Social Relationships Now Promoting Retail Decisions: Interview with Rachel Weiss at L'Oreal

Online, June 29, 2011 (Newswire.com) - The social media phenomenon is looming large for retailers with the SoLoMo (social, location-aware, mobile) customer providing new kinds of exciting marketing opportunities for companies ready to capitalize on this.

The landscape is changing every day and companies must prepare to be flexible, test and learn as they strive to expand their digital reach.

Rachel Weiss, Assistant Vice President, Digital Strategy and Interactive Marketing, L'Oreal is a speaker at the marcus evans Social Commerce Conference taking place on July 26-28 in San Francisco, CA.

Weiss is an award-winning digital professional. She is responsible for digital marketing and social media strategy at L'Oreal for professional haircare brands and SalonCentric. Weiss oversees digital strategy for salon brands including Redken, Kerastase, Matrix, Shu Uemura, L'Oreal Professionnel, Pureology and Mizani.

Having held creative positions at Sony Pictures and Miramax films, Weiss' expertise is a rare blend of solid digital, brand and entertainment experience.

Here she talks to Maeve McGovern about leveraging social media to responsibly promote products. All responses represent the view of the Ms. Weiss and not necessarily those of L'oreal.

Can you define what social commerce means to companies today?

Rachel Weiss: Over the last couple of years we've seen such a shift in what L'Oreal calls the 'path to purchase'. This has been influenced by the rise and growth of social. What social commerce implies is that it's not so much about a direct sale via a social medium; it's about how the social stratosphere is influencing someone's purchasing decision.

This isn't about the search for a product, but it's more about seeing. For example, a friend on Facebook is wearing a sweater I like. I will go and ask that person what brand their sweater is and where they bought it. That will lead me to either go to that store or go to an online retailer to purchase it. The concept and the spark to want this item is based on a social relationship.

We're seeing this influence play out among our customers through their personal relationships. Brands are personifying themselves and are looking at how an individual can influence that path to purchase.

It's not a straight line anymore - it's a zigzag and a triangle. As a brand you must ensure you are part of that social conversation to influence that decision. Brands must understand what people are saying about them so the right decisions can be made about where they need to invest - based on what kind of conversations are happening within that social space, should they invest in search, off line advertising or online display?

What opportunities does the SoLoMo (Social media, location-aware, mobile) customer pose for brands today?

RW: It helps in large-scale reach for potential customers. It also creates loyalty. The challenges are when it comes to location-aware and mobile customers. The intersection of all these represents the future of our business. Companies like Four Square or Facebook Places can be an intersection of these three things. For L'Oreal, there's a huge opportunity within that space to be a better partner in order to create a large-scale reach. The technology exists, but we still need to bring our minds together to create meaningful programs that are location-aware for our retail stores, beauty counters and salons.

We're in the early adoption phase of location-aware and it's an area that will evolve over the next five years.

Are brands doing enough to create a holistic marketing approach through available social media channels?

RW: I don't think so. There's still a misunderstanding or hesitation among some senior decision making leaders in seeing what the opportunities are through social. Everyone's still talking about getting fans on a page on Facebook but what do you do with those fans? Those conversations are happening among companies about digital listening but how do you relate that back to sales? Where are the sophisticated programs in this area that are best in class?

But there is an opportunity for this to develop and I see it happening over the next few years. It's hard to have a holistic marketing approach if you don't understand the fundamental basics of one of your channels.

How can social campaigns generate revenue and really impact a business's bottom line?

RW: It's about the influence of the path to purchase and making sure as a company you and your products are present and visible. Your people internally must be resourced and understand the intricacies of the ever-changing social stratosphere - the social networks and the intersection of social, mobile and websites.

If a company has a much more customer centric approach, that will impact its bottom line.
It's about understanding how people consume and make choices and then in return, share the information.

What advice can you offer about creating compelling content to promote traffic?

RW: First there must be a fundamental understanding of what the digital shelf looks like and what kind of information people are searching for. There's a wealth of tools that Google uses to tell what your most highly trafficked search terms are. If there is a core understanding of what people want to know you can start to create content to promote that traffic.

Also, you need to hire the right talent who understands the digital space but also has a fundamental understanding of marketing. Social is considered something young and new and many companies will put interns working on the strategy.

However, the reach must be carefully considered and is an area where expertise must be applied. The person must understand business, marketing, content creation and digital strategy to start to build a compelling social strategy to promote traffic. There are nuances for each brand and you must know what your objectives are up front and activate those goals. Content cannot simply be produced for the sake of content.

The marcus evans Social Commerce Conference is taking place on July 26-28 in San Francisco, CA. For more information on the event, please visit: http://www.marcusevansch.com/SocialCommerce_Interview

For further details contact:

Michele Westergaard
Marketing/PR Coordinator
Telephone: 312 540 3000 ext 6625
Email: [email protected]