Simply Be Agree Ongoing Commitment with WhichSocial After Successful Trial

Manchester-based WhichSocial have established a new cooperation with Simply Be, which is part of J D Williams & Company Limited. Simpy Be specialise in offering the latest fashion trends in women apparel exclusively in sizes 14-32, and have a very active following online. WhichSocial will provide their services to Simply Be in order to optimise their social media marketing on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. The social media ROI software offered by WhichSocial will help Simply Be determine how successful their Pinterest pins, Facebook posts and Tweets are in driving sales and traffic to their website. The software will also identify influencers, discover trending best sellers and the most effective social channel. Having such measurements available, Simply Be will be able to revise, and hence optimise, their social media marketing strategy.

WhichSocial is dedicated to helping Simply Be improve their social media marketing efforts by allowing Simply Be to immediately react to WhichSocial real-time alerts based on trending on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Avin Wong, WhichSocial’s Managing Director, commented, “We appreciate the opportunity to provide our services to Simply Be and continue working closely with FTSE 250 N Brown Group Plc, which Simply Be is a part of. We are hoping Simply Be will set an example for the rest of the 32 brands under FTSE 250 N Brown Group Plc, demonstrating the success of using our software.”

Simply Be have been extremely satisfied with WhichSocial’s software trial and committed to using WhichSocial on a daily basis. Simply Be's Social Media Manager mentioned, "We were impressed to see the updates that the Which Social team had made to the platform on our behalf and to hear of new developments in the pipeline as well".

Manchester-based WhichSocial is a real-time social media ROI tracking software with actionable alerts for ROI-driven digital marketers. The technology helps retailers measure, quantify and improve ROI from Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter. WhichSocial has received investment from various business pioneers and institutional investors, such as Creative England, Unilever, Ingenious and Bauer Media. The company is currently working with fashion retailers from FTSE 250 group and Sunday Times’ Fast Track 100 list, as well as one of the 1000 most visited UK website. Visit http://www.whichsocial.com for more details.

Competitions Can Help You Grow

WhichSocial, the software which allows you to measure and improve ROI from social media marketing, have a wide range of customers.  Their clients have a broad spectrum of social media activity, ranging from large brands with 75,000 Facebook followers, to small boutiques with a more select following.

One of their more exclusive customers, Me+Em, have been using WhichSocial to measure their competitions on Facebook.

Let's take a look at a recent competition they ran on Facebook called 'Share to Wear'. It encouraged users who have already liked the page to join in, creating a community, and by sharing the page allows potential clients to see the shop too. Using WhichSocial, Me+Em can also track how many clicks to the site this competition generated, which products were sold from these clicks, and which shared post generated the most interest.

Armed with this information, Me+Em have learnt enough to judge how, where, and when to run future competitions. They have data they need, but more importantly, they know exactly what to do with this data.

After they spoke at The Big Data Show, WhichSocial have been going from strength to strength, and are currently in conversation with even more brands. Keep checking the blog to see what they are up to!

Quick Q&A with WhichSocial about The Big Data Show

Avin Wong from WhichSocial, one of our startups, recently spoke at The Big Data Show. I managed to grab Avin for a quick Q&A to find out how it all went.

Hi Avin, thanks for taking the time to chat. Firstly, what was your speech about?

Our topic was "How internet retailers can measure & increase social media ROI through Big Data predictive modeling". I discussed how to measure and improve social media ROI. Then our data expert and friend, Dr Robert Pietruszkiewicz  (MD of  SDART.co.uk) talked about how you can use big data predictive modeling to increase sales.

What two facts would you like people to take away from your talk?

1. Measuring social media ROI is not difficult; you just need specialist software like WhichSocial.com

2. Crunching historical analytics data is pointless, internet retailers have to "Act when it matters", i.e. act instantly when their social ROI software picks up trending patterns through their social channels.

Were you nervous?

I wasn't nervous. In fact, I spoke even better when more people turned up and started asking questions.

What questions were you asked by the audience?

The audience mainly asked about how our technology works, i.e. how the software tracks social media ROI.

 How has the experience helped you?

The experience has motivated me to keep on giving pitches, and I am aiming to speak at even bigger events.

The Report is Dead

As Mark blogged earlier today, the report is dead. Luckily for all those data-hungry people out there, startups have the answer (unsurprisingly). One of the luxuries of being a startup is having the flexibility to evolve and respond quickly to a brand’s problem. By having a small team and flexible hours, startups are able to tackle a problem head on and create an enhanced, bespoke service for those who require it.  Alexandra Dinsdale from Unilever mentioned this issue in our interview with her last week, emphasising just how important this ability can be to large businesses.

This matter is also something Avin Wong from WhichSocial has experienced this week. During a recent meeting with one of his large clients, he created a solution to a pain-point they were experiencing  which is actually exceedingly common amongst online retailers. The problem is what to do with the large amounts of online data that is being collected from sources liked Google Analytics.  All the facts and figures are there, but brands are struggling to know what action to take. Another issue is when to consult this data;  if you are only checking it weekly, or even monthly, how can you possibly react fast enough to the results you are seeing? Monthly reports seem to hail back to an era we are rapidly zooming away from, as right now data needs to be relevant, recent, and responsive.

The alternative to way to accurately measure your ROI on social media is actually very simple. WhichSocial provide real time alerts with actionable insights. That sounds like a lot of buzzwords, so let’s break it down.

1. The brand sets a benchmark for product sales, social media interaction, or influential activity from consumer so they can judge and control what is a large response for them.

2.Whenever these criteria are broken, WhichSocial alerts you. This allows you to respond immediately to the action your shoppers are taking, and respond in an appropriate manner (for example, move the product to the shop’s front page, promote the Facebook post, or contact the influencer).

3. This uniquely allows the brand to know instantly when something goes viral (by their definition), whether it is a new video they posted on twitter, or a product that has been repined.

This kind of compelling and active response is going to only increase in importance as shopping online and social media marketing continue to dominate.

Avin is speaking at The Big Data show tomorrow, so if you're going, be sure to listen to him at 4pm.

The Debate is Over: In Retail, Social Media Generates Sales

A recent Huffington Post article declared that even asking whether social media marketing creates ROI "shows a complete lack of understanding of the communication revolution which we are experiencing." The real issue at hand today is measuring the social conversation occurring to be able to accurately decide which ones are working best for your brand. Gaining a large online following is one issue, but seeing a return of investment (or 'return of sharing') is another matter, and much harder to measure. Google Analytics offers statistics regarding page views and bounce rate, but it fails to measure influences, organic sharing, and which products that do best on which social media site. One of our startups, WhichSocial, has been designed to solve this exact problem. The software is currently being used by a large internet fashion group who have been witnessing a very positive result. Recently they posted an item on their Facebook page (which has over 70,000 likes) and sales were generated immediately.

Clearly, the campaign was highly successful  but in order to learn why and just how successful it was, the brand needed to use WhichSocial. It  was able to accurately pinpoint what made this post such a success, whether the customers were new or loyal followers, and if those who shared the post influenced others into purchasing. All this information is displayed in a visual format which is easy to read and quick to digest so that decisions can be made.

For more information, simply go to their site.

The Facebook image is simply an illustration of the post, and all items can be found here.