Nordstrom Utilizes Pinterest to Increase Sales

Although initially reported last week, more details have emerged on Nordstrom's plan to leverage Pinterest in 13 of their retail locations across the country. Items being displayed, which for now will only consist of  dresses, shoes and handbags, will contain signage reading, "Top Pinned Items" and the Pinterest logo.

Along with these new merchandising displays, Nordstrom will also have iPad stations to showcase what is currently the most popular items on Pinterest. One can only imagine the logistical nightmare of such a huge store trying to tailor their displays to the ever changing whims of social media. To deal with this dilemma, Nordstrom is taking each store's inventory into consideration.  “We wanted to have alignment with what we show in that store and that department with what we have available to sell to the customer,” said Nordstrom spokesperson, Colin Johnson.

Not only will Nordstrom be pushing Pinterest in their brick and mortar locations, but they will also be adding  a "Top Pinned" link in the women's section on their website. With Pinterest accounting for Nordstrom's largest social following at 4.5 million followers as reported by Geekwire.com (2x the number of Facebook fans), it's great to see them giving their customers what they want.

Although the measuring stick for this new program will be Nordstrom's Anniversary Sale, which is scheduled to run from July 19 to August 4, it's clear that Pinterest is one social platform that's here to stay. We've seen companies take inspiration from the highly visual website over the past years through various marketing campaigns, contests and more, but a full translation into retail locations in an effort to draw attention to (and sell) the most 'popular' items is an innovative concept that many are trying to perfect.

We believe that this attempt to bring online behavior into the offline space is a natural next step in any integrated social media marketing strategy. Similar to written testimonials on many retail websites, Nordstrom is essentially adding a level of "social credibility" to their displays in hopes that customers who know and love Pinterest will be more attracted to the highlighted products and therefore, one step closer to purchase.

As the summer continues, we look forward to hearing the results of this marketing experiment and wonder if a simple reference to social media can truly alter a shopper's buying pattern.

Mike & Samantha

Winter is Coming...

With all the different social media platforms out there, it may be hard to keep track of who is playing nice with who. HootSuite did a great job of detailing all social platform relationships in a way we can relate, Game of Thrones style. Check out this creative graphic below: -Mike

Social Media Crucial for Retailers

Everyone has been hearing about the importance of social media for the last few years, especially in retail business. Some businesses may have written off social media, not wanting to spend time and resources, thinking it is just a fad. Social media has officially been around long enough, and its importance validated enough, that we can all agree, this is no fad.

Speaking from a retailers point of view, more and more customers are using social media to stay informed and up to date on their favorite brands and retailers. According to Monetate.com, 80% of smartphone users access social media on their devices, and 55% of those users visit these social networks at least once a day. In addition to the social network activity, 96% of smartphone users have researched a product on their phone before purchase. With consumers relying so heavily on what comes through their mobile phone, it is imperative retailers take full advantage.

Although it is obvious that a retailer must commit to improving their online social presence, it is not always so clear as how to measure their return on this investment.   According to SocialBakers.com, here are a few social media metrics a retailer can use to measure the fruits of their labor.

• Fan/follower growth: How many new fans are you gaining during a select time frame?
• Engagement rate: The number of user interactions (likes, comments, retweets, replies and shares).
• Response rate: The percentage of user posts or questions that the administrator responded to.
• Response time: The average amount of time it takes for the administrator to respond to user posts or questions.
• User activity: Identifying the hours and days of the week your users are engaging most frequently.
• Shareability: The number of shares and retweets a post gets.
• Interactions: The number of interactions that a page or post receives and the types of interactions (likes, comments, retweets, replies and shares).

Whether done in house, or outsourced, do not underestimate the power of social media and what it can bring to your business.

-Mike

Turning Complaints into Opportunity

Everyone knows how important word-of-mouth can be to a business. According to Neilsen, 92% of consumers trust recommendations from friends and family above all else. Combine that number with these following stats, and it becomes very apparent how important it is to correctly handle customer complaints.

• It takes 12 positive service incidents to make up for 1 negative incident.
• The average "wronged customer" will tell 8-l6 people about it. Over 20% will tell more than 20.
• Happy customers who have their problems resolved will tell 4-6 people about their positive experience.
• Customer loyalty can be worth up to 10 times as much as a single purchase

Every brand in every industry is going to make mistakes, and these mistakes can often be magnified when they are out in the open for everyone to see on social media. There are a few brands out there who excel at turning these potential downfalls into customer service successes. Andy Sernovitz of SmartBlogs highlights 3 strategies used to win over upset customers:

• Make them laugh: There’s obviously a time and a place for jokes when it comes to fielding customer complaints, but a good sense of humor can be disarming and personal enough to defuse a negative comment while showing you’re human.
• Be vigilant: No matter what their concern, your customers will appreciate a fast response — even if you’re just acknowledging the issue and letting them know you’re on it. For example, when one cyclist was almost hit by a UPS truck, he tweeted about the incident — and when he got home, he was contacted within several minutes by their social media team. He later blogged about being blown away by the company’s careful attention on his blog.
• Make it personal: Dell allows their employees to answer customer service concerns with their real names and sometimes post unscripted videos of them working out problems. When your community managers can reply in their own voice, it reminds negative commenters there’s a real person behind your company’s social media page — it also let’s them know a real person cares.

At the end of the day, just showing the customer you care speaks volumes. Remember, the customer is always right.

-Mike

The NFL Hits Social Media Hard

With draft day come and gone, the NFL has been all over the headlines the last couple of days. Taking advantage of all this media attention, the NFL has made a huge push into leveraging social media. If you watched the draft,  you may have noticed how on Thursday night, all the potential draftees were ushered in front of an iPad to have their picture taken, which was then sent straight on out Twitter so fans could see what everyone was wearing in what the NFL was calling the #DraftRedCarpet. The NFL also tried to make the behind-the-scenes action much more visible for fans by tweeting all the action.

With over 12 million follower (Twitter - 4.5M, Facebook - 7.1M) the NFL has quite a substantial fan base. With such a huge following, you would probably assume the NFL has a large team managing their social accounts -- but you would be wrong. Duane Munn is the one-man show responsible for managing all the NFL social accounts. Managing account for such a huge entity with so many followers is a titanic undertaking for one man. Duane was quoted saying:

"I tell my Mom that I never wanted to be a doctor, but with the amount of time I spend on my job, I imagine this is what it is like to be one,"

Not only is Duane the sole manager of these accounts, but he tends to stay away from things like scheduling tweets, opting to engage followers on a real-time basis. This allows Duane to stay on top of trending topics and make each post get optimal engagement. Using platfoms like Adobe Social, Duane is able to track online trends and buzz words so he can make relevant posts that really impact his followers. Also, since Duane is posting this content real-time, he is able to coordinate effectively with news and articles the NFL is releasing throughout the day, creating a streamlined and influential presence on social media. Without scheduling tweets, Duane is also able to avoid backlash by limiting the amount of inappropriate posts that go out during times of breaking news. Many large companies were criticized for this in lieu of recent events, like the Boston Marathon bombing.

It seems like the NFL really hit a home run by finding a person who can effectively manage all their social accounts solo. Although community management is not always a 1 man team, it certainly does help cut down on communication errors, while streamlining the whole process exponentially.

- Mike

Instagram Introduces "Photos of You"

Yesterday, Instagram took inspiration from Facebook and introduced a new way of tagging people in images. As easy as adding hashtags, photo tagging will better connect mobile users to the friends they've captured. With the ability to tag any Instagram account in an image, the platform has made it easier to browse photo feeds of people you know and pics that you appear in with a new "Photos of You" section on your profile. When someone tags you in an image, you'll get a notification and the pic will show up in the "Photos of You" area. Worried about privacy? Instagram has that covered with easy to navigate settings to adjust what appears in your profile and what doesn't.

Although Instagram is constantly evolving, there was a large issue of only being able to “discover” photos of yourself by reviewing your "Activity Feed" for a mention of your username in a caption (e.g., “with @samshredder at Fenway!”). Sadly, user/account mentions won't be automatically converted into photo tags, so one will have to go back through every photo to manully tag people.

"Photos of You" will not be visible until May 16th, so everyone has a few weeks to try it out.

Personally, we see this latest improvement as a true positive within the social space and are interested to see how this will further help connect Instagram with Facebook . Not only will it provide a broader connection and engagement between users, but the ability to share personal (and brand) messages will beome easier moving forward as well.

For more info, watch this: http://vimeo.com/65246801

What do you think of the latest addition to Instagram?

xx Samantha

ThingLink Comes to Facebook

Earlier this week, the popular interactive image platform know as ThingLink, officially hit Facebook. ThingLink allows users to enhance images with embedded information, like a video or a text block. Since the additional information is inserted within an image, the person interacting with this image will not have to leave the current screen they are on. This is great for brands and marketers because they can get more information in front of a customer in a shorter amount of time -- a benefit that could increase engagement and eventually, sales. ThingLink also will help Facebook since users will now spend more time on the Timeline and News Feed, not having to link to other websites do obtain more information.

Back in November, ThingLink debuted on Twitter with great results. Since it's launch, major reps have reported seeing more than five times as much engagement on their posts that contained ThingLink images. We believe these new interactive images will quickly become the norm. With online attention spans decreasing by the day, the ability to cram as much information in front of a customer as quickly as possible is paramount.

-Mike