The Monthly Retail Social Juice Index Spotlight: Bebe, Foot Locker and 1-800-Flowers

By Carolee Sherwood

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Takeaways from this month's RSJI spotlight include the following:

Question all advice … even this. Both Bebe and Foot Locker work in step with traditional wisdom about engagement on Facebook: use photos, ask questions and include calls to action. But both also do a great deal of "rule" breaking. Bebe's posts, for example, contain lots of text and are overly repetitive. But guess what? They're successful. What should you do? Experiment. Find out what works in your unique case and amplify it.
Promotions should be part of your overall branded Facebook strategy. Promotions (e.g., contests, giveaways and sweepstakes) as well as promotional partnerships with vendors or media partners shouldn't seem out of place in your social stream. 1-800-Flowers.com's sports-inspired "WOW Moment of the Day Sweepstakes" with ESPN Radio may have been designed to appeal to a male broadcast audience ahead of Valentine's Day, but it didn't appeal to fans on Facebook. These posts typically earned only 200 likes to 300 likes, probably because they strayed too far from the brand's sweet spot. Want to do promotions? Customize content so that it closely matches both your brand and your specific audience, which may vary platform to platform.
Fine-tune your strategy as you go along. Who doesn't appreciate some snark? Who doesn't get a good laugh out of some e-cards? 1-800-Flowers.com's fans, that's who. Think about why: the retailer is about feeling good. It's about encouraging people, supporting people and showing affection. 1-800-Flowers.com deserves kudos for trying e-cards, but the brand only gets real props when they're phased out (hopefully).

Media Logic's RSJI has been measuring social engagement for hundreds of national retailers since November 2011.