Social eCommerce

Foreword

Jeremy Schoemaker, Founder and CEO of ShoeMoney Media Group and author of Nothing’s Changed But My Change: The ShoeMoney Story, 2014

With commerce, there isn’t just one pathway to success. Nonetheless, all indicators point to the incredible importance of having a solid and interactive online presence. Even locally, people are using search engines to find information and social media as a barometer of the public’s opinion. Many companies are being forced to compete with online retailers or risk obliteration.

I’ve witnessed firsthand the potential of social media marketing to boost sales and to improve conversion. In my case, I’ve had multiple occasions where one single well-planned event drove massive traffic and significantly boosted my audience.

I consider myself a serial entrepreneur. I’ve built many companies over the last decade, three of which I have sold, and currently am CEO of ShoeMoney Media Group and The PAR Program, Inc. In January of 2013, I wrote my own book titled Nothing’s Changed But My Change—The ShoeMoney Story, which has sold hundreds of thousands of copies to date. But what I am probably most known for is my ShoeMoney.com blog, which reaches millions of people per month.

But in the beginning, I admit to you that I was very ignorant of social media, which is really ironic, since it has become such a pivotal part of my brand building and ecommerce strategy. When I started working with Stephan, he already had a thriving search engine optimization (SEO) business. This was the 2000s, when SEO was still in its early phases. My brand was in need of a refresh. Stephan suggested an idea that I still consider innovative. He proposed having a contest to design my new business card. In turn, the contest would be sponsored by his client, Overnight Prints. The winning designer would win a lifetime supply of business cards, but more importantly, exposure on a highly read blog.

We launched the contest, and it immediately took off like a rocket. I had a solid following at the time, so between those readers, interest from followers of Overnight Prints, and various designers who had heard about the contest through social media, hundreds of designs flooded in.

Social media played a pivotal role in the promotion of the contest and in designers asking for votes from their networks, friends, and family. The contest was structured such that designs with enough votes went on to become finalists, and from there I would pick the winner.

One of my crowning achievements as an online entrepreneur was when I was named “The Most Influential Person on the Internet” by Fast Company Magazine in 2010. It was based on online voting from 1.63 million individuals. More on that in Fast Company.

However, I didn’t become an overnight success. Many years of hard work got me to the position where I could influence so many people online. Social media may not be directly relatable to the bottom line, but make no mistake, social media drives business value as a vehicle for influence. Nowadays, it is an essential ingredient to building a brand. Not only did Overnight Prints go from nowhere to position two for the keyword “business cards” in Google and a boost in business, but the positive exposure they received from the contest cannot be easily quantified in terms of sales or conversions. Instead, it is a priceless strategy move that has the possibility of taking a business into the future. Doing one specific action for search engine optimization or social media marketing will not bring success. But with a creative strategy over time, you will find profit. Especially when you find ways to do it with minimal overhead. In the contest, Overnight Prints only had to provide business cards to the winner, a deal that for a printing company, was a minimal cost.

Soon after the partnership and contest, I signed up with ad.ly, a social media company that partners big businesses with high-profile social media users. I had already garnered 100,000 Twitter followers, so I started receiving offers from very large brands, including Kmart, Walmart, and Universal Studios. I couldn’t believe these companies were offering me thousands of dollars per tweet, but the value must have been there for them or they wouldn’t have done it.

It was only once I launched my own ecommerce products that I truly understood the value that social media brings to ecommerce—when done right. What I love most about this book is the authors not only peel back the curtain into their methodology, but also give you a step-by-step plan and strategy to ensure social media success for your company.