Recently launched eBay Neighborhoods is a hot topic in the blogosphere. Going beyond its member forums, eBay lovers passionate about brands, products, trends and celebrities and eBay sellers can interact and write product reviews, comment on items for sale, provide buyer guides and add pictures to Neighborhoods.

Since it’s new, I didn’t expect there to be a whack of online retailers/brands being represented yet, but I did find one for Juicy Couture.

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How Online Retailers Can Leverage eBay Neighborhoods »

Thanks again to Neil Patel for being our special guest today to chat about social media marketing for online retailers. And thank you to all who joined us live and engaged us with some great questions.

In case you missed our live Webinar, here are some highlights of what we covered. Let’s keep the discussion going. We’d love to hear your thoughts and further questions in the comments section.

What is Social Media, Anyway?

Social media is a tricky space for ecommerce marketers to explore. Not only is it relatively new and largely unknown, but it’s also labor intensive and highly strategic. We kicked off the discussion with the definition of social media — simply put, “human interaction on the Web.” More specifically, we’re talking blogs, social networking sites like Facebook, community forums, video sharing sites, social bookmarking and you could throw in social shopping sites and user reviews in the mix too for us ecommerce types.

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The Secret of Social Media Marketing Webinar: A Recap »

In case you “missed” it (or even if you caught it), this is a recap of Chancellor’s Professor of Marketing and Co-Director of the Sloan Center for Internet Retailing at the University of California, Riverside Donna Hoffman’s keynote speech titled “The Evolution of Customer Experience: 10 Trends You Can’t Afford to Miss.” Here’s the rundown of what Hoffman believes will drive the move from Web 2.0 to (you knew it was coming) Web 3.0.

Most folks still don’t really know what people mean by Web 2.0, let alone Web 1.0 or 3.0. If you Google these terms, you’ll get a variety of opinions. Hoffman presented a simple definition of Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 in terms of how users interact with the available Web technologies:

• Web 1.0 refers to the Web as data, text and images. Users can read and search.
• Web 2.0 ushered in sharing and participation (forums, blogs and so on). Users can interact and submit their own content to cyberspace.
• Web 3.0 is a move towards a “semantic Web.” A concept that the Web can understand itself and user intent through artificial intelligence and perhaps human powered search.

Alright, jargon out of the way, why should etailers care about Web 3.0 ecommerce trends?

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Ecommerce Trends & Customer Experience - Shop.org 2007 »

Last post I covered some ways you can use Twitter for ecommerce marketing. (Remember that Twitter can be an inexpensive form of mcommerce as users can subscribe to mobile text alerts). As promised, here are some Twitter Do’s and Do Not Do’s based on Ma.gnolia’s experience using microblogging for customer support.

(If you’re not in the know, Ma.gnolia’s about the best lookin’ social bookmarking site on the web) Here’s a summary of Ma.gnolia’s Product Manager Todd Sieling’s presentation at BarCamp Vancouver:

• Make each tweet worth reading - no poly filler
• Speak softly unless the house is on fire (remember Ma.gnolia’s subscribers are receiving tech support and system updates)
• Tweet responsibly, too many tweets will make your subscribers tune out
• Be creative, but not at the expense of clarity
• Follow everyone who follows you - except spammers
• Read your community’s tweets and glean whatever you can from what they’re saying

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Twitter Marketing Do’s and Don’ts: Interview With Ma.gnolia »