Today, you’d be hard pressed to identify an official time for retail’s back to school phenomenon. As I’m sure is the case for you, I have lots of friends and family members who are students of varying ages, and none are reporting back from their summer off on similar dates; some are already back in session, others won’t begin their school year until mid-September. Regardless, all will need some degree of stuff, and all have either already done some shopping, or will be doing some soon. Granted, a lot of these products may be vastly different from what we would have been purchasing for back-to-school in our younger days (laptops and skis, instead of wool coats and dress shirts, for example), but they are retail purchases, nonetheless.

My question is what role social media will play in the shopping experience for today’s student youth? From personal experience, I’ve already noticed several instances where some of my college and grad-school aged friends/family have posted requests on Facebook for product help and ideas. “Headed to REI – anyone have any recommendations for a cheap kayak? ” “Getting ready to make the cross-country drive to my new home at UConn. Sadly, my mountain bike won’t make the trip. Who has a decent selection of used hardtails (bikes) near Storrs (CT)? “ What’s surprising is how much feedback these posts generate.

Our recent report on social media tells us that retailers definitely are not ready for whatever effect social media may have on back-to-school shopping, or any type of shopping, for that matter. Most retailers have neither the ability nor the motivation to start chasing the seemingly boundless opportunities they perceive; retailers self-profess a shortage of resources to manage all of the eCommerce/Social Networking opportunities that are currently available. In fact, most don’t feel that a strong plan to extract value from Social Media programs — for the retailer, at least — currently exists; 79% tell us that it will hold great value to retailers in coming years, but that today, there just isn’t enough data to direct which course to take. As a result, many retailers are enacting Social Media programs which, while hopefully providing some relevance/value to the consumer, so far appear to have very little value to the retailer, itself. These programs are launching under the simple premise of having something in the way of Social Media offering, if only for fear of being left behind without one.

Successful integration of Social Media into the retailer’s total value proposition must begin with an examination of the brand’s place in the consumer’s life, which may vary wildly from one customer to another. Those initiatives which tap into an emotional connection will resonate loudest, and in order to determine what gives cause for an emotional connection, a retailer must develop an understanding of how and what will make different customers want to engage in such a way. As a result, for the time being, most are content to wait and see; very little social involvement to date has done much more than use these new channels to deliver old features (such as weekly advertising, store locators, and rating and review information).

The most interesting data we’ve collected are the projects for which retailers are currently budgeting and planning. As for those which are budgeted, most remain somewhat traditional (25% will soon provide more rating and review procedures, 28% will enable customers to create shopping lists via social channels, and another 25% will be using social channels to blast non-targeted coupons and offers in the near term). However, of those projects which are a little further out — planned, but not yet budgeted — some are slightly more creative and consequently harder to perform; 30% of the aggregate pool plan to utilize social channels to perform targeted promotions based on such complex information as customer lifestyle and preference. Still, all told, retailers are yet to push the envelope of these new technologies, no doubt limited by their pre-existing data challenges. It is very difficult to create relevancy to an individual without knowing what they perceive as relevant in the first place.

As such, retailers most likely won’t be able to engage with my friends for thier product inquiries this back-to-school season. The more important question is, when will they be? It is not beyond the scope of reality to expect that the best performers will be better suited to do that very thing next August.