:: Tobi's founders needed to integrate social media into the company's marketing and sales strategies. But its in-house efforts--posting promotion codes on its Facebook fan page, for example--were a flop, says CTO Anthony Wang. Redemption rates were low, and when a promotion did engage followers, there was no way to determine why it worked.

Wang researched whether Tobi could develop more robust social media analysis tools that would give it insight into the specific actions of its fans and customers, but he determined it would require too much time, money and attention. "It's hard for a retailer to build a social commerce platform on its own," Wang says.

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