Social Networking for online retailers

Session: Tuesday 2A

Conference: IIW-11 November 2-4, Mountain View, Complete Notes Page

Convener: Brian Kissel



OpenID Foundation: Retail Advisory Committee

Thoughts to Consider…
 * Increasingly, consumers want to research and execute purchases on the web, and the trend is accelerating with younger generations
 * In order to gain mindshare and market share, you need to know more about customers
 * With more consumers and retailers interacting via the web, “identity fatigue” is becoming an issue: “if its too much effort I’ll just buy it from Amazon”
 * How do you get more visitors to register on your website, remain engaged, and login early during each return visit? How do you ensure that user profile data is complete and up-to-date?
 * Social Commerce is a reality. What friends recommend is becoming more important than banner ads, search results, or even customer ratings and independent reviews (c|net, Consumer Reports)

Social Marketing
 * The trust factor of friends’ suggestions can make a big difference. Loopt’s users are 20X more likely to click on a place their friends had liked or visited than a place that simply ranked higher in search results.
 * “Improving search has always been about improving relevance,” Augie Ray of Forrester said. “But the thinking now is that getting information from your immediate social network is what will really make results more relevant.”
 * “People are likely to find what your friends are saying about the iPhone 4 or a Chinese restaurant more helpful in a Web search,” said Matt Cutts, a software engineer who oversees search quality at Google.
 * http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/13/technology/13search.html

Benefits of 3rd Party ID and Social Networks for Retailers
 * Higher Registrations: Increase conversion of visitor to registered user by 25% to 50%*
 * Better Login: Reduce forgotten password costs and frustration by up to 50%*
 * Increased Referral Traffic, SEO, and Brand Projection:
 * Allow users to share activities (purchases, product reviews, blogs, surveys, video views) with friends on social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Google, MySpace, LinkedIn, Microsoft, etc.) with links back to your websites
 * Customers as advocates, project your brand beyond your website, links back improve SEO
 * Websites seeing anywhere from 5 to 25* referral visits for each social publishing link
 * Referral visitors are highly qualified and come with active identity accounts for easy registration & login
 * Collecting Rich Customer Data: Build richer customer profiles by using customers’ existing online accounts - name, verified email address, shipping address**, phone**, payment info**, nickname, language, zip code, age, friends lists, address books, personal interests & hobbies, photos, etc.
 * Improved Mobile Experience: Provide a much quicker and simpler user experience via mobile applications
 * Website Federation: Single sign-on (SSO) for your customers across multiple web properties and component solutions (commenting, rating and reviews, customer feedback, community, etc.).

 OpenID Foundation
 * Founded in 2007
 * Non-profit, open-standard technology organization like Linux Foundation
 * Promoting open standards for user-managed identity
 * Board members include folks from Google, Yahoo, Facebook, PayPal, Microsoft, IBM, Sears, NY Times, and NPR
 * OpenID Foundation members include: Google, PayPal, Facebook, Yahoo!, CA, Microsoft, IBM, LexisNexis, VeriSign, BBC, Booz | Allen | Hamilton, GameShop, PingIdentity, JanRain

Identity Providers and Technologies [picture]

'''Integrated into Leading Technology Platforms You may already be using one of these on your websites…''' Social Network & Community Platforms KickApps, Viewpoints, Talki, Wetpaint

Customer Feedback Tools Get Satisfaction, IdealScale, Uservoice

CMS Turnkey Plug-ins WordPress, Drupal

Content Communication Platforms Disqus, Echo, Pluck

'''Sears Sign-in and Social Publishing Demo Visitor arrives at Sears website and clicks sign in…'''

Offered choice of 3rd party ID providers…

Customer selects Google and grants permission…

Logged in, personalized experience…

Offered opportunity to write a product review…

Customer writes personal product review…

'''Review received by Sears, offered chance to share… Can be configured for multiple social networks…'''

'''Customizable Sign-in Interfaces: HP Favicons for initial engagement, contextual messages for each ID provider'''