Today’s consumers are diligent in their online research when it comes to making purchasing decisions – they ask questions, scour review sites and discussion forums, and see what products their friends recommend before heading to the store or clicking the checkout button. They also openly share their own brand and retail experiences with their social networks, influencing other consumers. These social media conversations have huge benefits for brands and retailers when it comes to engaging with consumers, gaining valuable insight and building relationships in the process.

Collective Bias recognized the benefits of these conversations and created a community to facilitate these connections. Brad Lawless, VP of Communications, and Courtney Velasquez, Director of Community, joined us to share more on how Collective Bias works and what makes its business model so successful in connecting consumers, brands, and retailers through social media.

Cultivating Community

Social Fabric, the Collective Bias community, consists of real-life bloggers who are referred by other members – or invited to join – by the Collective Bias team. Members can participate in various brand-oriented campaigns and share their thoughts on their blogs and other social media platforms. Members can also join various interest groups within Social Fabric, such as Foodies or Healthy Living, ensuring they are approached to participate in campaigns that are most relevant to them and their readership and creating a more targeted approach to word-of-mouth marketing.

The Authentic Experience

As with any social media community, authenticity is crucial when it comes to the success of Collective Bias and Social Fabric. Their 1,600 members are already established bloggers (or “professional content creators” as Brad calls them) who enjoy sharing their interests, opinions, and experiences with like-minded people. The key to the success of Collective Bias campaigns is that their campaigns align closely with the content that Social Fabric members are already sharing and influential about. To read about some of the members of the Social Fabric community, visit the Collective Bias blog.

The Feedback Loop

Collective Bias and its clients rely on the open and honest feedback from the Social Fabric members when it comes to their campaigns. Collective Bias is able to receive real-time feedback from its community members as campaigns are happening, information that they can then pass onto their clients to then assess their strategy and make changes as needed. This focused feedback allows for a quick response from brands and retailers and gives them additional insight into their customers’ needs and expectations.

Brad and Courtney shared one example of a popular retailer campaign launch for a well-known candy brand, demonstrating how feedback from their community members allowed their client to make changes to their campaign to make it even more successful. You can hear that story and more by watching the whole webinar below.

Zoë Geddes-Soltess is a Community Engagement Specialist at Radian6, with a focus on Consumer Packaged Goods and Retail. You can follow her on Twitter at @zodot. Check out some of her other Radian6 posts here.

Tags: blogger, collective bias, Community, Webinar