This weekend football fans saw the New York Giants defeat the New England Patriots with a score of 21 to 17. But the Super Bowl is also about being with friends. And to many, like my spouse, the TV commercials are a more important part of what has become an American tradition.

What is different now is that there are many more ways to watch the game, view the ads and discuss them with others around the world. Fans can use web sites, social media platforms, broadband streaming, mobile devices and apps that encourage sharing and discussing, to read more about the impact of social TV – Read our previous blog post from Simon Ellacott. The result is ever increasing viewing, messaging, posting, sharing and discussing. Just take a look at these statistics from the past several years.

• 2012 Stats 12,233 Tweets per second (TPS), 111.3 Million Views and 47.8 Rating
• 2011 Stats 4,064 Tweets per second (TPS), 111 Million Viewers and 46.0 Rating
• 2010 Stats 106.5 Million Viewers and 45.0 Rating

Is It Live or Is It Pre-recorded?

The impact of multi-channel interaction is dramatic.The audience for live events has increased along with online social media DURING the event. While, over all, broadcast TV ratings continue to drop due to splintering of audiences to cable, on demand, time shifting and online alternatives.
This is because live events are social events. You can share the experience with others communally in real time. An increasing number of viewers use a laptop or mobile device for emailing, texting, posting and checking-in WHILE watching TV programing. A recent poll showed that 40% of mobile users say they use their devices to respond to ads on TV. When you couple that with a huge event like the Super Bowl, dramatic results can occur.

Live event programming like the Oscars, Emmys, Grammys, Election Debates and Reality TV finales have all seen increasing ratings over the last several years. These all coincide with measurable increases in activity on social platforms like Twitter. But none approaches the statistics and ad spend associated with the Super Bowl.

Isn’t It Just a Ball Game?

Some people this year are Patriots fans and some are Giants fans – but all are using social media to cheer and jeer each other. I am one who uses Twitter as part of my sporting event experience. I like to follow specific #hashtags associated with the team I am rooting for. I end up seeing a lot of fans’ reactions to moments in the game in a shared way. Teams have reacted by encouraging fans to interact with cyber outposts on Twitter, YouTube and Google+.

For many however, Super Bowl Sunday is about the commercials. It used to be that the ads’ contents were a surprise except to an inside few. Now it is common for the ads to be available as sneak previews to create even more traffic and excitement. Social Media is being used to increase participation with attractions such as online polling on Facebook.

As Social TV becomes more popular, more tools have cropped up to be part of the action. Certainly more and more integration will occur that blurs the line between broadcast, on-demand viewing, advertising and social interaction. One tool I personally use on my iPad and Android is GetGlue to check-in, rate and comment on what I am watching. This year its popularity has really taken off as they continue to add gamification to social experiences.

Do Channels Integrate?

Some advertisers use call to action methods to get viewers to continue the experience. In 2005 GoDaddy.com made a splash by asking viewers to go to their web site to see more of their suggestive commercial that was censored. This year they are also using QR Codes that allow mobile devices with cameras to go to See More Now. Clearly the trend is for advertisers to integrate and extend their $3.5M investments.

An example of a brand that really takes integration seriously is Bridgestone. As a primary Super Bowl sponsor they have outposts on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other platforms. The team at Bridgestone has obviously created a multi-channel strategy to extend and cross support popular online channels.

One tactic Bridgestone used was to create a number of teaser commercials available online before the game, and commercials such as Performance Football during the game. This ad is  complimented with several other performance sports commercials and the Time To Perform landing page. Their Facebook digital epicenter and other social media tactics both serve content to visitors as well as to encourage sharing and cross linking to other digital endpoints. Bridgestone could not have accomplished this breadth and depth of channel support for the Super Bowl without a good plan.

Why should you care? As a marketer or product manager you need to care because traditional advertising is being supplanted by a plethora of new communication channels for your prospects and customers to engage with. While the challenge of planning appropriate use of each channel is not simple, it can managed. A strategic framework can maximize benefits through effective channel management. A well managed set of integrated customer channel experiences can truly be bigger and better then each of them alone.

 “Everyone says that social television will be big. I think it’s not going to be big — it’s going to be huge” – Ynon Kreiz, CEO Endemol group

Social TV, connected TV, media convergence, transmedia… a whole new lexicon is emerging to describe possibly the greatest change to our relationship with the television since it first caught us in it’s hypnotic glare. Television has had a profound impact on the lives of humankind so this is a pretty bold statement to make, but we’re talking about the fundamental transformation of the television from one-way transmission to two-way communication. The implications are staggering: the convergence of mass media, digital information and communications could become the dominant design for social interaction of our future. How do I intend to justify such outrageous hyperbole? Well strap yourself in folks because it’s already happening, and it’s happening fast: almost half (45%) of all British viewers already use social media whilst watching TV. It creates a huge increase in the potential for communities to instantly react to real time news and events – from the X-factor performances to public protests. Gil Scott-Heron may have cause to rethink, the Revolution might be televised after all….

Interactivity in television has been a dull affair for a very long time: images are broadcast, you watch them. More recently TV shows have flirted with input from their viewers through the telephone, allowing viewers to provide opinions to presenters (or far more amusingly, to allow a child to press Margaret Thatcher about her plans for surviving a nuclear war). Staying with kid’s TV, Noel Edmonds managed to break new ground in 1976 by using the phone-in format extensively, live on air, from 1976 in the Multi-Coloured Swap Shop. This pretty much represented the apogee of viewer interaction until such audience-centred fayre in the 1980s as The Late, Late Breakfast Show (presenter: Noel Edmonds) and the 1990s where some shows started to actually involve viewers without their prior consent by the use of hidden cameras, live on air. Shows like, um, Noel Edmond’s ‘Noel’s House Party’.

Edmonds’ influence notwithstanding, today you can’t have failed to notice the direction we’re moving and the increase in interaction people have with TV programmes. You’ve been able to text or email shows like BBC Breakfast news for 10 years. You can follow and join the debates of topical TV shows like Question Time through your computer. And you’ve been able to shape the careers of music stars using the internet since Pop Idol way back in 2001.

Right now we are experiencing a huge upturn in the “two screen” model – people who watch TV are also commenting on Facebook or tweeting on Twitter whilst the programme is on. The increasing use of laptops and tablets to watch TV fuels the move towards the “single screen” model where people are able to do all this using a single device. Either way the concept is the same: viewers  communicating and sharing views on programmes together, discussing content and interacting with the show in real time. Internet television guides like Clicker are incorporating social elements to their site, whilst popular sources of internet media like BBC iPlayer are adding new functionality for chat and social networking. The big players are taking it seriously: Google TV may yet to make the impact originally predicted or totally transform the physical TV sets we buy, but other players are still investing. Social TV start up Zeebox has just been given $15m dollars by BSkyB and we await the launch of Youview in the UK in 2012 – an open, internet connected television platform that will support apps for us to interact with our TVs in new ways.

So it’s happening – but is this a good thing? Here I give my views on why an increase in TV interactivity could be a blessing or a curse:

Blessing

• No more lonely nights. Watching TV on your own? (either because you are trapped in a ‘Linton Travel Tavern’, or because the rest of your family won’t watch Terra Nova with you?). You can now join a virtual audience to connect and share your insights and opinions with like-minded people from all over the world.
• Instant feedback. TV producers have the potential to monitor chat and give their audience more of what they want, presumably increasing programme quality.
• Joining the debate. Live shows can get input from (and feed back to) large numbers of users like never before – using polls or opinion feeds.

Curse

• Keep it appropriate. There’s a risk that social elements may be shoehorned into TV shows that just don’t need them. Having a stream of user feedback on a beautiful nature documentary might be very informative, but I need to be able to turn it off if I just want to lose myself in the programme. Admittedly, the “two screen” model of social TV is always going to let me do this. 
• Content cannibalism. When the interactive element becomes the content. I fear this is already happening with news broadcasts (to me, the perfect example of a format where carefully checked, informative facts should be broadcast one-way to consumers). I don’t understand why newsreaders now casually include tweets and emails from their viewers, as though it were some legitimate kind of instant feedback on the world’s events. It’s the equivalent of the crew letting a crowd of random, possibly drunk, strangers into the studio and after presenting each fact, turning to the mob to solicit a few unqualified outbursts. There can be different, separate programmes provided specifically for that!

In summary I think that social TV has the prospect to make watching the humble ‘box’ much more fun and engaging, as long as we don’t get carried away with the possibilities. Perhaps even Noel Edmonds himself has some big plans.

5 years ago, who would have predicted the worldwide success of social platforms such as Facebook and Linked In and the immense volumes of information and data exchanged via digital channels like Twitter and YouTube.  These developments will undoubtedly continue to accelerate and significantly alter the world of customer service. But where will this journey take us? What will be the key drivers of change in the next ten years? And what will customers demand from our organisations?

Customer Service Senior executives from different  industries  discussed these questions in a  2-day Capgemini Consulting workshop . During the workshop six key trends were identified:

1. Engaging with the “new” customer

Customers will expect to be treated as  individuals and expect personalised customer service.

2. Managing the shift of control

Customers will increasingly gain influence over a company’s brand and market as they increasingly support each other in decision making and co-create new products

3. Moving to vendor relationship management

Customers are already becoming more knowledgeable about companies, and are consistently researching to decide when, how and by whom they are serviced. Are you ready for your customers to become your empowered partner?

4. Standing out from the crowd

Customers’ expectations are already shifting from ‘products’ to ‘services’. Going further forward, customers will expect composite solutions that fit their personalised solutions. Organisations will need to gain the customers’ trust and not become ‘one of the crowd’

5. Managing a mix of channels

The explosion of channels in the digital world means that organisations must now establish the right channel for every customer, at the right time, for the right purpose

6. Working in an uncertain environment

Social media and digital means that information travels around the world quickly and affects reputation instantly. Organisations will need to be able to respond quickly to unforeseen situations

Fromthe workshop it was clear that in 2020, good customer service will only be possible  if organisations addresses the new habits and digital preferences of customers. For more insight and detail about the future of customer service, the detail behind the trends, and a look at what these  mean for your organisation visit our dedicated eBook site http://www.capgemini-consulting.com/ebook/customerservice2020/

How are you setting your organisation up for customer service in 2020? Do you recognise these trends? Please leave comments and discuss

A few weeks ago, I attended my neighbor’s “BunBun Bag” party.  For those of you asking, a “BunBun Bag” party is an event where a host invites friends to their home for a social gathering, generally complemented with snacks and drinks, while showcasing a selection of products – in this case customisable hand bags and related accessories.  During the party, guests enjoy a ‘hands on’ demonstration or viewing of products, then place an order with the party host.  The host is generally entitled to a commission or payback in the form of product credits.  First launched by Tupperware in the 1950s, this type of party is quite common in the US.  Similar companies practicing this form of direct selling include Silpada (jewelry), Pampered Chef (kitchen products), and PartyLite (candles), while the best known example in the UK are Ann Summers parties.

Anyway, back to the BunBun Bag party …. as I listened to this group of loosely connected individuals rave about a certain product, or help each other find the perfect fabric for a bag, I could not help but wonder, “Isn’t this the social network companies are trying to achieve in the digital world?”  The parallels were plentiful:

• Our ‘social network’ consisted of a group of people with a commonality – we all had a connection to my neighbor.  It was less about having an interest in the product, and more about our social connection.
• There was significant ‘customer to customer dialog’– and I’m talking specifically about the kind of dialog that is useful from the sales & marketing perspective.  Product recommendations from past customers were frequent, as were positive responses to questions like “do you think I could take this bag to the gym?”
• Although spread by word of mouth, we truly experienced ‘viral marketing’. Only one person had to say “These purse hooks are great!  Imagine not having to set your purse down on the floor of <insert name of your local drinking establishment here>.”  And the sentiment spread like wild fire; even after the original purse hook promoter left, the recommendation was often repeated, making this item a popular purchase, typically an ‘add on’ sale in addition to the standard handbag (or two) that most guests ordered.
• ‘Gamification’ is also a common element of the in-home sales party.  For example, guests can win prizes by answering questions about products, or earn a ticket for a product raffle for each additional guest they bring with them to the party.

Given the parallels between ‘analog’ and ‘digital’ social networks, I propose there are a few lessons we can take from the in home party to the online world:

1. Let me ‘try on’ your product:  Some components of the BunBun experience can’t be fully replicated online.  Actually being able to ‘hold’ and ‘feel’ the handbags is a critical part of the buying process for some products.  But companies like Endless.com have creatively addressed such challenges.  Originally created by Amazon (read my prior blog to learn about my love affair with that company!), Endless.com sells shoes and accessories strictly online.  Endless.com has broken through the barrier that no one would want to buy shoes without first “trying them on” by offering free, two day shipping on all products, with free returns, for example, if they don’t look or feel quite right.  A superior visual search also enables this new buying habit.  Asos, the UK fashion company, offers a similar service by providing returns labels and re-sealable packaging.
2. Show me the money. Many companies that sell via parties practice “multi-level marketing” whereby the sales people are not only rewarded for their own sales, but also for the sales of people that they recruit to host such parties.  In the digital world, it is already quite commonplace for companies to reward their customers for referrals with discounts on future purchases or product credits.  But the power of the referral has become so evident that companies like Vouchfor now exist with a primary service to simplify or outsource the referral reward process.
3. Make me your friend. And this isn’t just about getting me to ‘Like’ your Facebook page, though that could be a start.  Consider the BunBun Bag party – would anyone really want to say “No” when asked if a certain purse looked good with an outfit, potentially hurting that person’s feelings, while also decreasing the likelihood of a sale for the party host (their friend)?  The more a customer gets to know and like a company (or its people), the more likely they are to make you their preferred supplier.  Over Christmas, I purchased 16 ‘Life is Good‘ tee shirts as presents, after becoming a big fan of the company’s corporate spirit (“Spreading the Power of Optimism”), its customer-friendly policies (such as free shipping on all purchases, returns, and exchanges, and its social conscience (donating portions of all proceeds to help kids with life-threatening challenges).  Knowing the company, I felt as if I wasn’t just giving a tee shirt, but rather a shirt with a story.

So the next time we applaud a company for digital innovations to improve its social marketing and sales, let’s be sure to give a ‘shout out’ to Tupperware for teaching us about Social Selling sixty years ago!

For the uninitiated, Google Wallet lets you store your credit card details on your mobile phone and uses Near Field Communication (NFC) technology to allow users to ‘wave’ their mobile at a Point of Sale device and have the relevant amount deducted.  Online purchases can also be made through the app.  Google Wallet has been live in the US since September 2011 with retailers like GAP, Macy’s and ToysRUs all offering relevant m-payment options.  Whilst this all sounds great, the launch was limited given that Google Wallet is only available on a small number of devices, through one mobile operator (Sprint, one of the US’ biggest) and currently supports only two types of card (MatsterCard and a Google prepaid card – not quite a full wallet just yet – although plans to bring Visa and AMEX are underfoot by all accounts).Google and Sprint however aren’t the only players in the m-payment space nowadays, with other mobile networks, banks and payment services all vying to get a piece of the pie:

• T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T, the other top three mobile operators in the US, are collaborating on a similar project (ISIS) expecting to launch later this year.  In the meantime they are blocking the Google Wallet app on their handsets (that’s competition for you!)
• Ebay’s PayPal have taken things even further and are taking legal action against Google for stealing secrets by poaching staff.  They’re currently testing their own solution with two Swedish retailers with rumours of a US pilot in coming months.
• And, just last Wednesday, Samsung, RIM and LG smartphones were all certified for Visa Paywave suggesting that the UK market is hotting up ahead of the London Olympics.

So drama aside, what needs to happen for m-payments to become a regular feature of our everyday lives and be adopted by the consumer?  I thought I’d look at this question from a ‘Ready, Willing and Able’ perspective:

1)      Ready:  m-Payment technology needs to be readily available on a number of handsets across a variety of mobile providers and contracts.  In addition, shops need to have the Point of Sale equipment and back office processes in place to accept m-payment transactions.

2)      Willing:  Consumers have to choose the m-payment option over cash, card and cheque.  Barriers to this are concerns around security and what the purchase data will be used for (just imagine how much more Google could do if they knew not only what we search for but what we purchase too!).  Firms will need to go on a charm offensive, clearly articulating the benefits of m-payments, being up-front about their security and data policies, avoiding any serious issues in the first few weeks/months and thinking of exciting new ways to incentivise take-up.

3)      Able: Once the technology is in place and consumers are willing to use it, they have to be able to complete their purchases successfully.  This means an easy to use interface with instructions and guidance, clear and efficient processes for when problems do occur and educated store staff, able to resolve issues at the point of failure.

At some point in the future, I believe we will all be waving our mobiles around with youthful abandon, paying for things effortlessly and probably spending more as a result.  The journey has begun … now we just need to see what route providers and retailers will take us down!

But, before we completely forget about 2011, let’s take a moment to reflect on what was hot on the customer experience blog, and make a prediction for customer experience in 2012. Below is our top 5 blogs based on number of views and it makes for some great insights.

• Four questions to inform your mobile app strategy

Fuelled by the launch of the apple app store, we took a look at the incredible rise of ‘the mobile application’ and considered the five types of mobile apps that could be used to engage the customer, asking four questions that would help shape your mobile app strategy going forward.

• The rise of social commerce: Re-designing the shopping experience

As Facebook continues to attract millions of users and races towards the 1 billionth user, we looked at who was already starting to experiment with social shopping on the facebook platform, and asked whether this would have a dramatic impact on the shopping experience

• 3D printing: Breaking the mass production paradigm

Viewed as a disruptive new technology at the start of 2011, 3D printing started challenging the consumption experience of manufactured products for the consumer. At the time of writing, 3D printing was mainly used for prototyping in the aerospace industry, but as manufacturing of the devices become cheaper – the opportunities for 3D printing exploded. I definitely think this is one to keep an eye on in 2012.

• Groupon – Demonstrating the power of group buying and social shopping

Following the much anticipated IPO of the daily deals website, we decided to look at whether this was a serious contender as a business model for the future or whether this was the beginning of something bigger in the ‘heavily discounted group buying’ business model in the digital world.

• 2011: Our look ahead to what’s going to be big in digital customer experience this year

As we started 2011, we took a look ahead at what we believed would be the three big digital transformation trends; the professionalisation of digital media and how facebook and twitter would become ‘acceptable’ business tools, the importance of mobility and how mobile will be massive in 2011, and the need to apply the human touch with the customer through digital tools.

A few other posts that created a lot of discussion on our twitter page was personalisation vs. segmentation and whether it can go too far, gamification – another buzz word or a real game changer, and how digital transformation is changing the way we expect to be able to work, at work

For me, 2011 was just the beginning of what will become the era of digital transformation. As we move in to 2012, I believe customers will continue to demand and expect a customer experience that is uniquely relevant to them –  organisations will have to continue to evolve their operating models and be flexible in their approach to take advantage of these fast moving and disruptive changes.

What are your thoughts? Are you a customer who demands more from organisations? Are you an organisation unsure of how to deal with these digital disruptors? Do post your comments below

Fast forward to today and social networking is all about the sharing of content. But sharing content within a trusted circle. Part of Facebook’s success is because it started out a closed social network, only eligible to students at specific schools. LinkedIn has a huge emphasis on whether someone is connected through one of your trusted friends, colleagues, or acquaintances.

But is the social web now evolving from trusted sharing to open discovery?

Trusted sharing is extremely useful in finding great recommendations, but usually only for topics that you are interested in too, as chances are your social circles have more or less the same interests as you. For example, I know my social circle will deliver great and copious amounts of recommendations on good restaurants in London, but less so on which private jet to buy.

Enter something like Pinterest – which has seen tremendous success around its model of open discovery and cataloguing of photos. Users create public “pin boards”, where photos of the topic can be collected and curated. Sometimes you don’t know what you’re looking for until you find it – and while text-based search engines and text-based social networks are great for when you can describe what you want in words, Pinterest’s image-based cataloguing allows users to explore – and discover – things they didn’t even know existed. Anyone who has tried to find images around a topic in Google Images knows exactly the frustration that Pinterest solves elegantly.

For a newly launched start-up, what was surprising was the amount of home cooks and brides-to-be that were interested. Usually, it’s the male web geeks who are the early adopters – but for Pinterest, 70% of its early users are female.

And it’s not just new start-ups like Pinterest that are enjoying this shift from trusted sharing to open discovery. Remember Pandora and StumbleUpon? Both launched in 2007, saw some early success, but struggled to gain traction. But both have seen a revival in fortunes lately, especially StumbleUpon, doubling its visitors in the last few months after years of stagnant growth. Both are social discovery networks – Pandora lets you explore music based on your listening habits, and StumbleUpon recommends new stories based on your past reading habits. A new mobile app, News360, takes it one step further by analyzing your social media posts to find out your interests, and then delivers a customised news feed to you.

Even Google Plus is getting into open discovery, as apart from seeing things shared by your friends, you can also see public items shared geographically near you – helping you to discover your local neighbourhood.

What does this all mean for businesses trying to reach customers through social?

Firstly, don’t abandon your efforts in trying to build quality, trusted relationships with your customers. A huge part of your efforts should still be on Trusted Sharing, whether it’s building the brand to consumer relationship or positively influencing word-of-mouth trusted recommendations. But investing in the social discovery space can be especially powerful in situations where it’s more of a one-time purchase or where awareness of your brand or products are low among your target customers. Think bridesmaid dresses or designer furniture, where it would be hard to build that trusted relationship online beforehand.

Customers will use social discovery networks like Pinterest and Google Plus in the same way they go and browse in shops instead of buying through Amazon – sometimes they have a vague outline of what they want, but need that inspiration and discovery to truly define what they’re looking for.

1. Display Advertising (Paid and affiliate)

This method is useful for both brand awareness and direct response campaigns however the way in which you assign your budget might differ depending on what you are trying to achieve.

If you are looking to raise brand awareness, perhaps associated with the launch of a new product or service then you are looking for high visibility ads which might not be particularly targeted.

For a direct response campaign where you are trying to get customers to complete a certain goal (eg purchasing an item or signing up for a newsletter) then click-through and conversion rate is important. Here, spend is much more targeted as you are focussing on ROI.

An alternative avenue to display networks is affiliate marketing, whereby you agree to have your ads shown on a site in return for a share of your profits,

2. Search Advertising and SEO

There are two sides to search-based advertising: paid and organic. The paid market is dominated by Google Adwords and is based on search engine keywords. With Adwords you pay-per-click, so if anyone clicks on your ad you will be charged a certain amount.

In my experience this strategy is most effective for direct-response campaigns. You can target your keywords very carefully so that people searching for your brand or terms closely associated with it will be served your text advert. If you are looking to increase brand awareness however then bidding for keywords associated with your brand and brand values is valuable.

The organic search market has far less certainty than the paid search market and, I’ve discovered that  a business should be very wary of in terms of spend. Here the key is the often misunderstood art of search engine optimisation. Since search engines are constantly changing their algorithms – there is no one recipe for success. Although crucial and a cost effective means of driving traffic I would advise you to be wary when choosing an SEO company because success is hard to quantify.

3. Social Media Marketing

This is an incredibly important new avenue, with low costs associated with it. Here the focus has to be on engagement with the customer and quality of content, people will not just “like” or “follow” you because you are there, you have to offer an incentive. The communication is two-way however so be wary, we’ve all heard horror stories of companies or people being exposed by rogue accounts set up by disgruntled parties! Membership to these sites is often free, set-up costs are low and it is simply the direct or opportunity cost of you/your staff running the accounts that has to be considered.

4. Mobile

It is useful to have a mobile optimised site (which is often simpler than you’d think) and make your business visible on GPS-based apps/maps. Most of the methods I have outlined above are available on a mobile platform however one thing which, in my experience is effective at driving calls to your company is the “click-to-call feature” on text adverts which allows the user to call the business directly from a search results page.

5. Apps

Much has been written on this topic, so I will keep it brief. Work out what it is you want from your app (4 questions to inform your mobile app strategy) . Is it a sell to me tool, a store-finder, a channel via which your customers can communicate with you or purchase products?  As with social media, make sure you are offering an incentive to those downloading your app. In my opinion, although hard to calculate ROI, if done well an app can prove very successful because they are viral and apart from an initial outlay have low costs associated with them.

Always assign a small test budget to a variety of strategies, test them out, give it time and calculate the effectiveness before committing to a single strategy. And you will discover the joy of online marketing is that it allows you to be very flexible and try new things, often with low costs associated.

We all know what traditional shopping is about. You visit a supermarket or grocery store and buy the required items. Online shopping has also become so common in recent years that it can also be included in the traditional shopping category.

Social shopping thus emerges as the new and exciting alternative. Thanks to the smartphone revolution, innovative applications and payment modules have made things easier for shoppers.

What is Social Shopping?

In simplest terms, social shopping can be defined as the buying of items from an online or actual store by using social media applications. It is a combination of QR codes, social networks and social media applications. Once in a virtual or real store, shoppers can interact with their friends and family members. They can ask about the experience of using a particular product. They can also use applications that aggregate customer reviews for that particular item.

Many retailers now offer their own applications for smartphones, iPads and other gadgets. In most cases, these applications help in

• Finding discounts
• Searching the aisle location of products
• Reading product details
• Comparing prices
• Reading reviews and ratings

Every company has a different approach with some enabling users to compare prices with their competitors. The companies listed below are making good use of the phenomenon.

Sears

Sears in the US has launched a social media application that enables users to access its catalog and compare prices with other retailers. The company now offers free Wi-Fi access at select stores to enable shoppers in browsing the Internet and find the best deals. Additionally, Sears has started providing iPads and other mobile devices to its employees to improve customer service.

House of Fraser

House of Fraser is another retail brand that is using the concept to enhance sales. The company has opened a store in Aberdeen that caters exclusively to users relying on social media and smartphones.

The outlet does not display its inventory on racks and aisles but instead provides free Wi-Fi access to customers. They can sip coffee and browse the online product line of the company. If they like an item, they can order it online. House of Fraser offers them the option to either collect the order from the store next day or receive it at their doorstep.

Sam’s Club

The membership retailer, which works as part of the Walmart Group, offers an elaborate smartphone shopping experience. During the recent holiday season, it has created a mobile micro-site that enables users to create customised shopping and gifting lists. They can also view the aisle maps and store layouts, avail daily deals and discounts, and sign up for special promotions.

Toys R Us

The toy retailer is firing up its smartphone engines for this holiday shopping season. Along with its in-house applications, the company offered discounts to shoppers checking in with Foursquare on Black Friday weekend. Discounts were also available to Shopkick users during the holidays.

The promotions were in addition to the on-going social media and mobile payment solutions offered by the company. It is already in partnership with Google Wallet to simplify payments. Toy R Us also allows eBay users to check product availability using Milo and RedLaser apps and the mobile payment option removes the need of carrying cash or credit cards.

So what does all this mean?

The results are encouraging as well. According to the research by Capgemini and IMRG, online sales from 2010 to 2011 are up 15%. Similarly, there is a 300% increase in number of people using mobile devices to access a store’s website.

The ultimate beneficiary will be the customers who can shop anything and everything they want at significant discounts and without waiting in long lines or complaining about late delivery of online orders. All they need is a smartphone and an Internet connection.

My risk-averse personality cannot ignore this opportunity for illness-prevention and I’ve decided to give it a go.

Sickweather Home Page

After signing up to the bright orange and blue site, I’m greeted with the message “Susanna, how are you feeling today?” A drop down menu dictates my options which include 23 different symptoms from chicken pox to whooping cough.

I wait to see what compassion Sickweather will offer me as I submit “sore throat,” which I’ve been complaining about since I woke up. I wouldn’t go so far as to say the response was “sympathetic” but it’s closest I’ve come to it all day: “Thank you for telling us how you feel! Get better soon!”

The Sickweather map of the UK is covered by large orange triangles of “symptom activity” and fleeing to South Wales seems the only safe option. However, this is not 28 Days Later and I don’t think my manager will be terribly understanding if I send him a screen shot with “on the run from the common cold” in the subject box. Instead I decide to “see who else has a sore throat” in my postcode. I guess this is the point where I can dole out blame on my neighbours for my current deteriorating state, or experience guilt if none of them are yet afflicted. (For a brief moment I consider abandoning the task as I recall the shame of being the “source” of chickenpox at Brownies twenty-something years ago – scarred without even scratching!) The results come in. “Common cold, headache and flu are going around Waltham Forest.” Blame it is then!

I use the map to zoom in hoping to be able to channel my scorn more directly but the screen only shows two other “single symptom” reports in the area. These are incredibly specific – I could probably locate (or indeed avoid) each sufferer down to within three houses. Presumably this information has been sourced from Facebook or Twitter, as the website itself only located me as precisely as “London.”

Only this weekend I was bemoaning the merciless effects of Facebook updates on your psyche. The constant and addictive stream of sunny location updates, exciting nights out and beaming photos often leave me feeling like I’m missing out: why am I sat in my room staring at a laptop instead of bungee jumping into Victoria Falls dressed as Superman? Sickweather has quite the reverse effect. Yes, I feel a bit rough but look, apparently, so does the majority of the South East. It’s like seeing a zoomed-in photo of Scarlett Johansson with a bright red ring circling some so-called “imperfection.” In the same way that I’m not wishing cellulite and spots on celebrities, I’m not delighting in the knowledge of someone else’s illness, but it does make me feel a little less pathetic.

Sickweather is being promoted on its potential for helping you dodge germ hot-spots but given that unavoidable places such as public transport and the workplace are the most likely areas for picking up the flu, this avoidance isn’t likely to be practical. Seeing the mask-clad commuters in Tokyo left me thinking that the British would never go in for such attire. I think that the true value of Sickweather is as an online empathy tool allowing us to gain a more realistic perspective of the activities and feelings of other people in our community.

Numerous social networking tools already exist for the different “faces” of our lives – LinkedIn, Twitter, FB – and many of us purposefully keep these separate. For me, Sickweather offers an opportunity to express another side. Today my FB profile pic is still me living it large in Canyonlands but on Sickweather, I exist as “sore throat, London.” No doubt this new found self-expression and community-belonging is having a positive effect on my immune system and so there we have it: Sickweather – the online cure for the common cold! Watch the virus spread!