Social Biz Rides Social Media

This is a BIG DAY for Elegant Roots. Maybe even a profound day.

Milyoni, Inc., (said like "million eye"), the leader in Social Commerce, announces a new social merchandising tool within its popular Conversational Commerce™ solution.  Its new Instant Showcase allows users to conveniently purchase select products right on the Facebook wall.

Elegant Roots is about connections. Connections between an artisan and a customer. Connections between cultures. Connections between a customer's green values and a customer's purchases.

And Facebook is maybe the biggest way to connect, person-to-person, that has come along since the telephone. Facebook enables communities. Though they exist only on line, nonetheless, they are communities with interactions no less personal than the telephone, some partyline, some direct. And remember the Six Degrees of Separation?

Well, a study by Microsoft based on 30 billion instant messages among 180 million people worldwide in one month in 2006 concluded that "it takes just under seven steps to link every one in the world...on average, any two people are linked by fewer than seven acquaintances" (actually 6.6). Redorbit.com.

Facebook is a vehicle for unlimited connections and community creation.

Why is this so big for ElegantRoots.com? Because that's where we connect.

Elegant Roots exists only online -- in our dotcom store and in a facebook iFan shop. And ElegRoo exists only because of the "long tail" of the internet -- that enough people browse to make it practical to offer products that only a slim percentage of people might want.

A little background is in order.

Elegant Roots, as an online boutique, exists to:

    Bring hot, design-forward items that use artisan, traditional techniques on designs that appeal to the American market;

    Promote eco-consciousness and social justice by carrying only "green" products (eco-friendly and fair trade/fair labor);

    Promote traditional arts and preserve traditional lifestyles by creating a market for jewelry, accessories and home decor;

    Foster connections -- making Personal through Story a direct connection between artisan and consumer, throughout the world, eliminating "middlemen" whenever possible; and

    Promote transparency, so consumers will increasingly ask Who made this, Where it was made; Of What it is made and under what conditions; and Why, beyond it's beauty and function it aligns with the consumer's values.

ElegRoo currently has somewhere over 4000 Facebook fans (or "likes") from all around the world, (though we can presently ship only within the US). That's 4000 people who connect with us nearly every day. And the growth is astonishing.

Now, through Milyoni's Instant Showcase, we can highlight to our facebook community a few of our wonderful, meaningful, artisan-made products. Our fans need not leave the Wall to buy. Connection remains intact.

First up on ElegRoo's Showcase are a few pieces of jewelry from [wired] designer Melissa Kolbusz -- Hot earrings from repurposed Effen Vodka labels, Cool cuffs of repurposed rubber washers, and Design-Forward earrings of repurposed neoprene.

Check out our Facebook community. "Like" us. You're invited. Bring a friend.

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