It seems like the best way to get someone to buy something is to get their friend to tell them they should buy something. On the face of it, this sounds like saying the best way to get from Sydney to Melbourne is via Perth: if getting someone to buy your product is hard, getting their friend to sell it for you must be nearly impossible, right?

Yet that’s just what some retailers are betting on. Maybe it’s the case of not knowing enough to know it’s impossible, but it’s looking like there’s money to be made in social commerce providing you can get it right – but it’s not easy money, by any stretch of the imagination because you have to get into the conversation, somehow.

But how? Here’s the four phases of buying a product:

* Consideration – realising that you might want to purchase something
* Research – how do you make sure it’s the right one for you?
* Purchase – getting the product at the right price and at the right time for you
* Post-sales – what do you do now you have the product?

I’d say that post-sales is distinctly a conversation between a customer and a retailer, but can be social through special offers and member-get-member campaigns. During purchase and even research, the opportunities here are in social ratings and recommendations: it’s not so important that a friend has recommended the product (hey, what do your friends know about buying lawnmowers anyway?), but that someone like you (and separate from the retailer) has given their view of it.

Consideration is where opinions are formed and the urge to acquire is kindled – traditionally the realm of glossy magazine spreads and opinion pieces. However, it’s also the realm of word-of-mouth – and there are lots of places that conversations are going on all the time on-line (Facebook, Twitter to name the obvious two).

A traditional way of getting into the conversation has been member-get-member, as mentioned above, which has evolved within Facebook to friend-get-friend campaigns – but since when did you enjoy a friend trying to flog you something? Take the typical scenario: you get a $10 discount for recommending a product to a friend (usually if they then go on to buy). The trouble is, you probably feel cheap selling out your friend for $10, and your friend is probably going to realise this at some point. A massive disincentive.

It turns out that people generally value their friendships more than they value a discount. But what if you turned this on its head? What if you got nothing but your friends got the discount? All of a sudden you don’t need to feel bad anymore since you’re helping your friends save money. They get to know about the product from someone they trust, and get an incentive to buy it.

And what do you get? Kudos, which is something money can’t buy.