Anyone who has kids, or who was one fairly recently, will remember Sesame Street’s Lugosi-eque math whiz, Count von Count. The Count would count anything, anytime, anywhere. And he was much better at it than, say, The Spanish Inquisition:

Imagine, then, what the Count – let alone the Inquisition – would have to say about this: a Flash-based application that provides a real-time count of Social Media activity. Courtesy of Gary Hayes’ Personalize Media blog, here is Gary’s Social Media counter:

Visit Gary’s blog if you want to know about his sources, but the details are almost beside the point. Spend even a minute watching the numbers cascade and you are sure to be convinced – if you weren’t already – that Social Media is a communications channel (or group of channels) that marketers cannot afford to ignore. If you are marketer with a small company and a small budget, Social Media is perfect for you. If you are just starting out, take the simple advice that you’ll get from everyone: listen first.

And if you would like to learn about a Social Media marketing program exclusively for local merchants, feel free to get in touch with us here at Zavee.

Our most important news is that Zavee is almost ready to go live. We are finalizing the launch release of our software and expect to begin processing transactions by mid-January. We began our merchant sales efforts in November and already have signed up scores of local businesses in our South Florida launch market. Our consumer acquisition program will begin in January and ramp up over the next several months.

Shopping, Socially

One of the most gratifying – and, frankly, amazing – things about the process of creating Zavee is the extent to which people who know what they’re talking about are saying the same things we are about Zavee’s core concepts. In short, Zavee is in the right place at the right time.

When we describe Zavee as a “social shopping” platform we recognize that this is a new concept for most consumers and businesses. Social media marketers, however, say that social shopping is poised for growth:

“Social shopping is really still in its infancy,” said Andy Lloyd, CEO at Fluid, an e-commerce technology company. This means retailers and solution providers are still thinking about how people connect with other people around buying decisions in an online environment and how they can facilitate those gatherings. “The challenge is people don’t know what social shopping is or what it does,” Lloyd continued, which is why the adoption rate isn’t very high yet.

Search professionals have been quick to see the advantages of social shopping for merchants, including advantages we discuss with merchants constantly: the ability to connect with customers, enhance credibility and leverage word-of-mouth.

From a consumer perspective, social shopping taps into basic principles of human behavior. Marketers increasingly recognize the potential of social shopping and are aligned with Zavee’s perspective on integrating social networking functionality with search and review capabilities:

In social shopping, you see recommendations and reviews that your friends have shared. You see items that your friends have purchased or brands that your friends have shopped with. This matters a lot when you’re shopping for a digital camera and are stuck deciding between three different models. Of course, the last 10 years’ worth of people’s purchasing histories and written reviews on Amazon may help you narrow your choice – if you can filter out the noise. But those reviewers are entirely anonymous to you, even though they may use a real name and have a rating history with the site.

We believe that 2010 will be the year in which social shopping comes of age. This clearly is good news for Zavee. We believe that our social shopping platform, which also integrates a cash-back rewards program and a mechanism for raising funds for local civic and charitable organizations, offers a compelling value proposition for merchants, consumers and causes. We can’t wait to prove it.

From all of us @Zavee, a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year to all!

Valeria points out: “The more audiences and segments you have – which depend on your product or service lines – the higher the complexity in delivering to all the same standards when it comes to meeting customer service expectations and communication needs.” [Emphasis in original]

I agree with this point completely, and I think it’s especially relevant for smaller businesses.  Smaller businesses may not have the capacity (in terms of human or capital resources) to try to do too much, but if they do try and fail the consequences can be disastrous.

However, with a nod to branding expert Al Ries, Valeria cites this post on Branding Strategy Insider for the proposition that “Citigroup got bigger and weaker because the brand was stretched in so many directions [by its acquisitions in insurance, investment banking and brokerage]. As a result, the brand lost its meaning.” I agree that Citi’s experience is relevant to marketers – but for a completely different reason.

via dealbreaker.com

In an earlier life (20+ years ago – yikes!) I was an attorney for one of Citi’s law firms (my opinions and recollections are, of course, my own).  Back then, Citi concentrated less on consumers than on commercial and wholesale banking, on a large and often global scale.  From the institutional perspective, which (I believe) is how Citi approached them, brokerage, investment banking and insurance are indeed adjacent businesses and it made sense to take advantage of the regulatory changes that permitted the acquisitions.

I believe the problem was that entering these businesses forced Citi to be more consumer-focused than it knew how or even wanted to be.  None of its acquisitions brought world-class consumer marketing to the table and as far as I know there was no in-house culture that would or could have turned Citi into a consumer-centric institution like Commerce (now TD Bank) or even Wells Fargo (bear in mind that the bank’s tagline is still (or again), “The Citi never sleeps”).

My takeaway from Citi is not that it spread itself too thin but that it misunderstood what it was buying.  Specifically, Citi underestimated the inherent consumer component of its new businesses.  If I’m right, Citi found itself suddenly in need of large-scale consumer marketing capabilities that it didn’t have; it’s been trying to catch up ever since.

For smaller businesses, with so much less margin for error, it is vital to fully understand any new business venture – and from the perspective of the customer, not just the business owner.  Remember, Citi thought it was buying synergistic institutional finance businesses only to find out that it was buying consumer businesses, too.  The key question is whether – and how – your interactions with customers of the new business will differ from what you are doing now.  Will you need to spend more time with the customer?  Know more about the customer?  How much training will your associates need?  Can you use your current associates at all?

So my lesson from Citigroup is this: Understand your customer, but understand your business first.

The whole notion of Black Friday is that it’s the “official kick-off” of the “holiday shopping season.” The quotes are because shopping doesn’t strike me as an activity like, say, deer hunting, that needs to have a “season” with start and end dates. In fact, both the shopper-as-hunter metaphor, with credit card-wielding consumers stalking elusive bargains between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and the notion of a shopping season itself, seem more than a bit contrived.

The “shopping season” traditionally has been when large retail brands make a big fourth quarter investment in both promotional pricing and advertising to communicate those promotions. Car dealers do the same thing, with end-of-model-year clearance sales that combine price cuts with big media buys and creative that focuses on price.  The only difference is that the calendar isn’t as kind to car dealers: there isn’t a natural period for this promotional push. In other words, the “shopping season” concept is simply a marketing strategy for merchants that have enough margin and marketing budget to load their marketing when they believe consumers are closer to the point of intention.

image from http://static.squidoo.com

In fairness to the big brands, shoppers may indeed get a bit of a thrill standing in a crowded line before dawn waiting to storm a big-box retailer and bag one of its “doorbuster” specials. Generations of women experienced a similar frisson whenever Loehmann’s had a sale. (However, it appears that both consumers and retailers have learned from last year’s Black Friday, where some stores were the scene of too much excitement.)

Another reason for questioning the “shopping season” construct is that so much price competition now takes place “out of season.” If shoppers are hunters, they do a lot of poaching! The internet has effectively obliterated whatever control large retailers exercised over information available to consumers. Between retailer and e-commerce sites, pure social networks and social shopping sites (soon to include Zavee), consumers now can easily locate, learn about and compare products and prices. As they are better able to make rational shopping decisions, consumers don’t necessarily restrict their purchasing to the fourth quarter. Indeed, given the ease and security of online purchasing conventional retailers feel price pressure year round.

So, what do Black Friday and the “holiday shopping season” mean for local businesses? First of all, high marketing spend to drive traffic for products with deeply promotional pricing is an approach with little relevance to most small businesses. This is not a big company strategy to emulate!

Second, to the extent that more consumers are out shopping at this time of year, consider tactics that play to your strengths, especially relating to service. If you are located in an area that sees increased traffic, why not offer walk-ins a cup of coffee, or a neck rub? If you can swing it, hire a babysitter to watch your customers’ kids – even while the parents shop next door. And if you have quality data on your customers, reach out to your best customers with an email, a card or even a phone call, just to let them know they matter and to invite them to drop by. Make sure they can reach you on social networks and always, always give them something positive to talk about.

What else should you do for Black Friday? Well, you could go shopping. There are supposed to be a lot of bargains around – some of them expressly for small business.

Update: Via MediaPost’s Marketing Daily blog: “Web-Savvy Shoppers Are Season’s Real Story”.