Photos: @targetdoesitagain
What are online super fans worth to retailers? Well, over 560,000 subscribers is nothing to sneeze at.
That’s how many Instagram followers Jen Coleman and Laura Wiertzem have established with their @TargetDoesItAgain account. Launched in 2013, the two use the social media platform to highlight finds from their Target shopping journeys.
“We've had a really engaged following since the very beginning," Ms. Coleman told Racked.com. "I mean, who doesn't love Target? Everybody's in there, you're grabbing diapers for your kid and you end up leaving with a pair of shoes or a new pillow. We had no idea that it would be this huge."
The two mothers, who both worked in fashion, met in the blogging world. With one living in Southern California and the other in Texas, each often highlights finds before it reaches followers' local stores.
@TargetDoesItAgain was featured on Target’s Bullseye View blog but the bloggers receive no compensation from the retailer. However, Target officials reportedly tell their vendors seek out coverage on the site. Ms. Coleman and Ms. Wiertzem are monetizing @TargetDoesItAgain through sponsored posts largely from food and personal care brands. They have also launched an online curated fashion shop, Ascot + Hart.
@TargetDoesItAgain is by far the most followed superfan account on Instagram. Others include @traderjoeslist with 199,000 followers, @WhoaWaitWalmart with 69,000 followers, as well as scores of accounts with only a few thousand followers.
In April, Ms. Coleman and Ms. Wiertzem launched @CostcoDoesItAgain and it already has nearly 40,000 Instagram followers.
“We could do ‘does it again’ spinoffs with many stores but most of them have been taken by random people trying to emulate what we do,” Ms. Coleman told D Magazine, a city magazine in Dallas-Fort Worth. “There’s a lot of accounts now following in our footsteps.”