Social Technology Quarterly 08

SocialTechnology
Quarterly
08
April to June 2013
08© 2013 Kuliza Technologies Ltd.
All Rights Reserved.
In this Issue
Carpe Datum!
Who knows who
you are?
Divide and Rule: Tactics to
grow conversion rates
Mining the Facebook
Fanbase

2 3
Carpe Datum! Who knows who you are?
Diarmaid Byrne
Functionality vs. Aesthetics in Design
Anindya Kundu
The Power of Advocate Marketing
Ann Burgraff
The End of Gadget Clutter
Amit Mirchandani and Nithin Anthony
06
11
16
18
Divide and Rule: Tactics to grow conversion rates
Pavan Sudarshan
Learn to Imitate; Imitate to Learn
Vandana U.
Can do. Will do. Still do.
Saurabh Gupta
Commerce with a Tap
Kaushal Sarda
24
29
32
38
Mining the Facebook Fanbase
Achintya Gupta
Fostering Communities through Geolocation
Vandana U.
Technology and the Changing Creative Culture
Mrinalini Sardar
Clocking Time on Social Networks
Diarmaid Byrne
40
46
50
56
Campaigns
Commerce
Communities
NU
MB08

4 5
Social Technology Quarterly and the STQ logo are trademarks of Kuliza
Technologies Ltd. Their reproducion without the proper permissions is unlawful.
© Copyright 2013 Kuliza Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
You are free to share and make derivative works of this publication only for non-
commercial purposes and under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it,
and that you distribute it only under a license identical to this one.
Contributors
Achintya Gupta
Product Evangelist at Kuliza
Amit Mirchandani
Chief Creative Officer at Kuliza & MD at Lucid Design
Anindya Kundu
Visual Designer at Kuliza
Ann Burgraff
Chief Marketing Officer at Kuliza
Diarmaid Byrne
Chief People Officer at Kuliza
Kaushal Sarda
Chief Product Officer at Kuliza
Mrinalini Sardar
Communication Designer,National Institute of Design,Ahmedabad
Nithin Anthony
Product Designer at Lucid Design
Pavan Sudarshan
Co-founder at NudgeSpot
Saurabh Gupta
Managing Director at Human Factors International,India
Vandana U.
Marketing & Communications Specialist at Kuliza
Social Technology Quarterly 08
April to June 2013
Published by Kuliza Technologies Ltd.
Print 2 Last Solutions Printing
#7 Poorvi, 1st Cross, Shirdisai Nagar
Bangalore 560 077
www.print2last.com
Subscribe
to Social Technology Quarterly at:
stq.kuliza.com
Diarmaid Byrne Editor
diarmaid.byrne@kuliza.com
Vandana U. Editor
vandana.u@kuliza.com
Amit Mirchandani Design
Lucid Design India Pvt. Ltd.
www.lucid.co.in
The Social Technology Quarterly is a
research publication that distills the
signal from the noise in the fluid social
and mobile web domain. From multiple
perspectives it analyzes commerce,
campaigns, and communities through
the lenses of business, technology,
design, and behaviour.
Editorial
Social data has begun to fuel intelligent selling. A deluge
of data is created every day. Giant retailers and start-ups
alike proliferate large amounts of data as a routine, because
a fundamental interest for any commerce platform is to
understand how social networks are used and how these are
instrumental in affecting purchase decisions.
In social data’s filtered and sifted state, there is a realization
of its potential capabilities. Through analytics we can study
population trends, predict the magnitude of a disease’s
outbreak, optimize resources and even save lives. On a
fundamental level the number and kinds of interactions and
conversations open opportunities to understand people
and their patterns. Researching on influencers, this data
has enabled brands to go beyond identifying fans alone
and engaging them. This trend then reveals to us the
power of concerted actions implemented through social
data. On this note STQ 08 looks at some of these actions
which have stimulated brands to connect with fans and
advocates in relevant ways by mining their databases.
Addressing significant trends in today’s market scenarios
such as segmenting conversion rates and using technology
to transform experiences, this issue looks at concentrated
actions of big data from the perspective of design, psychology
and technology.
However, along with this relevance, the issue of privacy
surfaces. Multiple networks and channels have their own
persuasive ways to make people share information. If Obama
could use big data to target his political messages better and
if Facebook Home can easily track my activities and that
of my friends and family through a phone’s accelerometer,
privacy concerns will continue to rise. The STQ aims to bring
this issue to the forefront. As brands realize the monetary
value of social data, so should they respect its ownership
and accessibility.
Diarmaid Byrne
Vandana U.
Editors

Kuliza Social Technology Quarterly Issue 08 76
Campaigns
CarpeDatum!
WhoKNowsWho
Youare?Inthe face of rising demand for
data, privacyand ownership
becomeacritical concernasvast
amounts of dataareaccessedand
bartered withoutthe knowledge
of people. In such scenarios, it
is crucialto determine practices
towards maintaining privacy.
byDiarmaid Byrne

ThereIsaLackofcontexual
intEGRITYINHOWSOCIAL
networksutilizethedatawe
givethem
IBM estimates that every day the world produces 2.5 quintillion
bytes of new data. That is a billion, billion. While it is incredibly
frustrating for businesses to wade through, manage and make
sense of this ocean of ever-expanding data, there is also a
tremendous opportunity for individuals and companies. A 2011
report by the McKinsey Global Institute projected that the United
States requires 140,000 to 190,000 more workers with deep
analytical expertise and 1.5 million more data-literate managers to
work in fields such as politics, sports, advertising, healthcare and
science as businesses move towards data-driven discovery and
decision making.
There are several examples of companies making decisions
based on sophisticated data analyses. A retailer such as Wal-Mart
analyzes sales, pricing, economic, demographic and weather data
to determine the range of products that should be availalbe at a
particular store and when to offer discounts. In the case of public
safety, police departments use various data points on weather,
payday, sporting events and arrest patterns to predict crime hot
spots and deploy police in advance. In healthcare, increases in
Google search requests for ‘flu symptoms’ and ‘flu treatments’
indicate an increase in flu patients that will visit hospitals. In
economics, house-related searches on Google are a more
accurate predictor of house sales for the upcoming quarter than
forecasts of real estate economists.
There is, however, a troubling aspect to all this: who owns
my data? What rights do I have over it? Can I determine how it
is used? Do I have a right to earn money from my data if other
companies can earn money from it?
People have very little information on how their information is
shared. Of course there are user agreements, but how opaque
or transparent are these? Also, how many people read each
line and understand the consequences of what they agree to?
Privacy policies and fairer information practices are inadequate
because these assume that users understand all the details and
implications. Public reactions to changes in Facebook’s privacy
policies are a realization of what we as users have signed away.
But how many other social networks and websites receive full
rights and access to use their users’ data? Facebook is merely the
most common one that gets the most coverage.
The biggest concern, from my perspective, is the lack of
contextual integrity, an argument postulated by Helen Nissenbaum.
She argues that online services share information in ways that
violate social norms. In the case of Facebook, I cannot control
where the information I share with a friend or a specific group
ends up. In the case of Google searches, I do not know whom
that information is sold to or how they choose to utilize it, except
when I have furniture advertisements following me for weeks after
I google ‘furniture’.
One area recently where this has been a cause of concern is
the discussions within the US Democrat party about whether to
sell voters’ political opinions. Obama’s two presidential election
victories have partly been due to a deep understanding of voter
information and the utilization of various media. His election team
relied not just on publicly available voter data – name, address,
party affiliation – but party volunteers also collected information on
their views and preferences. This enabled the Democrat party to
estimate how likely a voter is to vote Democrat, support Obama, or
what opinions they have on gun control or tax rates.
It is possible for the Democrat party to contemplate this because
individual states have different laws about how voter data is used;
some mandate that it can only be used for political purposes and
others ban using it for commercial purposes. However, information
that is freely provided by the voter is not subject to any mandate,

of data flows and bartering practices by companies they share
their information with, opt-ins as part of privacy agreements, or the
ability for users to sell their data to advertisers. There are a number
of companies offering this service already, such as Eliken, BlueKai
and eXelate. The evolution of such services may be the most likely
method of solving privacy concerns while maintaining contextual
integrity of a user’s data.
References
Beckett,Lois.“Will Democrats SellYour Political Opinions to Credit Card
Companies?” Salon,06 Feb 2013.
“Big data:The Next Frontier for Competition.” McKinsey & Company.
Bruder,Jessica.“What ifWeb Users Could Sell Their Own Data?”The New
York Times,02 Oct 2012.
Lohr,Steve.“The Age of Big Data.”The NewYork Times Sunday Review.The
NewYork Times,11 Feb 2012.
Milian,Mark.“Data Bartering Is Everywhere.” Bloomberg Businessweek
Bloomberg,15 Nov 2012.
McKee,Steve.“Big Data Can Make a Big Difference in Marketing.”
Bloomberg Businessweek.Bloomberg,14 Sep 2012.
Nissenbaum,Helen.“A Contextual Approach to Privacy Online.” Dædalus,
the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.(2011): 32-48.
Functionality
vs.Aesthetics
in Design
When analysing the
importance of functionality
and aesthetics in design,
we notice that it is the
context that determines
which of the two takes
a dominant role in a
particular instance. But
in the larger picture both
need to complement and
balance each other.
by Anindya Kundu
Photo Credit: Made in Design
the undercurrents of society. However, art
can also have a hidden function, as it often
helps to educate people about nature or
philosophy, and fulfils the emotional and
spiritual needs of human beings.
Form plays a key role in both art and
design. In design, form complements
usability by adding aesthetic appeal,
which helps to motivate the user to use the
product. Hartmut Esslinger, the founder of
Frog Design, sates that form should follow
emotion rather than function or we can
end up with products or architecture that
neither relate to people nor the context.
Hence we meet a paradox of form and
function. Aesthetics and functionality
become intertwined and interdependent of
each other as in the case of the Buddhist
Yin-Yang symbol.
In the debate of form versus function, the
latter can be equated with the aggressive
Broadly, design can be defined as a
process in which form meets function. It
is about planning or configuring from the
initial stages of an idea ultimately leading
to a solution to a problem. Problems
can range from simple ones such as
communicating about an event through
the design of an event poster to ones
as complex as designing a concept to
solve urban transportation problems and
pollution.
By its very definition, design is geared
towards functionality. It is always meant to
serve a purpose. On the other hand, art
is predominantly defined by aesthetics
and by notions of beauty. Some schools of
thought have even branded art to serve no
other purpose.
Various pure forms of art such as
painting, poetry or music are significantly
devoted to self expression and to mirror
suggesting that the Democrat party can sell it to retailers, marketing
agencies and credit card companies.
This shows how little information people have about how their
data is used. It is an issue of contextual integrity. I share my
political opinions as a means of supporting a political party. I do
not expect that six months later I will receive marketing material
and offers for a specific retailer based on the type of political views
I hold. Irrespective of legal impediments, there is a breach of trust
that has deeper implications for collecting such politically crucial
information in the future.
The flow of data from one organization to another makes it
incredibly difficult to determine, restrict or limit where it will end
up. A new trend called data bartering will make this even more
troublesome. Companies exchange their databases, often at no
cost. Businessweek discussed the case of Waze, a community-
based traffic and navigation app in which drivers share real-
time traffic and road information. In order to break quickly into
the Brazilian market, they traded traffic, roadwork and collision
data they would collect via their app for geographical mapping
information from Multispectral.
A similar case is that of Factual, a company that maintains a
database of restaurants and retailers in the US. Businessweek
notes that Facebook, Groupon and Yelp provide user-contributed
information on retailers to Factual’s database. Any company that
wants to access this information typically has to pay, but they can
receive discounts by trading relevant information with Factual. For
larger companies access to the database can even be free.
Another major trend emerging is wearable technology that
measures different aspects of a user’s health and fitness. The
Basis watch measures sleep patterns, heart rate, distance
walked and calories burned, amongst other things. For exercise
enthusiasts these figures are very informative, but once the watch
or wristband, in the case of Amiigo, is connected to a computer
and the data is transferred to your account for you to view a record
of your exercise, health and sleep, who owns that data? Who else
would be interested in that data? What can a company similar to
Basis do with the information? With whom can it be bartered? As
someone who is very physically active, were they to trade or sell
my data there would be many interested sports manufacturers
and insurance companies to buy it. While this may benefit me,
it breaches my trust with the provider as there is no contextual
integrity about where my data flows.
If data bartering is restricted to location data, there may be little
harm. However, if it includes bartering thousands of users’ personal
data, opinions and medical information it becomes problematic.
There is no way of ensuring the contextual integrity of a person’s
data. One’s perspective may change if users have control over
how their data is used. This could be partly through greater clarity
Campaigns

Soviet
Architecture
Automated Teller
Machines
Packaged Drinking
Water
Satellite
Dishes
Individual Banana
Packaging
Indian Rail
Website
Indian Highway
Trucks
Eames Chair
and Ottoman
Christian Bird’s
Ceramic knife
Thonet wooden
bicycle
High Speed
Trains
iPad
Ancient Greek
Vase
Ferrari
Book of
Kells
Aesthetics
Egyptian
Jewellery
Philippe Starck
Juicer
Functionality

Typography has become more defined and functional
Typographyhasbecomemoredefinedandfunctional
notable example is the ‘Book of Kells’
produced in the late 6th to 9th centuries,
which was adorned with intricately detailed
artwork.
With the development of techniques
such as wood block printing, new
designs evolved. Typography became
more defined and functional. Limited by
the technique, minimalistic black and
white wood-cut prints and the limited
colour but exquisitely detailed Japanese
wood block prints evolved. With modern
laser printing, highly sophisticated
printing methods, high resolution digital
photography, and computer based image
processing software such as Photoshop,
CorelDraw, Illustrator or InDesign, almost
anything can be achieved by modern
print designers. So while technology has
made many aspects of the design process
more standardized and methodical,
designers are also completely liberated
by the freedom offered from the incredible
amount of parameters in their control:
colours, textures and accuracy.
Interactive screen devices are becoming
increasingly popular and print has become
more personalized and exclusive. Hence,
there is an explosion in the field of user-
interface design because of their interactive
nature, dynamism and responsiveness.
Also, it is highly likely that even the screen
will disappear as we enter the new era of
holographic augmented reality. Currently,
UI design is restricted by the display and
interaction capabilities of devices. While
designing a web based app for a tablet,
a designer is limited by the resolution,
aspect ratios and limitations of the touch
functionalities. Hence functionality geared
towards a smoother user experience is
fundamental to the design process. But
in the future when such limitations will
disappear, it is highly likely that aesthetics
will be at the forefront.
Moreover, this is not unexpected. A
look into Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
clears the picture. The lower order needs
masculine energy or the starting point of
design. The former, however, is related
to aesthetics and is similar to feminine
energy which is accepting and imparts
beauty and grace. While we aim to strike
a fine balance between the two, there
are contexts in which either can play a
more dominant role. Graphic design, for
instance, is related more to commercial art
and has tremendous scope for aesthetics
to take the lead when space is not a
constraint. However, in user-interface
design, while developing an interface
for a computer or handheld device,
functionality becomes a priority because
of the limitations posed by the interface.
Similarly in case of automotive design,
functionality is dominant when creating
affordable public transport, while designing
luxury sports cars aesthetics can be at the
forefront.
History grants us evidence and existing
patterns in relation to this. In ancient
civilizations wealth and power were limited
to a privileged few. Aesthetics played a
major role in design. The architecture of
palaces, the furniture and other implements
designed for the royalty, priests or temple
idols were often elaborately decorative. A
look at the ornately carved Indian temples,
artefacts found with Egyptian mummies or
the remnants of Mayan civilization indicate
this. With the advent modern thinking and
more equitable society, there was a shift
towards more functional objects. Most
mass produced items consumed by people
today can be called more ‘functional’ than
‘aesthetic’.
Technology aids this mass production,
and design is intimately related to
technology. With every step ahead in
technology, corresponding design in that
particular medium has furthered it to move
ahead in leaps and bounds. The evolution
of books illustrates this. Before the
advent of printing, every manuscript had
to be tediously handwritten and required
elaborate hand-drawn illustrations. A
can be loosely correlated to functionality,
the higher order needs are associated to
aesthetics. The world is battling it out for
basic needs such as food, shelter, health
and basic human rights, there is also
the need for status, esteem and luxury.
Similarly, both aesthetics and functionality
are ingrained in design. Both remain
prevalent, but for the future we can only
hope for a more harmonious balance.
References
Esslinger,Hartmut.Advice For Designers.2013
Video.
“Yin andYang,”Wikipedia,The Free
Encyclopedia.
Cherry,Kendra.“Hierarch of Needs.”About.com
Psychology.
Poster Credit: Jancso Aron

Social media has realized the power of
advocate marketing. Most brands have
a huge untapped resource in the form of
delighted customers.These are advocates,
the tireless promoters that believe in your
company, evangelize your products and
share their positive experiences. No one
sells your products better than they do. But
are you tapping their potential?
Smart marketers invite their best
customers to join advocate communities
and participate in marketing and sales
campaigns around social media, generate
demands, conduct events and provide
sales references.
Brand advocates bring in more than just
word of mouth. They will recommend your
company and products because they have
had a fantastic experience and want to help
others. However, the key challenges for a
brand trying to leverage advocates include
The Power
ofAdvocate
Marketing
Advocacy has become an
increasingly important
pursuit and objective for
marketing as it becomes
imperative for marketers
to understand how brands
are being discussed by
consumers.
by Ann Burgraff
Photo Credit: idovermani
recognising advocates, encouraging them
to promote your brand, and sustaining this
relationship.
In my opinion, Jim Williams, VP
Marketing at Influitive denotes the
significant impact of brand advocacy in
his article “Capital, not Cash: How to
Appropriately Recognize Your Advocates.”
Brand advocates become enthusiasts
for a few innate reasons, one of them
being the rule of reciprocity. At the start
it’s pretty simple: advocates are fulfilled by
the appreciation they have for something
a brand does or makes. In return, they
provide unsolicited support for that brand.
But the exchange doesn’t stop there –
the rule of reciprocity evolves. Over time,
support turns into loyalty. Loyalty turns
into advocacy. And as customers increase
their level of commitment, they expect
a corresponding increase in recognition
Fred Bals is the Media and Customer
Relations Manager at Ektron, an Enterprise
Digital Content Experience Management
software company.
The Challenge Fred needed a new level
of energy and excitement at Ektron’s
annual SYNERGY Customer Conference.
He wanted to tap into his customers’ love
for Ektron.
The Plan Fred created a community using
Influitive’s Advocate Hub through which
customers and partners could easily
advocate for Ektron.
The Result Fred built a program that:
• Crowdsourced 40+ customer-generated
videos for the opening keynote address
• Captured dozens of hours of customer
interviews during the conference
• Generated a tidal wave of speaker
submissions for conference tracks - 90% of
tracks were customer-generated content
• Gained a 500 percent increase in award
submissions
Customers were highly involved.
Many became stronger advocates and
the conference was a huge success. A
Ektron Embraces Advocate Marketing Case Study
from the brand.
Here’s where it gets a little tricky,
because appropriate recognition requires
a bit of finesse. In other words: you can’t
just pay people for liking you.
As Biggie Says: Mo’ Money, Mo’
Problems Most of us do things for one
of two reasons: business or pleasure–
a.k.a. money or fun. Yet in the world of
advocate marketing, combining the two is
problematic; getting paid to do something
fun takes all the fun out of it.Consequently,
incentivizing has become a bit of a taboo
when it comes to advocate marketing
because it can result in some unintended
and unsavory consequences:
Great Expectations Exchanging
monetary value for promotion conditions
consumers to expect something in return
for their advocacy. If and when you fail
to meet those expectations, their level of
appreciation can suddenly drop.
Inauthenticity Paying for a
recommendationimmediatelycompromises
the value of the recommendation and the
reputation of the recommender. Advocates
aren’t shills. They pride themselves on their
independence and authenticity.
Greedy Spammers When consumers
talk up a company because they have
their eye on a prize, it becomes pretty
obvious to third parties. They overfill
Facebook feeds, Twitter feeds and product
review sites, effectively cheapening their
recommendations and likely peeving a
follower or two.
Recognize and Thank Reciprocity is
about giving back, so make sure you’re
recognizing the people who have already
displayed solid support for your brand and
not those who simply like you on social
platforms, for example. Understand the
difference between recognition and reward.
Advocates should not be made to feel like
they’re being paid for their support; rather,
they should feel like the brand is genuinely
and personally thanking them.
References
Williams,Jim.“Capital,not Cash: How to
Appropriately RecognizeYour Advocates.”
Influitive.29 Mar 2013.
“Advocate Marketing Case Study: Ektron.” 22
Jan 2013.Influitive,Online Posting to SlideShare.
video montage, “I am Ektron,” was shown
during the opening of the conference.
No recruiting was needed. Over Forty
customer-generated videos were easily
put into a compelling montage.
Fred was able to mobilize attendees at
the conference to create “one great song”
to be played during conference breaks. He
also captured hours of customer insights
on a video that can be leveraged for future
marketing, sales and product development
purposes.
Campaigns

LIFEHUB
THE END
OF GADGET
CLUTTER
Say goodbye to eight space and resource
consuming devices that have to be
individually purchased, used, managed,
and cared for. Say goodbye to syncing, wires,
chargers and misplacing important things.
Say hello to LifeHub by Lucid Design.
by Amit Mirchandani & Nithin Anthony
Photo Credits: Lucid Design India Pvt. Ltd. www.lucid.co.in
Model: Lock Weng Po
Product Feature

LifeHub is a Watch:
You wear it on your wrist. Memory polymer and a bendable O-led
screen create a stylish and secure bracelet that lets you tell the
time, read important messages, see the weather and listen to
your music.
LifeHub is a Smartphone:
You can bend the bracelet into a candy bar where the simplest
of interfaces, built with clear icons and bold colors, gives you all
the functionality you expect from a Smartphone. You can make
and take calls. You can also make video calls by bending just the
bottom half of the device and setting it on a surface. Your apps,
contacts, messages, email, games, media, and feeds greet you in
high definition and with stereo sound.
LifeHub is a Headset:
Two discreet Bluetooth earpieces with microphones are secured
in the device and have to be snapped off to use as a headset.
While snapped in, they function as an earpiece + microphone or
external stereo speakers when activated.
LifeHub is a Key:
A password protected programmable key pops out the side of
the device. Physical locks enabled with LifeHub access, can be
locked or unlocked. The key also acts as a data transfer device.
LifeHub is a Wallet:
Credit card and debit card data from several cards can be stored
on the device with password protection, and used as desired
by instantly programming the key when making a purchase or
withdrawing money.
LifeHub is a Speaker:
Docking the device into the base opens a host of additional
features such as portable audio speakers with rich bass. The
device is also automatically backed up when docked.
LifeHub is a Projector:
Motion controlled in both flat and tilted positions,
all your videos can be projected on an open wall or
ceiling. You can also use it to make a presentation at work, or
have an extremely large video call!
LifeHub is a Companion:
On your bedside or on your desk, LifeHub is recharged on a
charging pad (featuring the only wire it’ll need to draw power
from the mains). It can be your alarm clock, notepad, game
center, message panel and weather station. It can even play
you Internet radio.
EIGHT THINGS ROLLED INTO ONE

LIFEHUB
THE END
OF GADGET
CLUTTER
Design: Lucid Design India Pvt. Ltd.
www.lucid.co.in
Design Director: Amit Mirchandani
Product Designer: Nithin Anthony
Model: Lock Weng Po
1: Key
4: Docked in Base3: Video Call Mode
2: Portable Base & Charging Pad
5: Base angled up & Projector Open
7: Projector Mode6: Rotating Projector

Divide and Rule:
Tactics to grow
conversion rates
Segmenting conversion rates enables
e-commerce sites to track their most
valuable visitors and can enhance the type
of conversion that is most relevant and
important to their businesses.
by Pavan Sudarshan
Photo Credit: Digg.com
Commerce
24

3
2
1
neither representative nor actionable.
On this basis, seven conversion rates have been identified that
are a lot more granular. Each of these uncovers a specific problem
and allows you to come up with solutions.
Checkout Conversion
This conversion focuses on monitoring the “checkout initiated”
to “checkout completed” conversion.
Visitors who initiate the checkout process have most likely found
what they want to buy and have already made a decision to buy.
Losing a visitor who has initiated a checkout is the closest you
come to losing a real customer. It is necessary to understand what
influences abandoning a checkout. Typically visitors abandon
a checkout because of hidden shipping charges, fear of being
cheated in delivery, payment gateways that they do not trust, the
site is slow while talking to third party systems, etc. Assuring your
visitors along the way about payments, having secure modes and
channels and efficient shipping help alleviate this fear and get
them to convert.
Cart Recovery Conversion
This conversion focuses on how many abandoned carts were
recovered.
Adding an item to the cart is a form of expressing interest in a
product. If a visitor leaves the site with a cart and never returns,
or comes back but does not complete the checkout process, it
is important to try and recover the visitor’s cart. Offering better
prices and deals, availability, shipping charges and selection
range contribute to effective recovery of carts and decrease
the cart abandonment rate your site has been experiencing.
Reminding returning visitors about an existing cart or offering
people an incentive such as a coupon or free shipping to start their
checkout process can be very useful. For SDS Market in the US,
targeted promotion has been instrumental in recovering and in fact
preventing cart abandonments.
Brand Conversion
This conversion focuses on how many visitors who searched for
your brand resulted in buying from your site. Improving this rate
helps you reduce the cost to acquire customers.
Visitors who land on your page after searching for your brand
are valuable. They are the ones who are aware of your brand.
Once you have a steady stream of traffic it is important for you
to start establishing your brand identity. Improving credibility is
one way to retain these shoppers. It is for these sets of shopper
that you must take up brand building exercises in order to give
them a sense of being a great platform to buy from and where they
are highly unlikely to have a bad experience. A great design, an
MMost leading e-commerce stores generate a steady stream
of traffic from paid as well as organic sources. Search Engine
Optimization, content marketing, affiliates, online marketplaces
are few among the many tried and tested solutions to generate
traffic to one’s store. However, one problem that remains is the
number of visitors who end up buying is still very low. Conversion
rate, one of the most important Key Performance Indicators
(KPI) of e-commerce businesses, is too low. According to the
Internet Retailer, the overall conversion rate lingers depressingly
somewhere between 2 percent to 3 percent.
Given that conversion is vital to e-commerce sites, this article
explores the causes of low conversion rates, the possible factors
responsible, and what are the different ways in which conversion
rates can be improved.
An overall conversion rate implicitly treats all visitors identical,
i.e. each visitor has the same likelihood of buying from your store
on every visit. Even common sense suggests that this is most
likely not true. Most people do not buy something the first time
they see it.
Alex Brown, who has been teaching internet marketing since
1997, talks about six phases in the buying cycle: problem
recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives,
purchase decision, purchase and post-purchase evaluation.
These phases are indicative of the fact that visitors are on
your site for different reasons. Each time they visit, they may be
in a different phase of buying. By not catering to these visitors’
needs and only optimizing the selling phase affects conversions.
Along the different buying phases several measures and steps to
engage visitors ensure conversion.
Overall conversion rate is an aggregate data point. It is a single
number that represents all the visitors and customers on your
store. Web analytics expert, Avinash Kaushik, elaborates on the
problems with aggregate data, what to avoid in KPIs and the need
for segmenting. He opines that measuring conversion rate without
a goal is not very effective. For example, if a store’s current
conversion rate is 1.5 percent and is aiming to double it and
make it 3 percent. The number alone does not indicate anything.
1.5 percent can be great or pathetic. Increasing it to 3 percent
can be a piece of cake or a walk in the desert. There is just no
way to tell without understanding a lot of other things, such as
merchandize issues, offers, lengthy process, shipping costs, etc.
Improving conversion rates thus begins by identifying a specific
problem and fixing a goal you want to reach. It is segments of
data that need to be monitored in terms of the different problems
faced and the different sets of actions required for each one.
Approaching an overall conversion rate improvement without
understanding important details is definitely not actionable. It is
the most important metric that every serious store monitors, but is
5
4
easy and noteworthy experience on the site and being consumer-
friendly are factors that influence buying. By keeping a track of
sources through which you receive the highest amount of traffic
will help you determine what your next step should be.
Organic Conversion
This conversion focuses on how many visitors who arrive on you
site from organic sources convert to consumers.
Organic traffic is great. It is the indicator that show that your
attempts at SEO, brand building, content marketing, referrals and
social media are all working for you. Catering to this traffic helps
reinforce the brand and spread the word about your store. While
organic visitors should be treated like any other new visitor on
your store, they are important in spreading word about your store.
Exalt them with a great service, on-time delivery and handling their
returns well. Leverage social media effectively to get these visitors
to talk about you and in turn increase your organic traffic. Data
analytic tools are the most effective method to acquire the data you
need in order to estimate the sources of organic traffic on your site.
This helps to determine how to evolve your site and focus on the
sources that brought you highest amount of traffic.
New Visitor Conversion
This conversion focuses on how many new visitors buy on your
site. Improving this helps determine how relevant the landing
pages are and how good the traffic sources are in providing
qualified leads.
Photo Credits
Top: JohanL
Bottom: Seattle’s Big Blog

7
6
New visitors represent new opportunities. These visitors may not
know what your store has to offer, but figuring out what you want
to show based on the channel, keyword, source and campaign
may result in converting your first time visitors into customers.
Relevance is the key to improve new visitor conversion. Landing
page optimization, A/B testing and content are the tools to grab
attention of new visitors. An extra layer of personalization can
come in the form of good product suggestions and ads. For
example, IndianStage shows ads for plays that are running in
theaters in the city that a visitor is landing from. Not only has this
made their site more relevant, their visitors now do not have to do
an extra step of searching for plays from their cities. It is a simple
step, but very effective.
Repeat Customer Conversion
This conversion focuses on figuring out how many returning
customers purchase again from the site.
The goal is to increase the lifetime value of a customer and for
any serious e-commerce business this remains a primary goal.
To increase lifetime value one needs to understand that it is not
about conversion alone on the first purchase, but getting repeat
orders from a customer. To do that, you need to meaningfully
engage with them. Instead of sending a lot of emails to engage
with the customer, sending what could be useful information
will help nurture your customers. Email campaigns reminding
customers about accessories for a product they bought, such as
batteries or lenses after a camera purchase, suggesting a pair of
red earrings to go with that red dress a customer bought recently,
understanding the age of a baby based on the size of the diaper
purchases and then doing age-based email campaigns - there are
many ways to engage with returning customers and giving them
relevant information. To identify who is a returning customer you
need to use tools that analyze profiles at granular levels, such
as KissMetrics, MixPanel and NudgeSpot rather than aggregate
analytics tools.
Unique Visitor to Customer Conversion
This conversion focuses on figuring out how many unique
visitors become customers.
Visitors may visit your store multiple times before buying
something. Instead of focusing on visits, determining how many
unique visitors buy is useful in understanding the quality of your
traffic sources.
One problem with focusing on granular, micro conversions is that
you may lose sight of why you are doing any of this. It is still
important to understand what your overall conversion rates are
and compare them to previous rates. Using focused conversion
does not mean you throw away overall conversion rate. Instead,
you should use these granular conversions as an implementation
detail to improving your overall conversion. This means that if you
want to go from an overall conversion of 1.5 percent to 3 percent,
you use these other conversion rates so that you can pinpoint
where you are not performing well and start improving.
References
Kaushik,Avinash.“Web Analytics Segmentation: Do Or Die,There Is No
Try!” Occam’s Razor.18 May 2010.
Demery,Paul.“Retailers plan to spend more on text ads this year.” Internet
Retailer.12 May 2011.
Rueter,Thad.“A conversion boost for online retailers.” Internet Retailer.13
Sep 2011.
Brown,Alex.“Stages of the Consumer Buying Process.” udel.edu.
Redbord,Michael.“How to Leverage the 5 Stages of the Customer Buying
Cycle for More Sales.”HubSpot.HubSpot,Inc.,06 Jul 2011.
Convenience, availability and value for
moneyarethekeyreasonsthee-commerce
industry is thriving. The business model
of e-commerce firms, especially leading
ones such as Amazon, Ebay, Walmart and
Sears Holding Corp., come with potential
advantages in their operations. Although
digital capabilities have grown strongly,
the e-commerce industry can identify and
learn strategies from other industries that
fit best. Sometimes (and sometimes not)
online stores need to mirror offline stores.
So while we have considered that for
both online and offline different business
models and approaches are required,
trends indicate that both have been
learning from each other and implementing
these learnings in their own contexts to
maximise profits. As Gianfranco Casati
puts it, “E-commerce is an evolution,
not a revolution.” Strategies of offline
industries can be implemented to help the
e-commerce industry overcome its virtual
challenges by integrating new concepts
with conventional business ideas.
Supermarkets
It is no hidden fact that the layout of a
supermarket is structured to maximise
profit through the way a customer moves,
stops, sees, smells and thinks. Giving
optimal positions to products with the
highest profit margins and grouping
complimentary products together to
persuade users to buy more are all a part
of the up-selling strategies a supermarket
offers. In supermarkets up-selling at
the cash counter is one way of getting
people to buy more and e-commerce
majors can adopt this. The limitation in the
supermarket is the seller does not have
as much data to sell something that the
Learn to
Imitiate;
Imitate to
Learn
consumer will eventually buy, but this is a
possibility in virtual stores where there is
plenty of data and suggestions to purchase
a related product can work wonders.
Another principle that works is the “feel-
good” factor. While completing a purchase
we feel good about ourselves and buying
something for oneself makes one feel
good. Since shopping makes people feel
good, this happiness is furthered by up-
selling. It makes one feel good to have
“bought more and thus saved more.”
This is why supermarkets keep candies,
chocolates, chewing-gums, and other
small items at the cash counter. Amazon’s
up-selling strategy has been lauded by
most marketing experts. It would be a
profitable move for other online shopping
platforms to up-sell. As Fiona Low puts it,
“The concept of positioning complimentary
items next to each other can work incredibly
E-commerce may have
evolved into a more radical
industry. However, the
type of transformation that
the e-commerce industry
requires today to an extent
lies in the strategies of
business models of other
industries.
by Vandana U.
Photo Credit: Artificialproduction
Commerce

well for e-commerce sites. In the same
way a supermarket shopper buying flour
to bake a cake needs eggs and sugar, an
online customer buying a dress can also
be cross sold the shoes and accessories
they need to make a complete outfit.”
There is a lot that e-commerce can take
from a supermarket’s persuasive manner
of making shoppers not only buy, but make
them as regular online shoppers.
Airlines
In his January 2013 article in
FastCompany, Jeff Katz explicates how
the future functioning of e-commerce will
be similar to that of the airlines industry.
Shannon Warner and Samrat Sen point
out the common factors that influence
people in online retail and an airline
program. In both people look for the best
deal. Comparisons, coupons, inputs
from friends and frequent shoppers and
flyers contribute towards decisions. Price
remains the most significant factor and
perhaps no other industry has realised
this better than the airline industry. It is
common for people to switch different
airlines to save money despite robust
loyalty programs of airlines are so robust.
Realizing this, over nearly three decades,
the industry has managed to keep track,
manage and thereby provide great prices
coupled with great services. Katz brings
to our notice that such unflinching efforts
have contributed to their revenues for
thirty years and this is the cue e-retailers
must take. In social commerce an entire
experience is what helps sell best.
Therefore people are likely to remember
the name of the site they purchased from
only if they have found value for money.
He suggests retailers go customer-centric
and similarly use data the way airlines do,
to provide people richer experiences. By
applying predictive analytics, retailers can
understand varying needs of customers,
determine the impact of factors such as
price, product positioning or staff skills,
economic indicators, competition and
customer demographics. This transforms
mass social commerce into personalized
commerce that is targeted and relevant.
Adopting customer-centric methods is the
best lesson from the airline industry that
online marketers can incorporate.
Gaming
The gaming industry provids another
relevant guide for e-commerce to learn
from. There are several reasons people get
engrossed in games. What if e-commerce
sites began to get such attention? This
also means thinking beyond game theory,
game elements and gamification. What
if e-commerce were to think as gamers?
By asking this question analytics expert
Brian Smith opens the possibilities of
using metrics just the way the gaming
industry does in order to understand fans.
He opines that gamers’ use of cohorts,
engagement and retention, and event
timelines, are what drive the success of
games such as Farmville, The Godfather
and The Sims Social, and predicts that
these will start to blend into general web
metrics. The gaming industry is purely
fan based and it designs games that are
going to be targeted not at the lowest
common factor but fans who really play
the game. It has cutting edge analytics to
track all actions. Every action in a game
is an event. He describes how gaming
companies keep a track of every action
and based on that they log and analyze
these actions to determine how to improve
engagement, retention, and monetization.
His view is that these metrics will drive
ecommerce growth in the coming years.
However, for that to happen e-commerce
companies will need to move beyond
their obsession with driving traffic and
improving conversion and begin to rely
on cohorts and other metrics to find what
important actions result in other actions.
Strategies of offline industries can be
implemented to help the e-commerce
industry overcome its virtual challenges by
integrating new concepts with conventional
business ideas.
Photo Credits:
Top: Julizan H
Bottom: Vox Efx
References
Smith,Brian.“The New Ecommerce Metrics:
What Etailers Can Learn from Gaming
Companies.” Kontagent.29 Nov 2012.
Carmichael,Stephanie.“Video game
e-commerce: It’s about serving the fans
venturebeat.com,19 Nov 2012.
Casati,Gianfranco.Interview by Rohit Nautiyal.
“E-commerce is an evolution,not a revolution.”
Business Standard.24 Mar 2013.
Warner,Shannon,and Samrat Sen.“How
Predictive Analytics Elevate Airlines’ Customer
Centricity,Driving Competitive Advantage.”
Cognizant.
Heath,Dianne.“Panda Changed Affiliate
Marketing,What eCommerceWebsites Can
Learn From Stores to Recover.”Analyst District,
28 Mar 2012.
K,Carol.“WhatYour Local Supermarket Knows
About Upselling ThatYou Don’t.” Small Biz
Diamonds.12 Jun 2012.
Katz,Jeff.“FastenYour Seatbelts:The Future Of
Shopping Looks A Lot Like Airline Travel.” Fast
Company.31 Jan 2013.

Can do.
Will do.
Still do.Persuasion, Emotion and Trust take designing
beyond usability to building deeper relationships
with customers.They enable brands to understand
what triggers customers to respond and make
purchase decisions.
by Saurabh Gupta
Photo Credit: Apdk
India is witnessing an e-commerce
boom. Undoubtedly, adapting to several
platforms, whether it is the web, Android,
iOS or other mobile platforms, has resulted
in increased sales. But the question
remains whether the usability of web and
mobile channels are going to be enough
to win the battle for elevated customer
attention, acquisition, interaction, and
loyalty? The answer is definitely in the
negative unless it is realized that design in
the information and digital age is all about
designing for Persuasion, Emotion, and
Trust (PET design™). E-commerce stores
used to be clones of brick and mortar
stores. However, issues of usability and
navigation have been tackled by the most
primitive of e-commerce platforms. But
beyond usability, the need of the hour is
to spruce up the overall user experience.
The online experience must be enticing,
besides being easy and satisfying. It has
to be the kind that makes consumers feel
engaged and ultimately committed.
Commerce
32

Rule of
Reciprocity
In the 1970s, the Disabled American
Veterans, while soliciting donations,
decided to send potential donors
personalized labels in a mail. They
told people to keep the labels even
if they did not make a donation. The
result of this strategy indicated an
increase in the number of people
who made contributions, which
nearly doubled—jumping from 18
percent to 35 percent. Made popular
by Robert Cialdini’s book “Influence:
The Psychology of Persuasion,” the
rule of reciprocity is about the deeply
ingrained human instinct to repay a
debt. If someone gives something
to us, we feel obliged to repay that
debt. This rule operates not only
with familiar people, but also with
strangers. Be it refreshments served
in a store while shopping or an offer,
the underlying assumption with
this rule is that it nudges people to
purchase.
Once it has been made usable, a web or
mobile channel needs to persuade clients
to transact or convert.
It is this step of persuasion that PET
design is primarily concerned with. A
usability engineer can make it easy for a
person to purchase insurance online. But
the need for insurance is not the lone reason
for a person to buy the policy; a dominating
factor is the persuasive nature of the site.
Several methods and tools for persuasion
are implemented ranging from selling a
value, making an emotional statement to
the extent of making one feel frightened and
insecure about what could happen to their
family if they did not buy insurance.
There is an exhaustive list of persuasive
techniques to choose from when designing
for PET, but here are seven principles that
can make web and mobile channels more
engaging and influential. These principles
can not only answer what solutions can
be implemented immediately, but also lay
foundation for future strategies that will
work in the long run. Also, significance has
to be given to the context of the products
and services, the objective and the
emotional drives and blocks of your target
audience. There are key questions every
e-commerce platform should answer to
understand the contexts before any of
these principles are implemented:
1. Can do
• Can users find the information they’re
looking for?
• Can they find the button they need to
press?
2. Will do
• They can find the button, but will they
press it?
• They can find the information, but will
they act on it?
3. Still do
• Will they come back?
• Will they be loyal?
These principles work on the
assumption that high level of engagement
is necessary for people to associate with a
brand. It must be taken into consideration
that although people can do something
does not mean they are bound to do those
actions. The future of design is about
creating engagement and commitment
to meet measurable business goals. It
is therefore a necessity to understand in
depth the subtle and emotional triggers
through different sets of practices.
References
Schaffer,Eric.Dr,perf.“Beyond Usability:
Usability is No Longer Enough.” Human Factors
International,Inc.2008.
Weinschenk,Susan.Dr,perf.“7 principles that
make your website more engaging.” Human
Factors International,Inc.,2011.
Amabile,Teresa M,and Steven J Kramer.The
Progress Principle: Using SmallWins to Ignite
Joy,Engagement and Creativity atWork.USA:
Harvard Business Review Press,2011.
We Love to get More
of Anything
In a coffee shop there were two deals
for a cup of coffee. The first deal
offered thirty-three percent extra in
the regular cup of coffee. The second
took thirty-three percent off the regular
price. If we were to analyze which deal
was better, both would seemingly be
equal. However, it is not so. People
would tend to go for the first deal
because we do not use math to arrive
at the decision, but use emotional
math. In this case getting something
extra “for free” feels better than getting
the same for less.
Scarcity
As a corollary to the previous
principle of wanting more, if
something is unavailable or is scarce,
it is perceived as more valuable.
Therefore, on a website when
notifications are provided such as
“only four more days to order your
plane tickets,” or “only three items
left,” these notification act as triggers
and signals to the brain to fasten
the process of buying and induces a
fear of losing out on something. The
human brain is sensitive to messages
that have to do with losing. Fear of
loss is a trigger that causes people to
take action.
It is not Always Best
to be First
Research shows that people are less
likely to choose the highest rated
option in a quality ranking when
it appears first on the list. People
tend to gravitate toward choices in
the middle. When given an array
of five options, they tend to choose
the fourth one, especially when the
choices are presented side by side.
The middle position has something
inherently attractive to the human
mind. As social creatures, the middle
seems a good and safe place to
be in comparison to being at the
edge, towards the end or at the very
beginning.

Conscious Minds
areVery Sensitive to
Food,Sex,Danger
and Protection of
Offspring
To get and hold the attention of
humans and get them to act, you need
to engage with their old brains. A major
job of the brain is to keep us from
harm. A threatening situation, even
if unreal or happening to someone
else, can cause the brain to set off
an alarm, putting our information and
emotional processing systems on high
alert. This implies that anything that
happens while we are on high alert
will be processed through emotions
and thereby will be deeply ingrained in
memory. Marketers thus use images,
references and related content of food,
sex or danger in order to stimulate
actions. This helps a viewer connect
deeply and therefore one is bound
to remember the product because of
strong emotions attached to it.
Use the Power of
Small Wins
According to Teresa Amabile and
Steve Kramer in the book The
Progress Principle, of all things that
can boost emotions, motivations, and
perceptions, the single most important
thing is the perception of making
progress. The more frequently people
experience a sense of progress, the
more likely they are to be motivated in
the long run. Whether it is an attempt
to solve a major scientific mystery or
simply fill out a form, even a small win
can make a difference to how people
feel and their next set of actions.
Designers can use this to principle
to leverage progress and motivate
people to perform more actions.
Popular networking site, LinkedIn
efficiently uses the concept of progress
to motivate people towards profile
completeness. The design consists of
a graph that indicates completeness
of one’s profile, which would result
in better opportunities. This ensures
that every piece of information that is
added to the profile is perceived as a
small win.
Social Validation
When people are uncertain of
what to buy or whether an offer is
good enough, they look to others
to decide what to do. This is why
ratings, reviews and testimonials
are powerful. The more information
available through ratings and reviews,
the more powerful and the more
influential that rating and review is.
Research even shows that reviews
from other people, especially ones
from peers are the most influential.
Peer reviews are more influential
than reviews or testimonials from
experts or recommendations from the
website itself. According to a survey
of US internet users by online video
review site EXPO, consumer reviews
are significantly more trusted - nearly
twelve times more than descriptions
that come from manufacturers.
It is
necessary to
understand
in depth the
subtle and
emotional
triggers that
motivate
customers to
buy.
Photo Credit: Kuba Bozanowski

Commerce
with aTap
It is estimated that around 300 million NFC enabled devices would
be sold in 2013 and by 2015 this number would reach a whopping
one billion.
Near Field Communication is the technology responsible for
devices such as smartphones and tablets to communicate with
nearby devices and objects with a simple tap.
Most new smart phones contain a chip that is capable of sending
a radio wave that gets picked up by another NFC device or any
object with an RFID tag. The tag, which is small enough to be
attached to a product or an ad poster with a sticker, when tapped
by a device like an NFC enabled phone can ask the device to open
a link, download an app or a file make a payment. The best part
about this communication is that it is secure.
Businesses have employed Near Field
Communication to bolster better experiences
and engagement, leading to a revolution in
commerce. NFC as a technology can make
real world commerce engagement more
sophisticated and personalized by making the
tap act as the equivalent of an online “click”.
by Kaushal Sarda
References
Boden, Rian.“Hointer adds NFC to next generation store concept.” NFC
World. 06 Mar 2013.
Clark, Sarah.“London pub picks NFC for social media marketing.” NFC
World. 13 Feb 2013.
Deffree, Suzanne.“Near-field communications to go far in 2013.” EDN
Network. 07 Dec 2012.
Dyer, Karl.“Adspace to roll out NFC advertising in 140 US shopping
malls.” NFC World. 11 Mar 2013.
Tode, Chantal.“Kraft NFC pilot delivers 12 times the engagement level of
QR codes.” Mobile Commerce Daily. 18 Oct 2012.
Wheeler, Judd.“2013 Mobile Trends and Predictions.” The Mobilists. 22
Jan 2013.
There are three key advantages using of NFC for commerce
and customer engagement:
1. NFC removes the friction that exists in engagement with the
help of QR codes, as it requires one to load the app and scan the
code before triggering the desired action
2. NFC enables businesses to leverage seamless connectivity of
online to offline engagements
3. A tap is equivalent to a consumer’s expression of intent. This
technology allows brands to serve a pre-crafted personal brand
experience based on intent.
4. Adspace
Adspace Digital Mall Network added NFC capabilities to its
video advertising displays in 140 US shopping malls. The new
Adspace’s Smart Screens enabled advertisers to offer consumers
an access to content downloads, web-based games, promotions
and coupons, maps and social media integration by tapping or
scanning the attached mTag placard on the side of the unit with
their mobile phones.
1. Kraft
Kraft recently piloted an NFC program at select grocery stores. RFID
chips that could be read by NFC-enabled smart phones were placed
in signage on the shelves right in front of Kraft cheese and Nabisco
cookie brands. The goal was to encourage consumers to tap their
smart phones to access fun recipes, download the i-Food Assistant
app or share their experiences on Facebook. The pilot campaign
results showed that NFC “tap” engagement level was twelve times
higher than for QR codes, which also appeared on the signs.
3. Hointer
The Seattle-based fashion retailer used NFC to move away from
a traditional sales assistant-driven customer experience to a more
rich, scalable, personal and engaging experience. Customers
visiting the store tap a tag or scan a QR code on an item they wish
to try, and then select the size using the Hointer application on
their smartphones. They then wait for their items to automatically
drop into a chute in the changing room from a robot-operated
stockroom in under thirty seconds.
2. Public Houses
The Cavendish Arms pub in Stockwell, London, installed an NFC
and QR codes based platform to promote the venue via social
media. Customers could scan the QR codes or tap their NFC
phones to tags located in the pub and connect through Facebook
to pick up a special offer like a free drink. In turn, a message would
be sent to their friends on Facebook and Twitter stating they are at
the pub along with details on current events that night.
Commerce

Mining
the
Facebook
Fanbase
With vast amounts of data available
about shoppers and their networks
through Facebook, retailers are turning
towards a better understanding and
implementation of this data to create
opportunities for profit.
by Achintya Gupta
Illustration inspiration: Bob Noorda for Pirelli, 1959
Communities

S long run you are engaging a very small set of fans today that you
paid for.
The need of the hour is a tool that can extract information based
on understanding and analyzing fans’ Facebook profiles, activities
and relationships, with their permissions. The tool can be used to
derive various forms of intelligence: interest, activities and social
influence. This understanding of target market and consumers will
have an outstanding impact on a social media campaign.
If a football club wants to leverage its one million Facebook
fans, with such tools it can recognize its most diehard fans,
gauge highest activity levels, sentiments and participations. They
can reach these fans for their local, offline promotions and even
give them inventories to host parties to boost ticket sales. Thus,
the simple task of identifying the biggest brand evangelists from
the crowd will help the brand generate immense word of mouth
at low cost marketing. Similarly a business-to-business software
brand can understand who their potential customers and buyers
are based on the professional interests and workplaces of their
Facebook fans.
Although the value that the aforementioned consumer
intelligence layer adds to your online marketing efforts is huge, it is
often intriguing how this customer intelligence layer should be built
and on what level it should analyze or segment the community
members.
There are many Facebook marketing tools in the market, such
as 8th Bridge, Votigo, Crowdtwist, Booshaka and Kuliza’s Elevate,
that provide customer analytics and Facebook fan intelligence.
It is encouraging to see that many marketers and brands are
willing to pay for such intelligence. Here is a list of six essentials
your consumer intelligence tool should have for you to get a
Social media marketers invest significant sums of money to acquire
thousands of fans to build their online community or Facebook fan
base. Traditional social media marketing strategies dictate two
common modes of gaining returns from such investments. One
is having meaningful conversations with customers using status
updates and comments. These, however, often go unnoticed by
customers. If the edge rank of a post is not very high, which often
depends on how relevant a post is to a fan, a big chunk of the fan
base might never read these updates, leaving the very large fan
base of no use.
The other tactic is to conduct Facebook contests and campaigns
such as sweepstakes, photo contests and ideas contests. The
problem with using such tactics is that they are relevant to certain
sets of fans but are pure noise for the rest. An example of this
is ‘#mcDStories’ campaign, in which a hashtag was created for
fans to share their experiences at McDonald’s, but only resulted in
negative chatter from sceptics.
The root cause of both the issues is that brands do not know
or understand fans at all. Fans can be die-hard brand promoters,
users, potential customers and even sceptics. They might have
different levels of social influence within the community. Fans
belong to different cultures, have different interests, opinions and
preferences towards brands. Although you have targeted fans of
certain interests and geographic location on your fanpage, they
have different ways of tolerance to issues, have different levels
of online or offline influence and have different social media
behaviours. Treating customers uniformly with the same message
or campaigns on a media that gives immense power to the
customer is a waste of marketing efforts. You might be satisfied
with the number of ‘likes’ or ‘comments’ you get today but in the
comprehensive picture of your Facebook fanbase.
Loyalty Discovering your most loyal fans has huge payoffs.
Think of the many ways you can leverage an army of brand
fanatics. Brand Ambassador Programs, offline word of mouth
marketing events, meet-ups and franchising are just a few of them.
It is important to ensure how your tool is deciding who is a loyal fan
and who is not. One way is by understanding his engagement and
activity level on the fan page. The most loyal fans will be the ones
with heavy participation in form of content creation (forum posts,
comments, photos or video uploads) or content curation (sharing,
recommending or voting on the posts) and in general will have
positive sentiments towards the brand.
Influence Influencers play a major role in the virality of brand
messages. There are brands such as Dell that have made the
mistakes of angering influencers like Jeff Jarvis, while Old Spice
leveraged influential Twitter celebrities in their ‘Smell like a man’
campaign. Knowing influencers in your online community is hence
very critical. Klout is one tool that does this. The other, but less
effective, way is to understand their influence from their Facebook
network data, which includes number of friends, shares, comments
and likes on posts.
Profile The profile data of your fan base is a small but important
part of your consumer analysis. Understanding location, hobbies
and personal or professional interests of your fans can help a lot in
your marketing. For example, if an online retail store is aware that
a set of customers is interested in snow jackets or Metallica music,
they can immediately target them on Facebook.
Themes Listening and understanding what your community is
talking about is a great insight for any branded Facebook page or
online community. Understanding ‘who’ is talking ‘what’ can help
Discovering your most
loyal fans has huge
payoffs
Influencers play
a huge role in the
virality of brand
messages
Profile data of
your fan base is
an important part
of your consumer
analysis
Listening to and
understanding from
your community
provide great
insights
Your consumer
intelligence tool
should analyse
relationships
among your fans
A CRM tool is
essential to convert
fans into customers
or brand advocates
The Six
Essentials of
a Consumer
Intelligence
Tool

intelligence tool is CRM, in which, intelligence gained on relevant
fans can be fed into a database so that they can be effectively
converted into customers or brand advocates.
All of the above activities are easier said than done. Collecting
such information about consumers is subjective to their
permissions, creation of appropriate applications to pull data, and
plug-ins with other applications. Such a consumer intelligence tool
can give a whole new direction to social media marketing efforts
and help managers make more sense of their investments into
acquiring Facebook fans or community members.
Data analytics is a very powerful field and advantages generated
from the aforementioned capabilities are just the tip of the iceberg.
A lot more can be achieved through analyses of information about
consumer demographics, psychographics and past purchase
patterns. For example, using data mining tools, an online retail
store that knows its Facebook fans’ purchases from its store can
predict purchase patterns using the available data. Target was
able to predict the chances of its shoppers being pregnant based
on their demographic and past purchases, although Target did not
use Facebook.
With Facebook marketing efforts, marketers are sitting on a gold
mine of data. It is only a matter of time that they start digging it too.
References
“What is EdgeRank?”What is EdgeRank.com.
Duhigg, Charles.“How Companies Learn Your Secrets.” New York Times. 16
Feb 2012.
Hill, Kashmir.“#McDStories:When A Hashtag Becomes A Bashtag.” Forbes.
24 Jan 2012.
What should you know about your
fans’loyalty?
1.Loyalty
How loyal is the Facebook fan to the brand?
2.Influence
How influential is the fan?
3.Profile
Location, ethnicity, religion, interests
4.Themes
Conversation topics
5.Relations
How are people connected in the network?
6.CRM
Adding relevants fans into a CRM database
How do you measure their activities
and influence?
Activity levels on the page divided among degree of
content creation and content curation
Central position on the brand page network;
Klout score
Create customer segments
Sentiment analysis or keyword analysis
Analysis of the brand page network
Segmenting customers according to their
personas: fan, critic, customer, lead, super user, etc.
brands identify potential leads, happy customers who will be willing
to give testimonials, and unhappy customers who need attention
or conversation topics your brand should address.
Relationships A lot of dynamics happen on a brand’s Facebook
page. Many page members become Facebook friends due to
interactions on the brand’s Facebook page and become a brand
page’s fan because they saw their friends becoming a part of the
community. It is imperative for your consumer intelligence tool to
analyze these relationships since these determine who is more
likely to have an influence on the community. Members or fans
who have social ties with a large number of other members or who
bridge the gap between two different network groups are likely to
play an important role. Many social network analysis tools such as
NodeXL, Gephi, UCINET have the capability of analyzing ties in
complex social networks
Customer Relationship Management Ultimately your social
media marketing efforts should result in sales or brand building
efforts. Hence the last capability I recommend for such a consumer

Fostering
Communities
through
Geolocation
Geolocation posits newer ways for people to network,
engage people beyond offering discounts and deals
based on check-ins. Location-based technologies have
the incredible potential to form and sustain meaningful
communities.
by Vandana U.
We are
always looking out for places. Be
it the ones that are happening, the ones for a quiet holiday
or the ones to buy. An immediate action is to check places friends have
been to, have given great reviews, have checked-in upon visiting a place and are raving
about it.
The understanding of location based behaviour is simple: Every action is local! Shopping, hanging out and
even taking part in community services: all actions happen within a certain radius. Brands and marketers have
already begun to work around their campaigns, their promotions and strategies based on such information broadcasting.
They are maximizing the effectiveness of their social outreach by tailoring and targeting messages based on location. It would
not be exaggeration to state that almost every app and every site has embedded location. This spells an interesting convergence
and divergence of spaces at the same time. While we wonder the world is only getting smaller, geolocation is widening spaces.
As marketers leverage location data to learn more about customers’ needs and offer highly personalized experiences that is where it gets
limited to. The question is, “What after a tweet, a status update and a check-in?”
Considering actions tend to be mostly local, geolocation can be used beyond offering discounts and coupons. Apps such as Foursquare and
Gowalla have incorporated game mechanics have recognized and continue to incentivize their most loyal brand advocates; all these are key
components of the experience. However, building a strong community is perhaps the next best thing to offer after recommending more places for
people to visit based on the analyses of their profiles. After all developing any application or providing newer experiences all target the same thing-
loyalty. Building a strong community presence is directly proportionate to having a loyal community of buyers who love to talk about their brands and
willingly spread word of mouth. If there can be apps to find love then how far can it be to foster development of communities?
Translating geolocation presence into community-building presence
There is a value proposition to a person checking-in at a location of a particular brand. One is looking for great deal, expecting some form of social
interaction or further information. Brands need to offer targeted value propositions to their customers, complemented by a meaningful and engaged
community that people are attracted to being part of.
Nextdoor is a geolocation service based on networking within neighbourhoods. What is appealing is Nextdoor’s attempt at making a self-
sufficient neighbourhood and promoting peaceful living. The app enables people to connect with nearby neighbourhoods, includes focus
on creating a virtual neighbourhood watch to help fight crime in an area. Posts about a local break-in and other crime and safety issues
are among the top two categories of things the app does. One great thing about the app is that neighbourhoods are encouraged
to create their own social networks. These are private and restricted to only those who live in the designated areas. There is a
verification process for users. Nextdoor CEO, Nirav Tolia talks about emerging behaviours, ones that go beyond finding great
deals. These range from finding people to carpool, setting up a neighbourhood watch, borrowing something, finding
babysitters, creating classified ads, and discussing community issues amongst those umpteen things one can do
within a neighbourhood. The app is now available in 8,000 neighbourhoods in all 50 states of USA. The
app goes on to prove the effectiveness of building a community of supporters and a clear benefit:
the kind of relevance and support we seek when building or joining groups.
From this perspective what sounds cool and at the same time is
realistic is a community of life-saving super heroes.
Turning intent into action,
Communities

PulsePoint app looks at creating a location
based community of people trained in
cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)
and are willing to assist in case of an
emergency. People are notified if someone
nearby in a public place is having a
cardiac emergency and may require CPR.
The most significant aspect of the app is
encouraging more people to be trained
in CPR and thereby be of assistance and
aid in cases of medical emergencies.
The free app also notifies about the
exact location of the nearest Automated
External Defibrillator (AED). The app was
originally developed and tested by the San
Ramon Valley, California, Fire Protection
District. Reported cases and incidents go
on to illustrate the usefulness of merging
location and technologies. Mobile users
have real-time access to emergency
activity as it is occurring. By providing
locations on an interactive map, the app
also notifies whether the emergency has
caused a traffic tie-up so that people
can plan an alternate route. The app
hosts other sets of features and reported
cases illustrate how this app has been
successful so far in its public outreach.
The app certainly changes perceptions
about location-based apps being all about
adding value to shopping alone. A mix
of content, skills and location ultimately
builds better connections than shallow
endorsement based check-ins.
What is required in the current scenario
is the reinforcement of a belief that adding
location into a social network is not only
for enhance social connections but also to
leverage the power of these connections
to achieve greater goals.
Engagement is the key word that drives
social technologies. Building a community
is perhaps the easier part. The real
challenge is engaging the members of a
community. More often people discuss
problems in their areas and what better if
an app can help people fix these problems.
SeedSpeak built an iPhone app that helps
engage people to be more civic-minded.
Residents can call attention the areas
that need fixing by creating “seeds” and
post photos and locate other seeds and
users. The motivating bit about building
this app is the vision of it. It looks at being
of use to nonprofits, advocacy groups
and even to test how viable the chosen
community projects are. Retha Hil, co-
founder of SeedSpeak asserted, “If you
can show there are people behind an idea
or momentum and show it to officials in
power you can make a difference.”
There is a mix of virtual space and
physical space. Geolocation platforms
and apps are bridging social media and
the physical world. No wonder the hype
about geolocation a few years back still
remains justified. Allowing a number of
possibilities, geolocation technologies
hold the potential to strengthen and
sustain communities. As developments in
data, mining existing networks for insights
into customer behaviours and needs can
give meaningful and useful information in
order to generate ideas for appropriate
location-based experiences. The words
of Alistair Goodman, CEO, Placecast
(location-based marketing company) sum
up the purpose of this article, “Location
and granular geo-targeting are actually
strong predictors of consumer intent –
because where someone is and when they
are there says a lot about what they might
be interested in.” Therefore while many
location-based apps still rely on check-ins,
others have gone on to utilize geolocation
to spur more powerful actions.
References
Chaey,Christina.“Can Nextdoor Turn
Your Neighbors Into A Billion-Dollar Social
Network?” Fast Company.13 Feb 2013.
“Enabling Citizen Superheroes.” PulsePoint.
Ellis,Justin.“SeedSpeak:A geolocation app for
better civic engagement.” Nieman
Journalism Lab.24 Jan 2011.
Butcher,Dan.“Location-based marketing
can increase average order value,frequency,
loyalty.” Mobile Marketer.29 Mar 2011.
Photo Credit: Erik Daniel Drost

Technology and
the Changing
Creative
Culture
Digital technologies
have significant effects
on creative domains,
especially impacting
the relationship among
designers, designs and
tools, creating a whole new
creative culture.
by Mrinalini Sardar
Photo Credit: Wacom
The power of digital design is spreading
like wild fire. The possibilities of creativity
have magnified. From the days of carving
and spreading inks on wooden blocks,
creating letterpress lovelies to using the
web as a medium for social expression
and sharing creativity, the world is moving
rapidly.
Technology is changing perceptions and
thinking. But it is not changing ideas. As
Kevin Kelly, Founder Executive Editor of
Wired magazine proclaims, “Technology is
only a tool driven by human energy” and “it
needs an identity.” In the creative domain,
the identity of technology lies with us, the
designers. As designers, there is a huge
responsibility on us to shape not only the
future of technology, but also the future
of the microcosm as it progresses to face
more challenges and complexities.
For cultures to flourish, they need to re-
invent themselves and keep up with the
times. Similarly, designers have to update
themselves with trends in technology to
develop their designs.
The purpose of design is to solve a
problem. With technology intercepting the
design process at the right phase, it will
help in creating more functional solutions.
An example of this would be the adaptation
by creatives to new age drawing tools and
gestural capabilities of such devices. The
Wacom tablet, foremost in digital drawing
tools, is experimenting with newer ways to
reduce time required to create a piece of
artwork. Integrating the hand touch with the
stylus doubles its capabilities. The attempt
is to bridge the gap between the physical
and digital disconnect which indicates a
paradox between how the physical drawing
tool will be replicated in a digital way to last
longer and be more functional. With the
introduction of the Wacom Inkling, physical
drawings in notebooks can be instantly
converted into vector art. Touch tablets
and smartphones have enabled gadgets
to become sketchpads for creatives. As
drawing tools evolve, so have designers
who are adapting to these tools.
Open-source economics is changing
creative cultures. Open platforms, such as
Open IDEO, ideate on design challenges.
Open IDEO is a global community that
draws concepts from one’s optimism,
inspiration, ideas and opinions in order to
solve problems together for the collective
social good. More and more companies
have begun to tackle issues through this
global network wherein good ideas are
generated to come to the best possible
solution instead of a pre-conceived
solution. Organizations such as Amnesty
International and Barclays have sponsored
challenges to help technology aid people
to uphold human rights against the face of
unlawful detention.
Another important insight is the
information and usage of open source tools
like “processing” for creating unique visual
solutions and new generative art. It is art
that interacts with humans and has the
ability to change the concept of branding.
Photo credit: Knovel
Communities
50

Time is a sort of river
of passing events, and
strong is its current;
no sooner is a thing
brought to sight than
it is swept by and
another takes its place,
and this too will be
swept away
Marcus Aurelius

Projection mapping is another innovative
method of representing ideas. In this, the
substrate or base for projection changes
to a daily object instead of a screen. In the
future, product projections themselves will
be editable and shared easily for feedback.
Open-source will be a key trend to cluster
creatives to experiment and innovate.
Projection motion is the current trend
in the creative circuit especially among
advertising and branding professionals. A
motion graphic communicates an improved
way of communicating with cultures
and transforming a brand experience.
Building motion typography is also the way
through which designers have adapted
themselves to technology, as they are
not only creating stagnant, decorative or
legible fonts but also are creating radical
ways of interactions through typography
and motion.
Digital and more interactive publications
are changing the publishing culture.
Almost every print magazine has an online
presence and information is being stored at
many levels in these publications. Patrick
Burgoyne, Chief Creative Editor of The
Creative Review recounts about the time
when major design print publications were
shutting down in the U.K. and he managed
to save his own company by having a web,
mobile and touch surface present. Adobe
Digital Publishing suite is a good start to
understand the potential of interactive
publishing wherein ads come alive and
pages turn. Wired Magazine, along with
Adobe, is trying to generate novel ways
of how magazines and publications will be
read in the future. Print will become more
exclusive, limited and customized.
With the addition of HTML 5, the web
culture is undergoing a massive change.
Technology is being used in creating tools
in order to provide designers simpler
and more functional tools. Designers
can best assert their merit and potential
through the way they share their work
on the web. Online portfolio sites and
Photo Credits
Top: Wired
Middle: Gizmodo
Bottom: Emma’s Design Blog
a metamorphosis, from print to digital
and from research to prototyping. But it
is important to understand that design
and technology are both powered by
human energy. The functionality of
design to solve a problem will remain,
but what will transform are the tools and
methods through which problems will
be solved in simple ways. Technology
will help transform social structures and
cultures because we have allowed them
to. The more adaptive designers are to
technology the more it will mould their
designs and creations for a more creative
and better tomorrow.
References
Kelly,Kevin.Kevin Kelly tells technology’s epic
story.2010.
Benkler,Yochai.Yochai Benkler on the new open-
source economics.2008.
“HTML,”Wikipedia,The Free Encyclopedia.
Sommer,Ryan.“Q&A: Patrick Burgoyne of
Creative Review on what makes a great
designer.” Econsultancy.22 Jan 2013.
creative communities are thriving through
sites such as Deviant Art and Behance.
Portfolio sharing sites are making huge
business out of customizing and making
the construction of a website simpler,
less time consuming and devoid of code.
Behance Pro Site and Cargo Collective
can be considered as potential platforms
that allow more designers to engage and
showcase their work to the world.
Another transformation in process is in
the way we design and purchase design.
With the advent of three-dimensional
printing, the power to design lies in
the hands of consumers. Trends lean
heavily towards customization and
personalization. Maker Bot brought the
3D Printer to homes and have not only
changed the way designers construct
prototypes but also paved way for people
to customize designs and detail their
experiences with products.
When looking at the way design itself
has changed, one perspective is that of
how technology has brought designers
closer to nature. There are several studies
being conducted in the field of biomimicry.
Designers are coming close to emulating
models closer to nature and building more
sustainable human models.
Another perspective is that of how big
data has influenced design. 2012 was the
year of big data. But 2013 is the year of
nano data: data that has been intelligently
filtered according to recorded profile
information. Analytics and data have
helped businesses grow and understand
user patterns. In the future nano data will
help creatives to make smarter choices
by filtering and focusing on content.
Reliability ratings will help artworks sell.
Cloud services will flourish in the future
where all creative personnel will be digital
nomads working across multiple locations
around the globe.
With the sands shifting in technology,
creative cultures are bound to change.
Every domain of design will undergo

Social Networks Women spend their time on
ClockingTime
on Social
Networks
People spend an ever-
increasing amount of time
on social networks, but
where are they spending
their time?
by Diarmaid Byrne
Illustrations: Amit Mirchandani
As new social networks grow quickly,
and their new member rates increase
exponentially, they generate a tremendous
amount of hype. Part of this is of course
PR-created and part is ‘word-of-mouth’
and referrals, as more of one’s social
group joins a new social network, people
are compelled to join as well so as to feel
involved.
For all the hype these generate, how much
of their time do people actually spend on
social networks? While the vast majority of
time is unsurprisingly spent on Facebook,
people spend very little time relatively on
other social networks. In fact, looking at
recent research by Pew Research Centre,
38% of 18-29 year olds plan to spend less
time on Facebook in 2013. It would be
interesting if Pew had been able to break
this down further and identify what activities
in particular people spend their time on,
and which activities are encouraging them
to take a break from Facebook.
References
van Grove,Jennifer.“Facebook grabs most
attention among social sites.” CNET.14 Feb
2013.
Popkin,Helen.“We spent 230,060 years on
social media in one month.” CNBC.4 Dec 2012.
Communities Social Networks Men spend their time on

21,000,000,000m
inutes

We Make Social Sense.
Better understand, monetize & amplify
your facebook fans.
Build Instant Customer
Loyalty
Apps that steer loyalty by
understanding and engaging
fans meaningfully through
rewards and incentive programs
to stimulate repeat purchase and
word of mouth.
Fuel Your Referral
Traffic
Apps that make your brand
sharable by enabling sharing,
expressions, and stories and fuel
referral traffic.
Increase On-Site
Conversions
Apps that personalize site
experiences by enabling
recommendations, referrals, and
advice that easily increase on-
site traffic conversion.
Drive High Conversion
Traffic
Apps that drive high-conversion
traffic through socially engaging
activities that trigger virality and
allure relevant traffic.

Social Technology Quarterly 08

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Was ist angesagt?

Was ist angesagt? (20)

Ähnlich wie Social Technology Quarterly 08

Ähnlich wie Social Technology Quarterly 08 (20)

Mehr von Kuliza Technologies

Mehr von Kuliza Technologies (20)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

Social Technology Quarterly 08