Opening Your Social Branch
How do you communicate with your customers? And how does this compare to how your customers want to communicate with you? It's being available where your customers are, just like opening a new branch. When Second Life was in its hayday, US based multinationals and banks took to it like moths to a flame and opened virtual branches with transactional capability within second life that used the native currency, Linden dollars.
Today, with over 400 million users, Facebook offers the virtual experience of choice. With a native currency, Facebook Credits, and full transactional capability, organisations are staking their claim with Fan pages and applications galore. One example is 1800 Flowers. Another is Pampers, who cleverly used it for a new product launch. How can you get started? Kim Boatman offers a few suggestions over at Inc.com. Also, there's an Australian based outfit, Moluko, doing good things in this space.
Starbucks keep coming up with intuitive Facebook integrations like their Starbucks Card application. Useful online management functions have not only been imported into Facebook, but also tailored to fit. For example, reloading a friends card.
Related Reading: Glenbrook's Model for Social Payments by @GP_Russ_Jones
All up, it looks like an open book that needs to be written.
Cheers, @kunalkripalani
