Social Media Marketing

Target has found a new friend in Facebook, as the retailer has become one of the first businesses to participate in the social network's new gift card program. According to a Reuters report, consumers can buy cards for their Facebook friends for use at four different businesses including Target, LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vitton SA, Jamba Juice and Darden Restaurants’ Olive Garden.

Social media has arrived as a first choice channel of interaction for consumers to seek customer care and technical support when purchasing online. It's the next stage of evolution in the demand for a better online shopping experience and real time customer service. However, many businesses have been slow to embrace social media as a legitimate channel for customer engagement...    

Facebook did not get much attention last October when it officially launched "mobile app install ads," in part because the company unveiled about a dozen new ad products in 2012 and, from the users' point of view, many of them kinda looked the same. But several of Facebook's big advertising clients who have used the ads in the fourth quarter indicated that the ads can be used to develop e-commerce on Facebook, turning the social network into a mobile shopping and sales device.

Corporate marketing departments have added a social component to their marketing strategies, a necessary step in reaching this vast online audience. Smart companies have dedicated time, money and staff to building and maintaining reputable social networking platforms that engage with customers with the click of a mouse. Today's infographic takes us through the top 250 internet retailers on social media. These companies have excelled, creating highly engaging Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+ and Pinterest pages, allowing their customers to interact with their brand without stepping foot in a storefront.

I guess we're just not as advanced as we think we are. Or, the more things change, the more they stay the same. In last month's Christmas shopping season, paper catalogs influenced more holiday shopping than Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and mobile advertising platforms. And that's not just for brick-and-mortar stores, that's for online shopping too. Flyers and catalogs influenced 22 percent of online purchases and just slightly less, 21 percent, of offline purchases, according to a 1,000-participant study by Baynote, a customer experience solutions company.

In addition to improving the user experience and removing a barrier to list growth, offering social sign-in options has the potential to impact both the amount and accuracy of data that retailers can collect. Here's how:

Amazon.com announced a new feature called Friends and Family Gifting, aimed at helping consumers better organize their gift lists and gift ideas for others, generate Facebook-enabled gift suggestions, receive reminders, and share their gift lists out via email or social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Many Amazon customers have already been using the site's Wish List feature to create custom lists for others for quite some time, and Amazon has also previously offered ways to search for public, shared wish lists by entering a friend's name or email address.

Nook Media, the joint partnership between Barnes & Noble and Microsoft, is appealing to scrapbookers and/or Pinterest users with a holiday video, Dear Santa, that promotes the Nook Catalog and Nook Scrapbook features on its Nook HD and HD+ devices. Nook Catalog and Nook Scrapbook were introduced with the devices when they launched on September 26.

Last week the Gap announced a social media promotion for the holidays: the brand's Facebook fans can send their own photos as real, printed postcards to their Facebook friends for free. Gap is the first brand to use startup Sincerely's new "brand-centric service" Postagram Direct, which launched last week. Gap's Facebook fans can each send up to two free postcards, which are delivered with a pop-out square photo and the user's message. The cards usually cost 99 cents each, but Gap is giving away up to 1 million free postcards through the end of the holidays.

It might sound tempting to set up shop across multiple social media networks, but if even one of these accounts is neglected or mismanaged there’s a chance that you may be doing more harm than good for your business. According to the 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, 85 percent of all businesses that have a dedicated social media platform as part of their marketing strategy reported an increase in their market exposure. Which social media platform do you predominantly use for your business and why?