As an online retailer you hear the buzzwords "Personalization, User Generated Content and Social Networks" daily. Whether you're a beginner or an expert on social commerce, you'll learn best practices, the top 8 social commerce technologies and get actionable advice for your online store.

2. What is Strands Recommender?
We are a personalized product recommendation company that helps over 65 retailers
ranging in size from $1M a year to $150M+ display personalized and relevant products to
new and returning customers throughout their shopping experience and in emails.
We Help Your Online Store by:
 Learning Each Customers Unique Behaviors
 Merchandising Your Site Based On Behavior
 Personalizing Your Email Marketing
 Helping Customers Find What They Want
 Helping Customers Discover New Products
Which Results In:
 Reduced Cart Abandonment
 Increased Conversions
 Increased Engagement
 ncreased Sales
I
 Repeat Customers
Example of Recommended Products in Product Detail Page

3. Quick Webinar Warm-Up:
- The webinar is fully hosted in your browser no need to dial in
- You can view the webinar replay live at the URL below:
- http://www.instantpresenter.com/strandsrecs/EE54D98585
- Webinar should last about 45 minutes
If you have any trouble connecting or viewing the webinar:
Give this number a jingle: 1-800-706-6762
Featured Moderator:
Trevor Legwinski
Sr. Director of Marketing

4. Online Video Has Helped:
148M people discover and laugh to Charlie Bit a Finger…
and Lady GAGA share her Bad Romance to over 200M video viewers on YouTube…

5. Blogs, Facebook and Twitter Have Helped:
Threadless crowd source t-shirts and make millions…
and people save over $260M and counting by sharing coupons on Groupon…

6. Social Recommendations and Ratings & Reviews Have Helped:
Shoppers discover millions of products through their friends and other shoppers…
and ignite billions of conversations and reviews across retailers sites…

7. Social Is Here
We’re here to help you piece together your Social Commerce Strategy

8. Featured Presenters:
Sucharita Mulpuru
Vice President, Principal Analyst
Suleika Bloom
Director of Social Media

10. A Social Strategy That
A Social Strategy That Drives
Drives Sales
Sales Mulpuru
Sucharita
Sucharita Mulpuru
Principal Analyst
Principal Analyst
Forrester Research
Forrester Research
May 19, 2010
May 19, 2010

11. There is no silver bullet in
social commerce
11 Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

12. While more people are more social than ever…
vs.
Q1
2007
13%
na
19%
15%
19%
33%
52%
12 Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

13. Hopes are high
2x UK’s population!
~120MM uniques per month
Hmmm…0.1% of that x
1% conversion for an
average ticket of…
13 Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

14. Low costs are also tempting
Small
Medium
Large
Average
budget
$0.6MM
$2.4MM
$10.7MM
Paid
search
37%
38%
39%
Email
(house
and
prospecGng)
17%
14%
11%
Allocation of total budget
Affiliate
markeGng
11%
13%
13%
Comparison
shopping
engines
and
10%
10%
7%
marketplaces
SEO/natural
search
8%
5%
3%
Behavioral
targeGng/remarkeGng
3%
6%
7%
TradiGonal
portal
deals
1%
2%
7%
Social
(blogs,
social
networks)
5%
2%
1%
Other
8%
10%
12%
14 Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

15. The universe of social commerce
options are confusing
15 Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

16. Retailers want to do everything
“Please indicate which social marketing strategies you have already implemented.”
“Please indicate which social marketing strategies you plan to implement or enhance in 2010 or later.”
16 Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

17. A framework to think about
17 Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

18. The 8 “top ranked” social tactics
1. Ratings and reviews
2. Microblogs
3. Social recommendations
4. Company blogs
5. Customer generated outfitting
6. Product sharing on social network sites
7. Social shopping aggregator sites
8. Open APIs
18 Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

19. 1. Ratings and reviews
• Already used by most
retailers
• Opportunity to reduce
content creation costs
• Benefits to product
development, returns
and sell-through
19 Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

20. Seven Key Elements Of Customer Reviews
20 Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

21. 2. Microblogs
• Inexpensive to launch
• Opportunity to quickly dispose of excess inventory
• Customer service benefits
21 Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

22. This also puts a face to a brand
22 Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

23. 3. Social recommendations
• Opportunity to
leverage “wisdom of
the crowds”
• Exposes customers
to content deeper in
the site
• Increases time on
site and upsell
opportunity
23 Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

24. 4. Company blogs
• Provides the
biggest
opportunity with
SEO
• Not a huge traffic
or sales driver
but relatively low
cost
24 Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

25. 5. Customer generated outfitting
Coutourious.com
• Assists in
merchandising
support and
cross-sells
• Engages
shoppers in
tactile
purchases
25 Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

26. 6. Product sharing on social network sites
10%+ of traffic and revenue comes from
• Much more effective social network sources, mainly Facebook
than company social and Twitter
network pages
• Opportunities to use
your customers to
evangelize your brand
• Needs to be relevant
sharing (e.g. local
events, sales vs. item
level communication)
26 Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

27. 7. Social shopping aggregator sites
• Opportunity to drive
incremental traffic
• Often more engaged
and relevant shoppers
than traditional CSEs
• Conversion is
moderate because
shoppers are usually
earlier in the purchase
funnel
27 Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

28. 8. Open APIs
• Opportunity to crowdsource technology
• Great for “shovel ready projects”
28 Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

29. Thinking about next steps: Forrester’s
POST methodology
P
People
Review the Mobile Technographics® Profile of your
target audience.
O
Objectives
Decide on your goals.
S
Strategy
Determine your approach to meet your objectives.
T
Technology
Choose the technologies that will enable you to
implement your strategy.
29 Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

30. Key takeaways
• Social explosive revenues
• Social commerce is not passive; it requires resources
• The most effective social tactics for retailers usually
engage your own shoppers on your site
• Only a few lucky sites are able to rely on Facebook
and Twitter to drive traffic and sales
• The biggest benefit of social is listening; don’t expect
huge, easily quantifiable ROI
30 Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

31. Forrester’s Research Panel
• Gain insight, get data, and learn best practices from marketing
professionals. Join our panel today: www.forrester.com/Panel
• Each quarter, Forrester surveys 1,500 marketing and strategy
professionals about:
» Interactive marketing
» Direct marketing
» Customer experience
» eBusiness and channel
strategy
» Marketing leadership
» Consumer product strategy
» Consumer market research
31 Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

32. Thank you
Sucharita Mulpuru
smulpuru@forrester.com
www.forrester.com
32 Entire contents © 2010 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

52. THANK YOU FOR ATTENDING
More Tips: recommender.strands.com/blog
Get Social With Us: www.twitter.com/strandsrecs
Contact Me Directly: trevor@strands.com
Add Social Recommendations To Your Site: recommender.strands.com

53. Top 10 Free Social Commerce Measurement Tools:
Brand Visibility: Inbound Marketing:
1.) HowSociable: www.howsocialble.com 7.) Grader: www.grader.com
Blog Search Tools: Online Video Search:
2.) Technorati: www.technorati.com 8.) Blinkx: www.blinkx.com
Buzz Tracking: Forum Tracking:
3.) Google Trends: http://google.com/trends 9.) Forumreader: www.forumreader.com
Twitter Search Tools: Social Media Footprint:
4.) TweetMeme: http://tweetmeme.com/ 10.) Social Mention: www.socialmention.com
Social Bookmarking:
5.) StumbleUpon: www.stumbleupon.com
URL Cruncher:
6.) Bit.ly: http://bit.ly/