Part
III – Social Media for the Holidays
Social media is never more fun than during
the holiday season. Users are abuzz with cheerful banter about pumpkin pie,
turkey, Santa and wish lists. This is the perfect time for online retailers to
reel consumers in by joining in the fun.
The basics here are to always keep your
followers updated. That means updating Facebook statuses and blogs, and
tweeting to reflect current sales and promotions, new collections and popular
products. However, you also want to engage your followers in creative ways so
that your brand stands out among the rest they are following, as well as
attract new followers. Here are some great ways to join in the holiday cheer on
Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and your blog.
Recipe
sharing
The highlight of Thanksgiving and the
Christmas season is food! Pinterest is a great way for food retailers to share
recipes, especially using ingredients found within their stores. Whole Foods
has notably been the epitome of Pinterest excellence, and lives up to the
reputation this season with pin boards like “Thankful Thanksgiving”, “Winter
Entertainment”, and “Creative Christmas Projects”. While Whole Foods does not
sell food online, customers can be inspired to place catering orders online
based on spreads seen on their pin boards, as well as purchase gift cards with
cheerful seasonal branding such as “Happy Hollandaise”.
Williams Sonoma’s blog, The Blender, shares
recipes in a manner that also supports sales. The luxury housewares retailer
recently posted a ‘Thanksgiving Recipe Remix’ set of gourmet mashed potatoes
recipes, wherein they also listed related kitchen tools needed to prepare each
recipe with links to their respective product pages on Williams Sonoma’s
eCommerce site.
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| The Blender by Williams-Sonoma's Recipes & Product Information |
Société Perrier uses Facebook to share
drink recipes, all of which contain Perrier sparkling water. They share in
three different ways: syndicating their Mixology blog posts on their Facebook
Timeline, sharing links to drink recipes from their website, and sharing
restaurants and bars where specialty cocktails made with Perrier sparkling
water can be found. Most recently, Société Perrier posted a list of Halloween
Drink Recipes.
Gift
Ideas
As mentioned in Part
II of the OrderDynamics Holiday Guide, Hubspot stated that shoppers respond
well to being told what to buy via gift guides as stress builds during holiday
shopping. Social media is an excellent way to share popular and new items and
staff picks as gift ideas.
Pinterest introduced Secret Boards
yesterday, just in time for the holidays. The tool allows users to create up to
3 private pinboards that they can share with specific users. Secret Boards
can be used by shoppers to conference over gift ideas for a specific person
without spoiling the surprise, making Pinterest a convenient tool for shoppers
while creating their holiday gift lists. Clothing retailer Roots Canada has
pinboards simply named “Favourites for Her”, and “Favourites for Him. By
creating boards such as these, Roots Canada has offered their followers an
efficient way to browse gift ideas with which they can utilize Secret Boards.
All pinned items link directly to their product page on Roots Canada’s site so
that they can be purchased.
Blogs enable retailers to share gift ideas,
while also taking a little extra time to explain features and benefits to help
shoppers choose more effectively. Cosmetics retailer Murale.ca has regularly
used their MUSE blog to share staff picks for favourite gift items for all
holidays including Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day.
These articles state favourite items from various staff members with an
explanation as to why they feel these products are great gifts for the given
occasion. This initiates a relationship between the shopper and the product,
stimulates their imagination as to how the gift recipient may react when
opening it on Christmas morning, and steers the shopper in the direction of the
item’s product page so that it can be further researched. Murale.ca also
leverages the MUSE blog to announce limited edition holiday collections and
gift sets.
An interesting way to offer gift ideas is
using YouTube videos. YouTube videos are very personal, and help build a
rapport between the shopper and the brand. This can instill confidence in
online shoppers as many are more open to buying high-priced items during the
holidays. HockeyMonkey.com embeds video product descriptions and reviews from
their YouTube channel directly on the product page to offer detailed
information to customers who appreciate understanding the look, feel and
performance of high-ticket items before purchasing.
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| HockeyMonkey.com's Video Product Reviews |
Contests
Contests are typically used as a way to
help shoppers treat themselves as budgets become tight while shopping for
others. Specialty footwear retailer and
OrderDynamics client, Walking On A Cloud is currently hosting a Facebook
contest in collaboration with Blondo Boots. The
Blondo Boot Giveaway requires entrants to Like Walking On A Cloud’s
Facebook page, along with writing an explanation in the contest page comments
box as to why they want to win a pair of Blondo Boots. This initiative helps
Walking On A Cloud build their fanbase, while also helping them and Blondo
understand key comfort and style features that are important to their
customers.
Town Shoes is supporting their
multi-channel commerce strategy with their current Facebook/Instagram contest,
#Snap2Win. Entry to the contest requires customers to visit a Town Shoes
location, take a photo of themself trying on a pair of shoes they would like to
own, stylizing the photo with Instragram, and then upload the photo with the
Facebook entry form for a chance to win the pair of shoes in the photo. When
the entry is posted on Town Shoes’ Facebook page, entrants can share it to earn
an additional 5 entries for each of their friends that also enter the contest.
The contest entices shoppers to visit their eCommerce site to research styles
and locate the store at which they can find it, while also creating an
opportunity for Town Shoes staff to upsell when contest entrants visit the
store to snap their photo.
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| Town Shoes' #Snap2Win Contest |
Don't forget to read the other parts of the 2012 OrderDynamics Retail Holiday Guide:
- Part I - Know Your Dates
- Part II - Website Checklist
- Part III - Social Media for the Holidays
- Part IV - Holiday Emails
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