Give Me MySpace

If you think online social networking is all about fun and games, you're missing the boat. Social computing strategies represent a new frontier of marketing, and new opportunities for savvy merchants.

New technologies such as social networking sites, blogs, podcasts, and RSS feeds are dramatically changing the speed and availability of information that is reaching consumers.

How important is social computing? Industry researcher Forrester reports that use of social networking sites such as MySpace grew a whopping 90% from 2006 to 2007; in the same time period, blog consumption grew by 83% and the number of consumers relying on RSS feeds to distill content jumped fully 300%.

As social computing becomes an increasingly essential part of online selling, merchants are finding ways to embrace new technologies and interact more directly with their customers. The result is improved customer acquisition and loyalty and, ultimately, better business performance.

Shoppers trust the opinions of like-minded shoppers and are influenced less by messages from merchants — and they're sharing their views online. Embracing this customer interaction and leveraging the fluid information flow of blogs, podcasts and customer reviews, retailers are able to keep their fingers on the pulse of customer trends and opinions.

Keep these four themes in mind as you integrate social networking strategies into your online retail business:

• Share

  Build a relationship with your customer to exchange information. This will ensure that you are optimizing the customer experience.

• Connect

  Customers are finding ways to connect with one another and share information. Find a way in which you can learn from this connection.

• Influence. While customers are providing you with new information every day, take action and make changes by what they are telling you.

• Learn

  Understand your customers' behaviors and needs and build your site around them accordingly.

Here's what else you need to be thinking about in the next six to 12 months.

Catering to consumer preference Social computing is all about putting the customers in control of their own shopping experiences — and that begins with the functionality and features of your own e-commerce site. With intuitive product discovery features and customer-driven content, you'll be well on your way to serving shoppers what they need.

First, reassess your navigation and on-site search. As the number of products increases, the number of paths customers can take to research, compare, and eventually purchase the items also increases.

Each path represents another opportunity for merchants to learn about customer needs and preferences, and another chance to help customers find information that will lead them to the right products. To give shoppers more options, consider the following:

• Expanding left-hand navigation increases exposure to more specific product categories and themed navigation. (See Old Navy site example, left.)

• Extended DHTML menus that expand when shoppers mouse over them also provide merchandising capabilities.

• Front-end guided navigation showcases the full spectrum of products. Shoppers are exposed to products they might not have originally considered and receive context-driven suggestions for paths through the site.

• Merchants extend the breadth of cross-sells and category level browsing at the product detail level.

  Another new way shoppers are finding products is through rich shopping environments that engage and entertain. Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), such as product configurators and deep imaging that includes 360-degree views, expose all the options available to shoppers. They can:

• Find and manipulate content. RIAs help users locate, manipulate, and display relevant content without waiting for constant page refreshes.

• Elevate information up the path to purchase. RIAs allow merchants to provide more relevant product information earlier in the purchase process.

• Absorb shoppers, allowing merchants to promote products through a non-linear, entertaining shopping experience.