Utility: the secret to unlocking social sales

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robin.grant

A great deck from Dr Paul Marsden on how to turn social media into social sales by offering social utility; helping people solve their problems socially and solve their social problems. As he says:

Social commerce works when social features offer genuine social utility that comes in three basic flavours.

  • Social utility that helps people solve problems socially using their social intelligence (ability to learn from each other and profit from social situations – e.g. collective buying)
  • Social utility that helps people solve the social problem of standing out, by helping them manage their social status by expressing themselves (e.g. fan-first offers that ‘sell’ bragging rights)
  • Social utility that helps people solve the social problem of fitting in by facilitating social bonding (e.g. social media gift stores)

He also shows great taste by using our “Get Well” Soup campaign for Heinz as one of his examples.