For some reason, however, we often forget these basic social skills in the digital world.

In our most recent webinar, Erik shared examples of brands effectively using social media to promote their business and sell their products. Too many businesses jump into social media and immediately begin selling – pushing messages about their products and brand into an already ongoing conversation. Through what he calls the “social media escalator,” Erik explained the steps businesses should follow to become a welcome member of conversations in social media – listen first, sell last.

Click to enlarge: Qualman’s “Social Media Escalator” urges businesses to listen first, sell last.

Listen. Erik tells businesses to first be quiet and listen on social media. What’s being said about your brand, your products, your industry? See what people are saying before jumping in.

Interact. Join the conversation in a way that adds value. You can’t just start talking about how awesome you are and expect people to engage – you have to contribute to conversations people are already having to gain an audience. Respond to what people are saying about your brand.

React. This is where many companies drop the ball, Erik says. If 70% of people are saying they like something about your product, how quickly are you changing your product to deliver more of what they like? Insights without action are worthless.

The same goes for negative feedback. If people are talking about what they don’t like about your products or brand, how quickly are you working to fix it? For all the companies jumping into social media, most don’t have a plan for acting on what they learn – their social efforts are siloed to a specific department. “Social” isn’t a department – your whole company must be listening and reacting to these conversations to drive any real value.

Sell. If you’re reacting to customer feedback to constantly improve your offering, selling will come naturally.

As you sell, your customers will follow this same model:

• Listen. Customers hear what your product has to offer them, both by listening to what you're selling, and also by listening to each other, on social media and in offline conversations.
• Interact. They’ll then interact with your products, using them themselves.
• React. They’ll react to your product, developing their own opinion of what’s working and what isn’t, what they like and what they don’t.
• Sell. Based on their reaction, they’ll sell for or against you via word of mouth.

If you’ve done your job right – listened to customers, interacted with them, and reacted to their feedback to consistently deliver better experiences – customers will do the selling for you, by sharing their love of your products and brand with their networks, both online and off. And this is where you listen, hear what they think of your business, and the cycle begins again.

Erik shared many examples of brands following these steps well, along with numerous other tips from his best-selling book Socialnomics, in our webinar.

So, let's say you've been reading this column for the past several months, and have determined that your brand and customers could really benefit from adding user-generated content to your site. However, you need real information that backs you up, because your CEO, owner, or CFO aren't as easy to convince.

This is a common issue – many companies feel uncomfortable about "airing their dirty laundry," as they may see it, on their site. Here's a rundown of the most common issues your execs may have, and how to answer them.

"What if our customers post negative comments or say bad things about our products?"

This is a great question, and one of the most common concerns when "opening up" a brand site to contributors. But think about it: if your products are getting a bad rap, people are talking about them where you can't listen or – more importantly – respond. More than likely, you'll get positive content – research we've done at my company shows that more than 80 percent of all reviews are positive. And those negative reviews can really open your eyes, not only giving you specific information about what customers may not like, but also giving you a chance to respond to customers directly, and even potential new product ideas.

The ratings J curve: most reviews are positive.

Oh, and if you're worried about profanity, that's a legitimate concern, too – that's why you need to make sure you have guidelines for moderating content before it goes live on your site.

"User-generated content is great for retail, but it doesn't apply to our business."

It's true that business use of user-generated content – comments on YouTube videos, sharing on Facebook, and especially writing customer reviews – began with retail. Today, though, all types of businesses (insurance companies like USAA and Nationwide, plus other highly-regulated industries, such as banks) are finding ways to let users contribute. It comes down to what your business wants to accomplish with the customer voice. In most cases, consumers of all types – even B2B clients – will look for input from their colleagues, friends, or industry experts. See how you can get these voices engaged in your business.

"What's the real impact going to be? How will we measure it?"

I agree – the bottom line is truly the bottom line. This answer depends on your overall business goals. Take an honest look at what your company (not just your website) aims to do, and connect that directly to the impact the customer voice can have on it. If the goal is to sell products, you'll want to tag user-generated content interaction to conversion. If you want to gain marketshare, how can increased search traffic, customer interaction, and improved products – all potential benefits of user-generated content done well – help in that goal (and how will you measure it)? If your company aims to totally delight its customers, how would customer input help with this goal? Because user-generated content lives on your site, it can be tagged and tested to quantify its impact on the business. What's more, since it builds over time, you can track its impact far longer than a one-off campaign.

"There are so many other priorities. Why should we do this now?"

Prioritization is always a concern – this was a huge issue when I ran the retail site for Dell Corporation. I weighed several variables when making a decision – both long- and short-term goals. Many times, the net present value calculation (commonly calculated as the profit your company gains from an investment, is equal to sum of that investment's impact over time) became the determining factor of what came first. When looking at priorities, compare the net present value of all options. In general, the addition of user-generated content will dramatically increase the amount of relevant information on your site, which can improve conversion rates and search traffic, even though it needs to build over time.

As with any new initiative, it's important to have your ducks in a row when you're ready to sell it upstairs. Align these objections with your own exec's concerns, and the impact the customer voice could have on your organization should be clear.

To illustrate some of the social touch-points brands have with holiday shoppers, let’s walk through fictional shopper Tara’s search for a gift for her friend, Neill.

Like 27% of holiday shoppers last year (according to eMarketer) and likely even more shoppers this year, Tara begins her gift search on social media. She heads to Neill’s Facebook profile to look for clues as to what he might like.

Shoppers are using social media to figure out what friends and family want for the holidays. Help them find the answer by encouraging your customers and site visitors to share gift ideas or wish lists with their social networks. PETCO, for example, includes social sharing buttons on every product page.

PETCO includes social network sharing buttons on every product page.

Had Neill shared a product directly from a retailer site like PETCO, his post would pull Tara into the purchase path. He unfortunately hasn’t shared any specific products, but as a live music lover, his recent posts indicate that he might like a digital pocket camcorder to take to concerts.

27% of shoppers who researched and bought holiday gifts online last year looked for ideas about what friends and family wanted on social media.

With her gift idea in mind, and like 59% of gift shoppers, Tara starts her specific gift search at a search engine. Regularly updated content like customer questions and reviews feeds the freshness search engines crave to boost search rankings. Indexing this content directly into product pages’ code maximizes this benefit – indexing drove a 17% increase in natural search for OpenTable. Make sure you’re properly indexing your UGC to show up in holiday shoppers’ gift searches.

Additionally, features like Google Rich Snippets place star ratings and review snippets directly in search results, drawing shopper attention. We’ve even seen UGC improve effectiveness of paid search ads – review content drove a 196% increase in paid search revenue for Office Depot. Use customers’ words in your search marketing to drive traffic.

Star ratings in search results grab shopper attention.

Tara’s search takes her to SmartStore’s shoot-and-share camcorder category page. Here, she finds a number of product options with similar specs and marketing copy.

Like endcaps and signage in a retail store, customer reviews draw Tara’s attention, and help her differentiate between like products. These authentic opinions are the most trusted form of advertising, with 70% and 90% of consumers trusting recommendations from unknown and known reviewers, respectively. Shoppers today expect and demand reviews – according to a ChannelAdvisor study, 83% of ALL holiday shoppers this year will be influenced by customer reviews.

Top-rated pages and ratings help shoppers narrow their choices.

On the category page, Tara can sort by rating to help narrow her choices, and she looks for products that have lots of reviews – number of reviews can be more important than star rating. Retailers and manufacturers should work together now to increase review volume in time for the holidays, both through customer participation and by syndicating reviews from brand sites to retail sites.

Ratings help Tara narrow her choices to a specific product. The product has high reviews, but Tara wonders if it's good for recording live music. Surveys have shown that having “no way to get a specific question answered” is the most frequent issue shoppers face online, and their search for answers can take them away from your site. Let customers ask questions directly on your site, where other customers and brand reps can answer them.

Tara posts her question on SmartStore's site, and SmartStore even tweets it to their followers to ensure a speedy answer.

Retailers can tweet customer reviews and questions to their followers.

A few days after posting her question, Tara receives an email from SmartStore – her question has been answered, and the email leads her directly back to the purchase path. Notify shoppers when their questions are answered to bring them back to your site.

Answers from actual product owners build confidence in hesitant shoppers. Click to enlarge.

Confident that she’s found the right gift for Neill, Tara adds the camcorder to her cart. And, realizing she’s under budget, she adds the peer-recommended carrying case to her order as well before checking out. SmartStore can rest assured Tara found the right product – UGC is proven to reduce return rates.

This is how many gift-hunters will shop this holiday season. Is your brand ready?

Want to connect with shoppers this holiday season? We can help.

See how every interaction with a consumer can help drives sales and increase loyalty in this three-minute video.

Ready to discuss how your business can benefit from any of these tips? Request a live demo to see how your brand can get social in time for the holidays.

In his groundbreaking book, The Ultimate Question, Fred Reichheld introduced the Net Promoter Score (NPS).  It’s based on one simple question: “Would you recommend our company to a colleague or friend?” The NPS gives businesses a loyalty metric to conduct customer sentiment analysis, while tracking their promoters and detractors.

• Promoters (score 9-10) are loyal enthusiasts who will keep buying and refer others, fueling growth.
• Passives (score 7-8) are satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are vulnerable to competitive offerings.
• Detractors (score 0-6) are unhappy customers who can damage your brand and impede growth through negative word-of-mouth.

How to measure your NPS

To calculate your company's Net Promoter Score, take the percentage of customers who are Promoters and subtract the percentage who are Detractors. Here’s a graphic that helps illustrate the simple calculation.

From http://www.netpromoter.com/np/calculate.jsp

How does your industry stack up?

By aggregating data from 3.2 million customer-contributors for Bazaarvoice clients across 18 different industries, we’re able to establish insightful benchmarks for each.

5 Industries with highest Net Promoter Scores plus loyal and influential client base:

• Health/Beauty
• Jewelry
• Food/Drug
• Sporting Goods
• Apparel/Accessories

Generally these industries tend to have more loyal followers and probably less complaints than, say, most service industries. However, all companies have an opportunity to use their NPS feedback, improve their customer experience, and gain a competitive advantage over their rivals.

For example, take health care. The Cancer Treatment Centers of America uses NPS as a trigger to action and has experienced great results. The CTCA has standard monthly reports for all staff and management, and even the Board of Directors is updated quarterly. In order to improve their NPS, they contact patients and caregivers to identify their needs and build stronger relationships, as well as incorporate “Patient Loyalty” topics in regular staff meetings.

In the telecommunication industry, Verizon leads the pack with 41% NPS, as they take their customer feedback seriously and are all about building customer loyalty. Since 2008, “Verizon Wireless has heard feedback from over two million customers, with employees throughout the organization involved in more than 750,000 follow up calls.” They have made it their business to create promoters and at a conference, they stated, "Management has demonstrated a willingness to take clear action based on customer feedback. That motivates employees and delights customers." Verizon has figured it out and shared several keys to NPS success, including, the right executive sponsor, dedicated program leadership, and cultural DNA.

In the FinServ category, USAA stands out. They come in at #1 in customer loyalty for 2010 US Net Promoter rankings, banking category. With 81% NPS, USAA has been collecting reviews, asking and answering questions, and requesting customer stories since 2009. They’ve also worked with us to launch a brand new Financial Advice community.  So far, they’ve been getting about 25 questions a day.

"Just ask Scott" is a hit with USAA customers.

How to use NPS data to improve your business

• Collect your NPS and comments. Be prepared for criticism.
• Reach out to your most dissatisfied and vocal detractors. Think: “What would make this customer give us another chance?”  When you have your answer, do it!
• Reach out to your most loyal and happy promoters. Give them opportunities to share their favorite products with their social networks. Some options include:
  • Feature them as a “top contributor” on your website
  • Ask them if they’d like to write a guest piece for your blog
  • Make sure they’re able to share their experiences with your products and brand through Facebook

Why should I do anything about the NPS?

• Prevent Negative WOM
• Lower Cost to Serve
• Retain customers
• Create better profit margins.
• Create competitive advantage.

How do you use the NPS to create customer fanatics?

Other Resources and Benchmarks:

The Ultimate Question

Use Net Promote Scores to Identify Solid Influencers

Net Promoter Score Website

We have an unofficial slogan at Bazaarvoice – “Be the conversation.” The relatively-level playing field of social media is both a blessing and a curse. You now have unparalleled access to high-level prospects – potential clients, investors, employers, even C-Suiters – but so does everyone else. In the information overload that is social media, how do you keep your voice from getting lost in the noise? Instead of just participating in the conversation, how can you “be the conversation”?

Last December, Domino’s Pizza began their “Pizza Turnaround” campaign, which told the story of how negative feedback from customers led the company to change its 50-year-old recipe. There's a good chance you saw this video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Naturally, the campaign caught our attention at Bazaarvoice. Here was a company acting on feedback, embracing their customers’ negative reviews to improve their product. We began brainstorming ways to join this national conversation, and eventually created a video and blog post around our unofficial taste test – the Bazaarvoice “Pizza Throwdown.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s what we learned from the success we had.

Stay relevant to your larger audience. Make sure your content appeals to more than just the prospect. If your message doesn’t get noticed or end up influencing a sale, it should still benefit your overall communications strategy. Whether or not Domino’s noticed us, Pizza Turnaround carried a powerful message that we knew the market needed to hear – that negative feedback should be embraced and acted upon, not feared.

Talk about what they care about. The more a prospect is already paying attention to a subject, the more likely they are to listen to what you have to say. Monitor Twitter for @replies to the company; see what they’re blogging about, etc. Join the conversation they’re already having rather than attempting to start from scratch.

Play to your strengths. Ask yourself – where do we execute most strongly? Capitalize on your best resources. We had a strong and genuine interest in the story, and knew from our history of B2B videos that our in-house video team could deliver.

Take your message multichannel. Use multiple channels to make sure your message gets through to your prospect in the right way. We told the full story behind our taste test with a blog post, but also made sure the video told a complete story on its own. We then used Twitter and Facebook to drive traffic to these pieces.

Get your network behind sharing your work. Self-promotion in social media can be tricky – see these tips on how to avoid becoming a salesman at the social media cocktail party. When done right, though, sharing through your company’s network is the best way to spread your message. We have a high rate of sharing from Bazaarvoice employees on personal profiles, but it’s always 100% voluntary. Through emails to “All”, we encouraged employees to share the story with their networks on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Employees like our CMO, Sam Decker (nearly 7,000 followers on Twitter) helped the message spread far and wide (and eventually, to Dominos).

Don’t be afraid to approach the prospect directly. Don’t just talk from the sidelines and hope your prospect notices – reach out to them directly with your message. Employees tweeted our blog post and video at the Domino’s corporate account, which got the blog on their radar. Domino’s eventually included the video on their own official Pizza Turnaround blog.

Your potential customers, partners, employers, and investors are talking to each other online – about your brand and products, about your industry, about your competitors, and about topics related to you. What steps are you taking to “be the conversation”?

Get the full story of the Pizza Throwdown.

Check out our entry for the 2010 Forrester Groundswell Awards, and leave a quick rating or review while you’re at it!

I’m thrilled that Scott Allen, noted social media thought leader, has blogged about us at the American Express OPEN Forum. He and I, along with several other Bazaarvoice team members, talked about how we “beat the odds” as a start-up. If you haven’t had a chance to read Scott’s book, The Virtual Handshake, it’s worth the time.

Thanks, Scott, for a really insightful piece.

Read it on OPEN Forum: How Bazaarvoice Beat the Odds

Much of the merchandising content on these shelves is the brand telling the consumer why it’s the best. If every brand is “the best,” how can we choose? As consumers ourselves, we know the answer: we listen to what our peers, friends, and fellow shoppers say about the products to make our decisions.

Brands have a number of in-store merchandising tools in their arsenal: endcaps and signage to draw attention to products, sales staff to answer customer questions and guide purchases, etc. So how can manufacturers leverage consumer-to-consumer conversations (that we know are happening) at the point of purchase? By supplying online shoppers with their fellow consumers’ opinions and timely answers to product questions. Now we’re “Social Merchandising”, a strategy that directly impacts sales and returns.

Endcaps and signage

Say I’m looking for a scanner. Like most consumers (66% of consumers research products online before they buy online or in-store), I head to my favorite consumer electronics retail website to research choices. The scanner category page – the online equivalent of a shelf – displays several scanners with similar types of product information: features, pricing, and in this case, customer reviews. And just like in a brick-and-mortar store, I’m faced with choice overload.

Ratings and reviews act as endcaps and signage, differentiating like products.

As I compare one scanner to another, my eyes are naturally drawn to a key difference. Scanner A has 183 reviews, while Scanner B has only five. Based on the 4.5 star average rating, , most of the 183 reviewers were more than satisfied with Scanner A. Which scanner gets more of my attention? That’s really a rhetorical question; you know the answer. A survey of 26,000+ found that consumer recommendations are the most credible form of advertising.

Much like endcaps and special signage in a retail store, customer reviews and ratings differentiate similar products at the point of purchase. Manufacturers can capitalize on this fact by collecting reviews from end customers and syndicating these authentic opinions to retailer sites. More reviews equals more visibility equals more clicks… you get the idea. And it works – three manufacturers saw a 26% increase in sales after syndicating reviews to a retailer site. That’s just online sales – eMarketer found that the internet influences $3.45 of in-store sales for every dollar spent online.

Your best sales team

Say I click Scanner A (the one with more reviews)to learn more. Once on the product page, I have related questions and I can’t find answers. For example, “Can this scan, resize, and print without being connected to a PC?”

Who better to answer my question than the manufacturing brand? Traditionally, brands haven’t had access to customers at this point in the purchase funnel. I could ask my question in-store, where brands spend significant resources continuously training retailer reps and updating product information – an expensive and resource-intensive endeavor. Or, my hunt for information could take me elsewhere – another retailer, or even another brand.

But what if brands could answer customer questions while they shop – making merchandising social, and directly engaging consumers to affect purchases? We already know customer Q&A boosts sales and reduces returns. User-generated answers reduced returns 23% for one client, and doubled online sales for PETCO. But what if manufacturing brands got involved? It’d be like having your brand’s best sales team on every sale. In our example, I'd ask my question directly on the product page. Scanner A's manufacturer, "ManufacturerSite," could then provided a timely, branded answer that lives on the product page, for every customer to see.

Manufacturers provide branded answers on retail sites. Click to enlarge.

These branded answers give manufacturers a strengthened presence on retailer sites, and let brands give shoppers all of the information they need to buy confidently. Samsung began answering questions on retailer sites under the persona “Mr. Samsung”, and found that for the questions they received, 91% were not already covered by the product information. Additionally, answers from Mr. Samsung were voted the most helpful on the retailer site.

As commerce becomes increasingly social, so must manufacturer’s merchandising efforts. Syndicated consumer reviews are the endcaps and signage that make your products stand out online. Branded answers at the point-of-purchase are your in-store sales team ready to answer any customer questions. This concept is a paradigm shift in how merchandising and distribution networks fit together. With planning season just around the corner, how will you make your merchandising social?

Manufacturers, connect with consumers at the point of purchase.

Reviews are your online endcaps. Branded answers are your online sales staff. See how Social Merchandising tools can boost your sales and reduce your returns.

Brian Heil with Social Wildfire

This blog post is guest-written by Brian Heil, Social Media Consultant at Social Wildfire. We asked Brian to share the story of the social media success of his client, Dingo Brand.

Dingo is a leading dog treat brand that has lately also become a rapidly growing interactive organization by connecting and resonating with savvy, articulate consumers. In addition to partnering with Bazaarvoice to capture, display and amplify consumer contributions, Dingo also aimed to increase its interactive footprint by engaging Facebook users. To do so, they decided to run a promotion through the social website that just surpassed 500 million users. In just 3 days, Dingo went from 330 Facebook Likes to over 6,000. How were they able to foster such success so quickly? Simple: Dingo put the power in the hands of the consumer.

Just one of the 1,000+ posts from Dingo's Facebook fans

Their goals?

• Capture more Dingo users, adding to their existing database of power users.
• Find dog owners who haven’t tried Dingo and drive trial of their product.
• Utilize the power of Facebook to build a community in which Dingo could have easy, real-time interaction with consumers.

Facebook users love Dingo, too!

How? Dingo challenged their existing fan base of 330 people to help get their Like count to 5,000. The first 5,000 Likes who provided their e-mail address would receive a $20 coupon redeemable at Dingobrand.com. In order for anyone to get the $20 coupon, Dingo had to reach at least 5,000 Likes. Then, in order for the individual consumer to receive their coupon, they had to submit their e-mail in the “Join My List” tab (powered by a Constant Contact Facebook app) which added them to the list of emails that would be able to use the coupon.

What happened? The original 330 started posting the link on sites like My Pet Savings, Nana’s Deals and More, and the promotion spread virally. As the fan base grew, its rate of growth accelerated. Dingo exceeded their initial goal and surpassed 6,000 Likes within 3 days! They gave the consumers the task of finding Facebook Likes for them and that is exactly what happened.

Are there some users that signed up because they just want free stuff? Of course. Does that muddy the waters a bit? Definitely.

However, in one week there have been almost 1,000 posts and comments by Facebook users on the Dingo fan page, an amazing amount of user generated content. In addition, there have been almost 250 photos posted of users’ dogs, many of them enjoying Dingo products – priceless content. All the while, Dingo has kept up with the posts and has been using this as an opportunity to have a flowing conversation with what has become a living, breathing community.

Within 3 days, Dingo was able to significantly increase their database of prospective customers, have them try their brand, and create a rich community of dog owners who can be utilized as a learning lab as well as a medium to promote new products and programs.