The Retail Social Index Spotlight is a ROI Report column that features a monthly update from Media Logic’s Retail Social Juice Index, a daily ranking of social engagement scores for hundreds of national retailers. Media Logic distills data from Facebook and Twitter daily and turns it into a score which represents the effectiveness of a brand’s interactions with its fans and followers. This monthly column highlights specific Retail Social Juice Index scores for a given month, along with commentary about the findings. Data for this post was compiled with engagement scores through June 2012.
Diapers.com spent less than one-third of June among the top 10 brands on Media Logic's Retail Social Juice Index (RSJI), but what an incredible surge it saw. The brand's engagement score for the month ranged from 29 to 493. During the first half of the month, Diapers.com averaged 46, which is comparable to the RSJI's daily average. During the last half of the month its average jumped to 278.
Diapers.com's meteoric rise began June 18 with the following Facebook post and accompanying image: "You know your life has changed when ... going to the grocery store by yourself is a vacation." Fans echoed the accompanying status with comments like "So true" to the tune of 17,000 likes/comments and 3,345 shares. Diapers.com repeated the image-plus-parenting-quote strategy on June 23 with a post that received nearly 8,500 likes/comments and over 1,600 shares: a Someecards with the message, "That moment when you realize the kids have been in bed for over 30 minutes, and you have been watching Nick Jr. alone."
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In addition to featuring content that rallied fans, these posts were interesting for another reason: Both started in influencer communities; Diapers.com shared them on its own wall. The grocery store post originated on Plum District's Facebook page, a mom community with more than 50,000 Facebook fans — a number representing more than half the brand's own fan base. The Nick Jr. post originated on Red Tricycle's Facebook page, a West Coast-based city guide for parents that has more than 30,000 fans.
Does the influencer connection make a difference? On June 28 a second "So true" status and quote ended up with 70 percent less activity than the first one. And on Saturday, June 30, Diapers.com posted another someecard that saw a similar drop in likes, comments and shares. Neither of these posts got their start in an influencer community.
Luxury cosmetics brand Lancome spent half of June on the RSJI's top 10 by employing a few key strategies, namely celebrity photos, questions and tips/how tos. For example, a post about applying cheek color earned 7,088 likes, 154 comments and 544 shares. The brand publishes series of posts along various themes, like the consistently popular "color tips" from fashion designer Chris Benz and the repeating question, "What's your favorite shade of ____?" (lipstick, nail polish, etc.).
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Tags seemed to come into play for Lancome, much as they did for Diapers.com. A photo of Emma Watson with a status update tagging her earned twice the engagement of two prior photos that didn't include a tag. And those color tips from Chris Benz? The tips tagging him (and Saks Fifth Avenue) reliably outperformed those with no tags.
Internet retailer ThinkGeek spent more time in the RSJI's top 10 than any other brand in June; it made the list in all but two days. It is, by far, one of the best curators of content among brands in the social space, posting more shareable content than just about anyone else on the RSJI. ThinkGeek knows its fans, and it gives them the super cool, super geeky stuff they love. In turn, they spread ThinkGeek status updates and photos throughout the web.
A photo of all five Starfleet commanders gathered at Philadelphia Comic Con; an Escher-inspired photo of LEGOs; "Star Wars" car decals challenge regular car decals to a duel; a picture of a six-foot tall robot wine rack TinkGeek found on Craigslist; a Happy Unicorn Appreciation Day coupled with a joke about Neil Patrick Harris; a Loki cupcake. This is just some of the things that ThinkGeek posted to its Facebook page. We're talking thousands and thousands of likes, comments and shares. In most cases, the number of shares — also in the thousands — represented over 30 percent of the posts’ activity.
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One of those very popular photos/status updates was a "Star Wars" decal product plug with a link to the product page on ThinkGeek's website. Proving itself just as popular as the other posts — it included a clever caption that placed it squarely in the same spirit as the other cool content — the "Star Wars" decal earned 8,672 likes, 483 comments and more than 8,000 shares.
Our highest score this month comes from another brand that's no stranger to the top of the RSJI. American Girl scored an astronomical 733 by featuring a new product that customers had been begging for: a hair-optional doll targered to girls with cancer. The Facebook post announcing the new doll received 7,208 shares, 1,819 comments and nearly 36,000 likes. American Girl can feel good that it made a lot of fans happy while offering a product that a very special group of customers can appreciate.
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Takeaways from this month's RSJI spotlight include the following:
- Tap into other communities. Diapers.com shared content from influencers, and Lancome tagged them in its status updates. This strategy expands your audience to others who, based on shared passion, also may be interested in what you have to offer.
- Want fans to share your content? Make it entertaining — and stay out of its way. In other words, think like a ThinkGeek. Put your faith in the power of being associated with great material instead of branding everything so heavily it feels like advertising.
- Give customers what they want — not only on Facebook, but also in real life! Do your products have direct ties to customer feedback? Show your customers you've put their requests into action and they'll toot your horn!
Carolee Sherwood is the conversation manager at Media Logic, an integrated marketing services and social marketing solutions provider. Carolee can be reached at csherwood@mlinc.com.
The Retailer's Source for Content & Community
The Monthly Retail Social Index Spotlight: Diapers.com, Lancome, ThinkGeek and American Girl
The Retail Social Index Spotlight is a ROI Report column that features a monthly update from Media Logic’s Retail Social Juice Index, a daily ranking of social engagement scores for hundreds of national retailers. Media Logic distills data from Facebook and Twitter daily and turns it into a score which represents the effectiveness of a brand’s interactions with its fans and followers. This monthly column highlights specific Retail Social Juice Index scores for a given month, along with commentary about the findings. Data for this post was compiled with engagement scores through June 2012.
Diapers.com spent less than one-third of June among the top 10 brands on Media Logic's Retail Social Juice Index (RSJI), but what an incredible surge it saw. The brand's engagement score for the month ranged from 29 to 493. During the first half of the month, Diapers.com averaged 46, which is comparable to the RSJI's daily average. During the last half of the month its average jumped to 278.
Diapers.com's meteoric rise began June 18 with the following Facebook post and accompanying image: "You know your life has changed when ... going to the grocery store by yourself is a vacation." Fans echoed the accompanying status with comments like "So true" to the tune of 17,000 likes/comments and 3,345 shares. Diapers.com repeated the image-plus-parenting-quote strategy on June 23 with a post that received nearly 8,500 likes/comments and over 1,600 shares: a Someecards with the message, "That moment when you realize the kids have been in bed for over 30 minutes, and you have been watching Nick Jr. alone."
In addition to featuring content that rallied fans, these posts were interesting for another reason: Both started in influencer communities; Diapers.com shared them on its own wall. The grocery store post originated on Plum District's Facebook page, a mom community with more than 50,000 Facebook fans — a number representing more than half the brand's own fan base. The Nick Jr. post originated on Red Tricycle's Facebook page, a West Coast-based city guide for parents that has more than 30,000 fans.
Does the influencer connection make a difference? On June 28 a second "So true" status and quote ended up with 70 percent less activity than the first one. And on Saturday, June 30, Diapers.com posted another someecard that saw a similar drop in likes, comments and shares. Neither of these posts got their start in an influencer community.
Luxury cosmetics brand Lancome spent half of June on the RSJI's top 10 by employing a few key strategies, namely celebrity photos, questions and tips/how tos. For example, a post about applying cheek color earned 7,088 likes, 154 comments and 544 shares. The brand publishes series of posts along various themes, like the consistently popular "color tips" from fashion designer Chris Benz and the repeating question, "What's your favorite shade of ____?" (lipstick, nail polish, etc.).
Tags seemed to come into play for Lancome, much as they did for Diapers.com. A photo of Emma Watson with a status update tagging her earned twice the engagement of two prior photos that didn't include a tag. And those color tips from Chris Benz? The tips tagging him (and Saks Fifth Avenue) reliably outperformed those with no tags.
Internet retailer ThinkGeek spent more time in the RSJI's top 10 than any other brand in June; it made the list in all but two days. It is, by far, one of the best curators of content among brands in the social space, posting more shareable content than just about anyone else on the RSJI. ThinkGeek knows its fans, and it gives them the super cool, super geeky stuff they love. In turn, they spread ThinkGeek status updates and photos throughout the web.
A photo of all five Starfleet commanders gathered at Philadelphia Comic Con; an Escher-inspired photo of LEGOs; "Star Wars" car decals challenge regular car decals to a duel; a picture of a six-foot tall robot wine rack TinkGeek found on Craigslist; a Happy Unicorn Appreciation Day coupled with a joke about Neil Patrick Harris; a Loki cupcake. This is just some of the things that ThinkGeek posted to its Facebook page. We're talking thousands and thousands of likes, comments and shares. In most cases, the number of shares — also in the thousands — represented over 30 percent of the posts’ activity.
One of those very popular photos/status updates was a "Star Wars" decal product plug with a link to the product page on ThinkGeek's website. Proving itself just as popular as the other posts — it included a clever caption that placed it squarely in the same spirit as the other cool content — the "Star Wars" decal earned 8,672 likes, 483 comments and more than 8,000 shares.
Our highest score this month comes from another brand that's no stranger to the top of the RSJI. American Girl scored an astronomical 733 by featuring a new product that customers had been begging for: a hair-optional doll targered to girls with cancer. The Facebook post announcing the new doll received 7,208 shares, 1,819 comments and nearly 36,000 likes. American Girl can feel good that it made a lot of fans happy while offering a product that a very special group of customers can appreciate.
Takeaways from this month's RSJI spotlight include the following:
Carolee Sherwood is the conversation manager at Media Logic, an integrated marketing services and social marketing solutions provider. Carolee can be reached at csherwood@mlinc.com.