Social Media Marketing

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.

Wal-Mart has purchased Newput Corporation's Social Calendar products, services, website and Facebook app. The app currently has a total of 15 million users with approximately 400,000 active users per month. Social Calendar allows users to get birthday, anniversary and holiday reminders by email and SMS, and to post personalized photo cards and other virtual greetings on friends' Facebook Walls on their birthdays. Users can also plan events among friends, get movie showtimes and integrate events into a public calendar. 

In the boom of social media, newcomer Pinterest has created a big bang explosion. Retailers such as Lowe's, Etsy, Williams-Sonoma, American Eagle, Nordstrom, Urban Outfitters and Gap are among the many that have jumped on the bandwagon.

Social and mobile tactics were among the 384 features evaluated in the e-tailing group's 14th Annual Mystery Shopping Study. The study first focused on retailers’ websites, with a goal of tracking customer involvement, then moved to merchant Facebook pages, where 37 features were tracked.

What happens when you pair social media darling Pinterest with Facebook, the undisputed heavyweight of the social networking world? Lowe's is hoping for big things as one of the first brands to feature its Pinterest presence in Facebook through a new tool from social marketing firm Vitrue.

Where are the ladies that use Pinterest getting their content from? According to a study by Zoomsphere, a social media statistics tool, the sources are as female-oriented as you'd expect. Rounding out the top two sources are Google and Etsy, with numbers closely rivaling each other that by the time this article publishes the two sources may have traded spots.

As access to product price comparisons has become quicker and easier than ever, customer loyalty has increasingly become a challenge for retailers. Although traditional loyalty programs that reward spending may help retain customers, there's an even better way to combat this issue.

It started with a tweet from a friend: "SCAM? On Pinterest now: Starbucks joined Pinterest and is giving away 500 FREE Giftcards to celebrate!" Never one to pass a scam, I dutifully clicked.

With consumers all over the world spending anywhere from four hours to 10 hours a day on social networks, there are plenty of opportunities for retailers to reach a captive audience. And that audience is ready to engage.