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Social-media payments specialist Chirpify on Thursday introduced a service that lets marketers promote hashtags on a wide variety of media to solicit purchases. The so-called action tags can appear on TV or radio commercials, in print advertising, or on billboards and then be used on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, the Portland, Ore., company says.
Up to now, Chirpify’s system worked only within the three social media. “We were powering social commerce for large brands but unearthed an opportunity,” Chris Teso, the 2-year-old company’s cofounder and chief executive, tells Digital Transactions News. “It was really the [client] brands requesting a broader solution.”
With the new service, a company promoting a product or service can advertise a short hashtag, called a “campaign tag,” that is linked to the product. An example cited by Chirpify is #NewRedShoes. A consumer using Chirpify to buy the shoes could then combine the campaign tag with an action tag so it might read #Buy#NewRedShoes. The user would post or tweet this on any of the three social networks Chirpify works with. More networks could be coming soon. “Our intent is to provide this [service] wherever hashtags are enabled,” says Teso.
Chirpify, which started out by allowing only PayPal transactions, began directly accepting major-brand payment cards and automated clearing house payments earlier this summer. The company will not disclose the extent of its user base, but says it is enrolling new users at the rate of 300 a day. A registered payment-service provider (PSP), Chirpify levies a fee of 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction. Other types of transactions, such as donations or person-to-person payments, incur a rate of 5% plus 30 cents. In these P2P transactions, the recipient pays the fee. For the action-tag service, pricing starts at $2,500 per tag per month, regardless of the medium in which the tag appears, Teso says.
Chirpify’s clients for the service so far are Estee Lauder, Forever 21, and MasterCard. “We are talking to a lot of large brands and media networks,” Teso says. “They have caught on to the larger opportunity here. Prior to this, there was no way to connect billboards, live events, and [other media] to the moment, to engage the customer in the moment.” He says the new service also taps marketing dollars beyond those dedicated to social media. “This has opened up larger budgets,” he says.
Observers say Chirpify is responding to the proliferation of hashtags in contemporary life. “Brands will definitely take notice of this new service,” says Aleia Van Dyke, payments analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research, Pleasanton, Calif., via email. “Hashtags have been pervasive both on and off social networks, with hashtags making their way into everything from concert billboards to sports arenas to retail stores. But until now, the hashtags have just been a means of extending [the] conversation. Now, it’ll be a way to collect revenue by providing a way for marketers, retailers, and others to monetize social networks.”
Still, Van Dyke doesn’t see a great many imitators emerging very soon. “We’re clearly moving into the Wild West of social-media purchasing, but it might be some time before it becomes norm,” she says.
