized failures in the past, Google has already had some significant success … Continue reading
Calculating Social Commerce Performance (3 Need-To-Knows this Holiday Season)
Cathy Halligan SVP, Sales & Marketing, PowerReviews In a previous column, I outlined the reasons why the business case for social is unclear. One of the top reasons is the confusion around which social tool to apply to achieve the desired business outcome (brand, marketing, sales, service, or insight). While many CMOs can rattle off how many Facebook fans one has, very few can cite the following stats, which drive traffic, conversion, and therefore, sales in social. Social is the creation and exchange of user-generated content (UGC). Consumers have consistently indicated that the UGC with the greatest impact … Continue reading
The 4 Biggest Facebook Marketing Blunders Hurting Your Brand (And How to Right Your Wrongs)
It’s the multimillion-dollar question: What’s the ROI of a Facebook campaign? Usually, that question is answered from a brand or marketing perspective, which leads to much head-scratching and vague conjecture about “greater visibility.” That’s because the marketing campaign that drives brand reputation and awareness isn’t the same as the program that drives sales through customer conversations, joint buying and game dynamics. CMOs are approaching Facebook as an experimental advertising platform, not a viable business-building platform. Simply put, CMOs are doing it wrong. There is a strong and compelling business case for Facebook and plenty of evidence that the … Continue reading
