Retail TouchPoints: Six Strategies Retailers Are Using to Expand Their Facebook Networks
Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of a current article from the Retail TouchPoints website.
Providing the ability to reach some 250 million users, the Facebook platform has been established as a pot of gold for retailers. While experts agree that the common objectives for retailers should be branding, community building and intelligence acquisition, it is important to remember that the customer is still top of mind.
"The important thing to remember about social business is that all of the various parties (retailers, customers, prospective customers, etc.) all can - and should - be a part of the conversation," says Chris Carfi, co-founder of Cerado, Inc. & Author of The Social Customer Manifesto Blog. "The dynamic is very different than the 'customer-as-target' mentality."
Here are innovative ways retailers are addressing these kinds of objectives:
- Whole Foods: The organic grocer, with over 100,000 fans on its Facebook page, offers information that's not only relevant to the store, but to the food industry as well. A recent post on its Facebook page offered an announcement about the USDA National Organics Program hiring enforcement investigators. So while they do provide coupons and offers relevant to shopping at Whole Foods, they're very focused on providing more information that gives a backbone to the name.
- Mandee: The small young apparel retailer, with nearly 22,000 fans uses the status feature on Facebook to ask their fans questions about merchandise and fashion preferences, like what colors and styles shoppers are interested in. Who makes the best pair of jeans? They also ask questions that provide richer information, not necessarily relevant to merchandise, but to learn more about their customers, like 'What concerts you're looking forward to this summer?' (because Mandee wants to give out tickets), or whether or not you share clothes with your sisters.
- Sears: The cross-channel retailer offers visitors a real incentive to become a fan - a free $10 Sears coupon. Sears currently has nearly 25,000 fans.
- Coach: The luxury retailer offers Facebook fans an exclusive free gift, but they have to fill out a form which asks for basic customer information and bring it into a Coach store. This effort has potential to increase store traffic and help Coach to enhance their contact database. The Coach Facebook page has nearly 400,000 fans.
- Zappos: The e-tailer, recently acquired by Amazon, tapped Facebook for a video campaign where fans send in video clips of them opening the box of shoes they just received. The company also developed an application that enables people to show their recent purchases and brand preferences on their personal Facebook pages, creating an opportunity to make huge viral impact. Zappos has nearly 19,000 fans on Facebook.
- Mini USA: Nearly 170,000 fans of Mini are sharing pictures, stories and learnings about their cars with each other. "Facebook gives Mini a center-of-gravity around which the fans can congregate and, at the same time, gives them the opportunity to listen to those same customers and learn from them," says Ms. Carfi.
Discussion Questions: What do you think should be the primary purpose for retailers on social network sites such as Facebook? How much does it depend on the type of store? Have you noticed any innovative ways a retailer has been utilizing Facebook?