Many websites and apps are jockeying for consumer eyeballs and wallets in the social search arena these days, but Australian start up Posse is using a more time honoured technique: recommendations from your friends.

We recently caught up with Posse's founder and CEO Rebekah Campbell, who has just launched the new Posse iOS app at South by Southwest.

Friends with benefits

The thinking behind Posse is simple: people trust recommendations from friends more than reviews from strangers.

This is what differentiates Posse from other mobile review sites such as Foursquare and Yelp, according to Campbell.

“We spoke to a lot of retailers before launching Posse and the majority rated word-of-mouth as the most important aspect in marketing. However it was difficult to quantify word-of-mouth, so we created Posse to do so,” explains Campbell.

Word of mouth

It works like this. When a user signs up to Posse they create a virtual 'street' that's filled with their favourite local places: for example a restaurant, cafe or retail store.

Users can then access their friends' 'street' for recommendations when they're in the area. For instance, if you live in the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy but wander over to St Kilda for the weekend, Posse will tell you your friend's favourite place to get a coffee, or a haircut. 

Shopping around

When a user adds a retailer, the Posse team contacts the business to let them know they've been nominated. They will then, with the retailer's consent. also set up a virtual 'shop front' for them on Posse based on images from GoogleMaps.

The business can then opt to give the user a gift (such as a free coffee) or simply email their thanks.

“It's a great way of building and sustaining local communities, as opposed to a coupon site where a customer will get a special deal but may never return. Businesses will often know the customers who recommended them, and the customer feels valued having received a gift from a preferred place.”

Brands buzz

Aside from the warm and fuzzy feeling, the takeaway from retailers comes in the form of data. Posse has a various pricing structures for retailers that give them details to varying levels of analytics.

For example, retailers can see the demographics of people who've recommended them such as age, location and interests, friend's of those customers, and trending search topics and top lists in the area.

Campbell says this information has been used by retailers to build targeted campaigns and specials around these insights.

Who's using Posse

Women are overwhelmingly using Posse, some 78 per cent at last count. And they're a very engaged community.

“On average, 71 per cent of users recommend five or more places, much more than Yelp or Pinterest.”

Since launching that community has added 17,000 business globally, with 11,000 being in Australia.

With the launch of the Posse iOS app last week, that figure looks set to increase.

The Posse app is now available at the iTunes App Store.
To find out more about Posse visit visit posse.com.

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