Author: Colin Shaw

We’ve seen it coming over the past few years, but it appears that social commerce has finally arrived.

Fast Company have written a great post on the rise of social commerce, an area that we believe is another key channel opening up for organisations to engage with customers and drive revenue through.

We must remember that “It is not the media that is social …(have a read of a great post by David Armano here)… people are social”. To truly capitalise on the rise of “social media” then you need to bring your experience back to basics and understand what drives people, as it is the person who is social. Social media and social commerce is just enabling people to buy in a different way than before. So don’t get caught up in the hype around social media. The best social media communications, activities and experiences drive an existing human emotion or behaviour.

Understanding your customers is the first step. Understand how and why customers buy for an psychological perspective. Then review their existing behaviours within social media and interrogate the drivers behind the behaviours. Now you should start to see where the opportunities are that bring those things together, the Customer and social media.

We have just launched a new book in the UK [it’s available here] that explains the key ties between Experience Psychology and Social media, and how you can implement these learnings into your Customer Experience – online or offline.

NB. We’ve had a some inquiries as to when the book will be launched in the US, it’s coming out in a month stateside, here’s the preorder link.

[Image courtesy of The Rise of Social Commerce event taking place in Palo Alto, you can buy tickets here http://www.riseofsocialcommerce.com]

By COLIN SHAW | Published: SEPTEMBER 22, 2010