Blog by Andrew Wilmot

I had the pleasure of participating in a forum at APEX - the #AllPaymentExpo - in Las Vegas on 3-5 March. This was a gathering of players in the gift card and payment space as well as performance improvement businesses and retailers. 

Brian Dunn the Chairman of #IMAEurope asked me to participate in a forum on the importance of social media in B2B. We covered topics ranging from the delivery of rewards via social networks, improving engagement by using timeline posts on public and private social networks and using social media to cultivate business relationships and generate new business. It was interesting that the Brits were asked to lead this session. Whilst consumers are ahead in the USA in the penetration of social networking, it was not clear whether the USA was ahead of Europe in the use of social media for business.

My big take away was that Social Gifting companies have a big role to play in energising traditional B2B reward programmes. USA social gifters Gyft and eGifter were exhibiting and they have moved from a consumer play to working closely with retailers. Gyft is a leading player in the smartphone gift card mall concept, but with strong social elements such as integration with Facebook. Gyft recently added Walmart to it's card portfolio. eGifter has moved more into the white labelling space to give retailers a platform to engage smartphone and social users, particularly their gift cards and support group gifting on the retailers website. Social gifter Wrapp appears to be losing traction in the consumer space and is also looking to work with businesses in the employee savings area.

The consumer social gifting market has been threatened by the large marketplaces like Amazon and this is driving them to innovate and avoid full frontal exposure to 'OneClick' competitors. Maroon Elephant's own social gifting brand gifted2you.com has been very successful partnering with B2B programme managers by implementing Micro Gifting programmes and other social elements which improve participant engagement.