Content Merchandising Roundup #61
Below is a summary of the week's most interesting content merchandising-related posts from Content Ping as well as from other blogs and news sites. Enjoy. Sara Wachter-Boettcher: Future-Ready Product Pages In this interview, we talk to the editor of A List Apart magazine about how companies can create product-level content that works on mobile and other devices. New Content26 Service Accelerates Product Launches Content26 now offers New Item Setup,...read more >>
REI Uses Social Video to Connect Fans to Products
REI recently launched a social media campaign aimed at giving advice to customers looking for advice about outdoorsy gifts for their loved ones. Customers submitted requests for gift giving advice via Twitter, using the hash tag #giftpicks. REI then created 90 short videos where store employees responded to those questions with their favorite gear. The turnaround time? One week. Word of Mouth Marketing Association, which reported on the campaign,...read more >>
F-Commerce Fizzles
The e-commerce platform Payvment announced it's going out of business this week. In 2011, Payvment had opened a virtual mall that allowed customers to shop without leaving the social media site. MediaPost reported that the company powered an estimated 200,000 Facebook stores. Payvment is sending its customers to Ecwid, which also offers F-commerce applications. As Mark Walsh notes in the MediaPost news story: "Despite its enormous user base and high...read more >>
Content Merchandising Roundup #54
Below is a summary of the week's most interesting content merchandising-related posts from Content Ping as well as from other blogs and news sites. Happy reading. Philips Sonicare Case Study: Quickly and Effectively Creating Content for Multiple Retailers Working with content26, Philips was able to leverage existing content to create product-detail pages quickly when they were ready to sell through another channel. This case study examines the advantages...read more >>
Will Amazon Play Host to Social Butterflies?
Third-party sellers on Amazon will soon be able to create microsites within Amazon that would act as social media hubs for their products. Amazon Pages will give companies a chance to show off the visual and social sides of their product offerings. According to TechCrunch, the yet-to-be launched Amazon Pages will allow for customized URLs and splashy hero images. The free service will also include Amazon Posts to allow companies to run social media...read more >>
Content Merchandising Roundup #41
Below is a summary of the week's most interesting content merchandising-related posts from Content Ping as well as from other blogs and news sites. Happy reading. How Social Reviews Will Change the Retail Landscape Here's a look at several companies that are experimenting with ways to make online reviews more relevant, trustworthy, and social. Shoppers Want Social Product Reviews Friendize.Me CEO Mark Shteiman talks about the importance of offering...read more >>
How Social Reviews Will Change the Retail Landscape
Reviews can play an important role in giving consumers the confidence to buy. They can also be incredibly overwhelming. For example, the reviews on Amazon for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix rival the length of the book itself, but without any of the plot intrigue or fancy writing. No one is going to read all those reviews, damned be any far-buried nuggets of useful information. When you look at why people love reviews, you see that consumers...read more >>
Brands Commissioning Fake Reviews to Look Good on Social Media
A new study by Gartner suggests that brands are increasingly turning to fake feedback to make themselves look good on social media platforms such as Facebook. Purchased reviews and "Likes" will make up 15 percent of total reviews by 2014, according to the report. The report predicts that federal regulators will need to become involved and that major brands will be found guilty of faking reviews. But millions of fake Likes on Facebook won't fool savvy...read more >>
Is Social Media Irrelevant to Online Shoppers?
Would e-commerce companies miss Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest? Not really, according to the industry blog EcommerceBytes. The blog's survey of five large "online marketplaces" found that only 1.1 percent of their combined 100 million yearly visitors came from social media. The e-commerce sites were guaranteed anonymity for participating in the survey, so it's impossible to know if this low rate of referrals holds true for Amazon or multichannel...read more >>
Are Your Products Wantworthy?
A company that "helps online shoppers build virtual wish lists" has raised $1 million in venture capital funding, according to the technology website GigaOM. New York-based Wantworthy launched last year as a social shopping tool that simplifies creating wish lists as they surf the web and share their wants and desires with friends. The lists--which are made dragging a "Want" button onto an item from the toolbar--are kept private unless the user decides...read more >>