I recently had the opportunity to speak with Mike Lewis, VP of Marketing at Awareness, Inc. to talk about social innovations and how Optaros helps leading brands and retailers tap into social connections to drive new business. I shared some lessons I’ve learned from my work, with Mike, focused on the emerging best practices in social commerce and how they can be applied to all social marketing efforts. Below is an excerpt from our conversation and for the full interview visit the Awareness Blog:

The Three Pillars

What makes social successful? In my opinion there are three pillars to a full social strategy:

1. Social marketing activities that drive product awareness and traffic;
2. Conversion best practices using tools and tactics along your product catalog experience, such as rating and reviews, that support the consideration stage during the buying cycle; and
3. Social commerce, which is a new way of shopping, that takes the social context into account from the get-go. Private sales have no search button; it’s a browsing experience that’s built on a time-based group behavior, exclusive to a shopping club.

Social Commerce and the Social Internet

The entirely new social commerce buying experience is built on a social business model. SEO does not play a factor in the customer acquisition strategy rather; it is all done through viral advocacy and incentives driven by customer membership. We have reached the age of social internet where people are interconnected online. This new social movement, with its leader being Facebook, is all about the fact that we’re connected and aware of each other. It’s not a one-to-one relationship between me and the brand; it’s a whole interconnected group, and our nature to be socially connected now is an experience that drives new ways of behaving.

I also explored the six tenets that drive social behavior with Mike. These tenets come into play when people make decisions. They are not only the drivers of social behavior, but, the recipe for success for any social marketing strategy or campaign. To learn more about these tenets visit Mike’s post here.