Scott Lewis is the Co-Founder and CEO of KickFactory — a personalized engagement platform that utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) to identify potential social sales opportunities. The program finds a potential customer based on social media activities, suggests the best reply for a brand (their client), and the best place for a conversion.
Scott shares how KickFactory combines the power of AI with community managers – real people – who confirm the identification of a prospective buyer and confirm the reply message (provided by AI) before sending the message. In other words, it’s AI engaged in sales actions!
Using AI to Personalize Interactions on Social Media
KickFactory started in 2013 when a friend of Scott’s opened a barbecue restaurant. Scott and his partner Ryan used social media to find people who like barbecue and engage with them encouraging a visit to the new restaurant. As the world becomes increasingly social, brands who engage relevantly on a one-to-one level are the ones who will win customers in the future.
Brands who engage relevantly 1 to 1 will be successful in the future. @scottallenlewis #socialsalesClick To Tweet
We are confronted with overwhelming amounts of data every day on social media. Marketers need this information to drive their strategies, and Scott says AI is the only way to get to it. AI is powering the shift of marketing from broadcasting to engaging. KickFactory takes large sets of data and breaks it down to an individual basis to understand the right engagements, personalize them, and drive the desired action.
One of KickFactory’s clients, Sears Automotive, looks to identify people who behave like a customer. They search on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for people posting about a flat tire. Once identified, KickFactory recommends how to engage with them based on look-alike audiences. AI does the heavy lifting, but the process is human assisted in verifying the person is worth engaging and that the recommended message is appropriate. As KickFactory’s community managers engage with the AI and accept or reject messages, the AI continues to learn.
In working with Domino’s Pizza, the AI learned that people who Tweet about being hungry and wanting a pizza delivered to their bed are not viable customers. Posts with “my bed” in the text are skipped over, while others that talk about wanting to buy a pizza are delivered because the AI can discern the difference in the intent.
Marketers are able to integrate what they learn through using AI into their During the 2016 Presidential election, Evan McMullen contacted KickFactory to identify undecided voters in Utah. His campaign message was very one-to-one and KickFactory aligned well with this and even helped to shape his campaign message.
During the NBA Finals, KickFactory worked with Dick’s Sporting Goods during the Cavaliers and Warriors series. They shared messages based on the mood of the game and celebrated with individual fans. Dick’s also promoted specific products at various points throughout the game. Using KickFactory allowed them to build one-on-one relationships with NBA fans and sell merchandise at the same time.
Although KickFactory is mostly B2C focused, it has B2B applications as well. As an example, Scott mentioned how when B2B professionals have CRM issues they talk about it online. KickFactory sees this as an opportunity to engage with them and recommend another CRM while trying to discern between an everyday user and actual decision makers.
The team at KickFactory sees the world moving to chatbots, but currently, chatbots are mostly reactive. Marketers are still trying to understand how to harness them. Scott says once chatbots become more proactive they will be more useful. Personalized one-to-one interactions are the way of the future.
Featured On This Episode:
- Scott Lewis on LinkedIn and Twitter
- KickFactory’s website
- KickFactory on Facebook and Twitter
- Visit the Vengreso website
- Follow Vengreso on Twitter
- Social Media Strategies Summit’s website – Use the code SBENYC for 15% off of the 2017 New York event!
- Discover how to boost your sales through the Vengreso Social Selling Virtual Boot Camp
- Write a review of this podcast in iTunes
- Social Business Engine on Twitter: @sbengine
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This post originally published on Social Business Engine.
