Social Media Marketing

Fashion retailer H&M is pretty popular on Pinterest-in spite of itself. Over the last month, the social scrapbooking platform's users have pinned, repinned, commented on or liked the brand's products 145,000 times, according to Pinterest analytics firm Curalate (H&M is not a client). The problem is, a good number of H&M's popular pins feature dead links-an increasing problem for retailers, said Curalate. For example, one H&M dress has been shared on Pinterest nearly 1,200 times in the past 30 days. But clicking on that product's pin returns the message,"Sorry, this item is no longer available." 

Wayfair.com, an online retailer of home furniture and décor, ran a contest on its Pinterest page this past Thanksgiving that proved the image-sharing social site is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to customer acquisition.

Target has found a new friend in Facebook, as the retailer has become one of the first businesses to participate in the social network's new gift card program. According to a Reuters report, consumers can buy cards for their Facebook friends for use at four different businesses including Target, LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vitton SA, Jamba Juice and Darden Restaurants’ Olive Garden.

Facebook did not get much attention last October when it officially launched "mobile app install ads," in part because the company unveiled about a dozen new ad products in 2012 and, from the users' point of view, many of them kinda looked the same. But several of Facebook's big advertising clients who have used the ads in the fourth quarter indicated that the ads can be used to develop e-commerce on Facebook, turning the social network into a mobile shopping and sales device.

Social media has arrived as a first choice channel of interaction for consumers to seek customer care and technical support when purchasing online. It's the next stage of evolution in the demand for a better online shopping experience and real time customer service. However, many businesses have been slow to embrace social media as a legitimate channel for customer engagement...    

Corporate marketing departments have added a social component to their marketing strategies, a necessary step in reaching this vast online audience. Smart companies have dedicated time, money and staff to building and maintaining reputable social networking platforms that engage with customers with the click of a mouse. Today's infographic takes us through the top 250 internet retailers on social media. These companies have excelled, creating highly engaging Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+ and Pinterest pages, allowing their customers to interact with their brand without stepping foot in a storefront.

I guess we're just not as advanced as we think we are. Or, the more things change, the more they stay the same. In last month's Christmas shopping season, paper catalogs influenced more holiday shopping than Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and mobile advertising platforms. And that's not just for brick-and-mortar stores, that's for online shopping too. Flyers and catalogs influenced 22 percent of online purchases and just slightly less, 21 percent, of offline purchases, according to a 1,000-participant study by Baynote, a customer experience solutions company.

In addition to improving the user experience and removing a barrier to list growth, offering social sign-in options has the potential to impact both the amount and accuracy of data that retailers can collect. Here's how:

Amazon.com announced a new feature called Friends and Family Gifting, aimed at helping consumers better organize their gift lists and gift ideas for others, generate Facebook-enabled gift suggestions, receive reminders, and share their gift lists out via email or social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Many Amazon customers have already been using the site's Wish List feature to create custom lists for others for quite some time, and Amazon has also previously offered ways to search for public, shared wish lists by entering a friend's name or email address.

Nook Media, the joint partnership between Barnes & Noble and Microsoft, is appealing to scrapbookers and/or Pinterest users with a holiday video, Dear Santa, that promotes the Nook Catalog and Nook Scrapbook features on its Nook HD and HD+ devices. Nook Catalog and Nook Scrapbook were introduced with the devices when they launched on September 26.