Something new and some may say groundbreaking is happening in social media. Now, how is this possible, when it looks like we saw almost everything in social media? We are talking about gifting your friends through good old Facebook.
How this works?
If you think that this is no big deal and that you won’t be interested in such thing, think about this- Your friend had a bad day, broke his/her leg, and now he/she is in the hospital. While your friend is in the hospital he/she is ‘killing’ the time with iPad, or iPhone or whatever piece of gadget you may think about. While you’re on a Facebook you see your friend’s status explaining the situation and you feel sorry for him/her.
Now, at this moment you start thinking that you would like to send a GET WELL SOON card, but you remembered that this can be done online, in real time, while your friend is talking to you. Even better, you can wrap that card together with some gift (teddy bear, funny t-shirt, favorite food…countless options). This is called Gifting Your Friends through Social Media.
Who can use this?
The possibilities are endless-Birthdays, Weddings (how about wedding gift lists?), Sweet 16’s, Anniversaries, Child births, Valentine’s Day and so on. Everyday life has moved to internet long time ago, and this adds to the number of things and services you can have while using social media.
Some big names have already joined the social gifting rush and positions are being taken as you read this post. Facebook has even acquired a start-up called Karma (offers different options-upgrading gift, giving it to charity, passing it to someone else etc…). Other start-ups such as Sweden based Wrap have already become names in the field of Social Gifting.
A lot of big brands such as Heinz, Burger King, Starbucks and Sears have already used social gifting to attract more customers. The whole idea behind social gifting is definitely interesting on a short run, especially for the companies that decided to be the first ones, because if nothing else, it is an interesting way to promote a brand. For example, GET WELL SOON with HEINZ TOMATO SOUP gift was an instant hit.
Another great example was McDonalds McWrap campaign in Sweden. It was powered by already mentioned start-up Wrap. They decided to target females, 25 years and older and the promotion was so well played that sales went up significantly. After this they decided to offer gifts to both man and woman no matter what age they were.
Is there a future for this service?
The future of Social Gifting depends a lot on the first users impressions, and it is still uncertain how the whole idea will grow. There is a lot of unused virtual space in social media that can be taken by either big or small companies, and it all depends on how interesting their gift campaign is going to be and how it will be accepted by customers.
Thinking about sites like Groupon brings on the idea that social gifting can be interesting for companies that offers services instead of products. If it can work on Groupon, it can work on Facebook as well, even better, since the customer will get a coupon for a free service and not services on sale. Everything from travels to hair salons, as long as you can cash-in the gift. No matter if you have to do it online or offline.
No matter what the social gift is going to be about it is likely that the campaign will have huge success once it becomes popular in a circle of friends-because all those friends have more friends… and the new social gifting hit is just one LIKE away.
Author Byline
The article is authored by Jason Phillips; he is an exceptional writer with great sense of humor. His passion for writing is reflected in his posts. Apart from that he is favorite topic for writing remains web cam chat and free video chat.
