Social Media Marketing

If nothing else, Urban Outfitters can always be counted on for a good middle-of-the-week scandal. Its latest? A Facebook post that appears to promote underage drinking. Yesterday, the retailer posted a call to action on its Facebook page asking fans to send in all their burning prom questions: "Don't know how to do The Electric Slide? Not sure how to get puke out of satin? Ask us! Post your burning prom questions here on Facebook and we’ll answer them on the UO Blog!"

Elle has launched a shoppable trend guide on Facebook in the latest e-commerce initiative within the magazine industry. The guide, embedded as a tab on Elle's Facebook page, invites shoppers to navigate six editorially chosen spring trends, including floral, nautical and ladylike. Users can click “love,” “want, “own” or “buy!” on each product page. By default, all interactions with the app are shared automatically on their Facebook Timeline, so even if users don’t make a purchase, they can inadvertently draw curious friends in to interact with the app. Users can also click to buy each product on the retailer’s website.

Facebook is rolling out its Facebook Offers service, a way for users to get discounts and promotions from local businesses via the social networking site. The offers will be distributed through users' Facebook news feeds. Users can then sign up to receive the offers via email and redeem them at participating businesses. Users are more likely to see offers from businesses that they've "liked" on Facebook.

Forty-six percent of social media followers feel shopping their retailers “reflects their personal lifestyles” vs. 21 percent of nonfollowers, according to a fourth quarter 2011 report from Motista. Among social media followers, 53 percent choose their retailers when they want to “indulge” themselves vs. 28 percent of nonfollowers. And 46 percent of social media followers feel their retailers add “joy and pleasure” to their lives vs. 20 percent of nonfollowers. Social media is an effective vehicle for building emotional connections, and stronger emotional connections lead to better business outcomes.

Department store chain Neiman Marcus is hosting a nationwide foursquare challenge tailored to its seasonal shoe and handbag event designed to drive foot traffic to retail locations.

The emerging area of social care, the efforts of caring for customers using social media, is becoming a reality of day-to-day business operations for retailers. Many online marketers, retailers and marketplace merchants recognize the tremendous opportunity to enhance the customer experience by providing social media support, but most are struggling to prove the qualitative and quantitative value of their social care efforts.

It all started last summer. Like so many other women, Stacy Sasson, the wife of overstockArt.com's CEO David Sasson, got hooked on Pinterest. So hooked, in fact, that she told the company about how amazing the new social media site is. Considering that Stacy represents the target demographic for overstockArt.com, and the fact that its products are perfect for such a visual social media site like Pinterest, the retailer realized this was an opportunity it couldn't pass up.

The infographic specifically focuses on the ways e-tailers and other e-commerce marketers can (and should) be using Pinterest to increase revenue. It also outlines Pinterest users' various activities and motives for using the site as compared to other social media and sharing platforms.

As the seasons change, GUESS invites Pinterest users to style their boards for spring to win a pair of colored denim. The "Color Me Inspired" contest showcases the different colorful muses of the hottest new social community. Participants use their Pinterest account to base their boards around one of the four spring colors from the GUESS spring collection.

Nothing delights us more than when brands offer amazing customer experiences. So it's wonderful to see retailers with character scoring high on the Media Logic’s Retail Social Index in January.