Viralogy

Pulling in nearly $11 million dollars last Thursday, Groupon’s Gap deal was by far one of the most popular and most publicized online ‘deals’ that the consumer market has seen in quite some time. In what looked like a frenzy at times with 534 Gap offers being sold a minute during the early stretch of it’s release on the daily deal site, the Groupon Gap campaign brought in $11 million dollars and and sold 445,000 vouchers for Gap all in one day. Groupon’s Gap deal was it’s first nationwide deal and is sure to set the wheels in motion for others.

It Wasn’t Just The Deal

While the deal itself was a bargain ($50.00 worth of Gap merchandise for $25.00), what made this offer explode and go viral was through the help of social media and technology. Through a combination of Digg’s, social networks Twitter & Facebook, along with an email announcement, Groupon was able to utilize their existing networks to expand the reach of the offer.

Groupon’s ability to show the magnitude of exposure that they were able to garner for their deal is a signal of things to come for marketing as well as potential ‘deal’ sites and applications as it brings an important focus on expanding the reach of your message through social media.

The Social Media Funnel

While companies have been looking for ways to utilize social media as a direct business model, eCommerce sites and store front businesses have been slowly moving toward using social media as a direct funnel to their main sites similar to what Groupon did with their promotions. While their are instances where eCommerce stores merge with their social assets  (see Delta Airlines social commerce), social media will continue to be a hot topic as far as utilizing the numbers as  way to drive interest into other business assets like their eCommerce site or mobile commerce platform.