Forget jelly and ice cream, or even Beyoncé’s jelly – the biggest Jelly of the moment is the latest social networking app to launch from Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, which allows users to effectively crowd-source answers to any question they might want to share on it.
Drawing on users existing Facebook and Twitter networks, Jelly users can capture an image, edit the image and then post it out to their network with a question they need answering. Intended to be a user-generated search engine, Jelly has quickly attracted the attention of several brands who have acknowledged the marketing potential of combining an image with a targeted question and sending this out across a group of engaged users.
Whilst users have the option to answer the question or dismiss it (in which case it will never appear in your feed again) brands have been finding initial success from their first forays into Jelly. GiffGaff, General Electric, Carphone Warehouse, Nandos and Asda are amongst some of the first retailers to trial content on the new platform, but its early days and brands are still testing the waters when it comes to campaign possibilities.
How could ecommerce retailers use Jelly?
The most obvious way Jelly can benefit brands online would be through product marketing – snap a photo of your soon-to-be-released item and send it out across your network to get feedback and to whet follower’s appetites.
Much like Snapchat, there is a certain element of exclusivity to this approach as only users of Jelly would be able to see this content, and this tends to make users more compelled to reply than they would be on open networks like Facebook and Twitter.
Brands can also include a link in their Jelly question, so a link to a new product with a question asking which product in the range they would most like to own would be a quick and easy way to generate interest and visits from the app. The app also allows users to forward a question to someone outside their Jelly network if they think that person might be able to answer it, meaning users could pass on posts about products to their wider network.
Alternatively brands could try the reverse and set about answering the real-time questions their customers are asking rather than posting their own. As your feed is likely to be full of users with an interest in your sector – these users have chosen to like and follow your company remember – it’s highly likely that questions will be posed that your brand could add value to.
A user asking for DIY advice would benefit from the expert opinion of a trained employee from B&Q, and a user looking for Friday night dinner inspiration would appreciate a well-timed and enticing menu suggestion from Asda. If brands can pick the questions that they answer wisely then this level of personal engagement could have a hugely positive impact on customer sentiment and buying influence, especially as Jelly’s user network expands.
There are plenty of entertaining and informal campaigns to be run involving naming or guessing the location/person/item in the photo, but the beauty for marketers goes beyond encouraging engagement. With the right image and the correctly worded question you could receive valuable marketing feedback directly from your target audience that could then be used to feedback into your other campaigns and products.
For example, if you were in the process of putting together a new email campaign and needed to confirm the most influential incentive between a free gift and money off you could put this to Jelly users and receive real-time information back from your target audience.
What Jelly isn’t
Whilst I think this is a great opportunity for ecommerce brands to drive more traffic to their site and raise their brand profile, I’m aware that Jelly isn’t a social media platform in its own right. Nor am I suggesting that you suddenly drop everything you’ve been doing on Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest and focus solely on this app. You don’t want to spread yourself too thin and devalue your entire social strategy.
But, that said, it is an extremely useful medium to generate another level of engagement with your customer base which can create loyalty and interest in your brand. You might want to trial using this for a month to see the results you get, and then decide whether or not to keep it as a permanent part of your social media plan going forward.
You’ll also need to decide how you want to interact on these platforms. Less formal than traditional social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, you can afford to be a little cheekier on it if you choose – much like the Travelocity Gnome – but you should get your tone of voice and customer approach defined before starting to interact to keep continuity.
If the success of Jelly is anything like that of its older sibling Twitter then it would certainly be worthwhile for online retailers to trial the app as early as possible to see how it can be best utilised for future campaigns.
