Social Commerce Platform Overview: Buddy Media – Big Brands’ Friend in Social Media

by Paul Chaney
in Social
— 25 Nov, 2011

Every brand needs a buddy in social media. At least that’s what social commerce platform provider Buddy Media thinks. Founded in 2007, the company has developed a suite of products that enable brands to leverage social media – Facebook in particular – to take advantage of its social graph to spread their message.

Put another way, the company’s mission is to “re-invent the way brands communicate to their consumers in a connections-based world.” And one way it is doing this is through social commerce, in its own words – powering social connections to generate revenue (free white paper download).

Relationship to Social Commerce

Of its products, one in particular is specifically-purposed to address the needs of online retailers: ConversionBuddy. The product helps brands track and guide interactions with customers all the way through the purchase funnel from the first click to the final sale.

To be more specific, it helps brands:

Allow consumers to share content and products across social networks;
Understand how social media drives traffic, sales and other conversions;
Identify brand advocates, determining which audience segment shares most frequently and generates the most traffic and revenue per share;
Discover which products and pieces of content are most popular and how they travel across multiple social networks;
Uncover which social networks – Facebook, Twitter and more – generate the highest revenue per share.

Two other products also speak to the needs of social commerce:

ConversationBuddy – a tool designed to help brands create and publish engaging content to Facebook, Twitter and Google+ and drive traffic to the retailer’s ecommerce site.

ProfileBuddy – a set of more than 50 social applications (sappiest) that enable brands to create sweepstakes and contests with customized data entry forms, deploy product galleries to highlight featured items or services, and to leverage pre-existing content via Open API access to Twitter, Amazon, Flickr, and FourSquare. The app can be used to display and promote products on Facebook with click-through links to the point of sale on the ecommerce site.

In terms of social commerce per se, Buddy Media believe that the successful powering of social connections to generate revenue is driven by three key factors;

Content – Create content that is tailored to maximize the potential of various social networks. Avoid using a one size-fits-all approach.
Branding – Because anybody can create a page and impersonate a brand, steps need to be taken to create a unified brand aesthetic across all digital platforms to reassure users they are in the right place.
Sharing – Connections across all social networks can provide information with the bonus of a personal recommendation, driving commerce in a way that even widespread advertising cannot.

Buddy Media Clients

Buddy Media is the social enterprise software of choice for eight of the world’s top ten global advertisers. Its client roster spans 15 industry verticals and includes over 400 brands such as American Express, Carnival Cruise Lines, Ford, HP, L’Oreal, NBC, NFL, TJ Maxx and Zappos.

Why Use Buddy Media

Why should brands consider using Buddy Media, especially when worthwhile competitors like Wildfire, Vitrue, Involver and Context Optional also provide tools to leverage Facebook? There are three reasons that come to mind:

Understands Social Media Culture – Not that the others don’t, but Buddy Media understands the social media culture as well as anyone. “Consumers aren’t looking at ads, nor are they looking at brand websites; but are sharing engaging stuff,” said Buddy Media CEO Michael Lazarow in an interview with Beet.TV. That’s what the company does – provide engaging content that people want to share.

Sole Focus is on the Enterprise – The company’s social marketing suite is geared solely to the enterprise.

Award Winning – Buddy Media’s list of industry awards is extensive. In fact, it is the most award-winning social enterprise software company in the industry. In the past year, Buddy Media has won the “Best Enterprise” TechCrunch “Crunchie” award, been named to the Advertising Age “2011 Digital A-List” and CEO and Founder Michael Lazerow was selected as 2011 New York Entrepreneur of the Year® by Ernst & Young.

Company Information

Funding

Buddy Media is the most well-funded of all the platforms we’ve covered to date. Through a four-round series the company has raised a total of $90 million. Investors include Softbank Capital, Greycroft Partners, Bay Partners and others.

Management Team