On Monday, uber-consultant Chris Brogan—who often uses personal experiences to teach or engage his followers—challenged us to find a way to create a chain reaction for online purchases.
In his concise, logical post, Brogan explains how an order of fajita’s passing through a restaurant dining room triggers more orders (ooh, the sizzle; ooh, the smell—its enough to make me want to head to On the Border right now).
Brogan’s idea is to offer incentives to customers if they tweet their purchase.
Know what? It could work.
There are already social sites that allow users to share their purchase information—what they bought and how much they spent—but such services require users be connected (much like you must be friends with a Facebook’er to see what he/she is sharing). Brogan’s concept is similar, but provides for broader reach using platforms most of our friends already use. The question is—as he puts it—how do you tempt others to follow suiy when they can’t “smell the fajitas”?
Some of Brogan’s loyal followers have posted creative ideas, the most compelling being offering a small discount (like 5%) if someone agrees to tweet or like their purchase in real-time. Some online stores already have “I just bought” tweet functionality built-in, but, for most, there’s no real way to confirm if the shopper actually completes the task. Thus, a real-time discount would require some development work if the store owner wants to prevent rewards hitting those who don’t hold up their end of the bargain. For some shopping carts it could mean generating coupons for a future purchase.
Instant gratification (discounts now, rather than later) is a great way to close sales. The way I see it, social media could easily play a big role in not only finalizing purchases, but bringing more people in the door.
What say you? Is live-tweeting what you’re buying worth a discount? Are consumers willing to share their purchases with the world?
Chime in below.
