Original Influencer Tupperware’s 6-Step Social Commerce Strategy

If any company knows the value of social influencers, it's Tupperware Brands, the originators of the Tupperware party that turned neighbors, families, and friends into centers of commerce.

So, it comes as no surprise that Tupperware has created an effective path to move from social media to social commerce, strategies laid out by Rekha Ramesh, chief digital and information officer of Tupperware Brands at the Consumer Goods Sales & Marketing Summit last week.

"Every one of you already should be doing social media marketing, and I’m sure you are," Ramesh noted, but the question now should be focused on how consumer goods companies are translating it these efforts into social commerce. “How do we make it easier for [consumers] to engage and take that action towards commerce?"

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Ramesh, a 2021 CGT CIO of the Year winner, offered a four-level path to evolve social media efforts to social commerce in order to move from engagement to click-to-action: awareness, consideration, conversion, and loyalty. She then laid out a six-step plan that can be applied to any company's social media initiatives.

1. Set your target — determine consumer segments, goals and methods: "What is the consumer segment, what is the goal, what kind of methods we are engaging with – is it user generated content, is it social influencer, is it the brand message itself?" Ramesh explained.

2. Listen to your audience — develop feedback mechanisms: "How are they sharing, how are they liking or disliking, and what does it mean? Make it a systematic approach," Ramesh advised, so you have “the ability to listen to the audience and modify the approach based on what the audience are saying."

3. Content, content, content — create dynamic, compelling and creative content: Whether you create the content or you encourage curated user-generated content, or a combination of the two, Ramesh recommended you keep content bite-sized. "We're all busy. We have 30 seconds to look at something, so [content] has to be compelling, engaging. Make an investment in technology tools and people to create the content, and the ability to share content across all social media."

[See also: Unilever’s Social Commerce Playbook Adds New Start-up Platform]

4. Customer experience — prioritize experiences throughout the full commerce cycle: The social media/commerce customer experience is about "going from 'Like' engagement [and] get them into buy buttons where you can translate that into revenue," Ramesh said, "and then continuously talk to them about the product or returns, or any other concerns after purchase."

5. Continuously improve — define approach to test, learn and optimize: One recommendation from Ramesh was to take a micro segment to do a test and learn and optimize.

6. Tracking — set up attribution models and comprehensive data structure: Among the questions you should be able to answer include: "Where is the sale coming from, who is influencing it, how are we affiliating back to the influencers?"

Finally, in order to gain the maximum benefits from following these steps, Ramesh pointed to the crucialness of hiring the right talent. Hiring someone who’s dedicated toward focusing on social media is important as a marketing executive may be more likely to look at such things as pricing, product strategy, campaign status, and how it’s all translating into sales.

A social media marketing person, meanwhile, can focus on the platforms, the content, and how they’re resonated with consumers.

Also: Don’t forget the interns or the content copywriters. “Let’s not forget to blend in interns [who] are going to be very valuable because of how they engage,” she noted. “They are your user base too, and they will be able to help listen and react and come up with the new strategies.”