3 Successful Social Media Campaigns from Innovative Multi-Channel Retailers

Ian Newcombe

Learn how three social media campaigns paid dividends for these innovative retailers – and how they can help inspire your social media strategy.

Successful social media engagement is a dream come true for any multi-channel retailer. It shows that your message has impacted almost immediately on your targeted audience, plus offers:

1. Invaluable insights into customers.
   
2. The perfect vehicle for promotions and offers.
   
3. The ideal way to engage with customers directly.
   
4. Instant feedback – you’ll know if you’ve got your campaign right in a matter of hours, not weeks.

But how do you make your message hit the mark? The best way is to learn from those who made a splash with their own successful social media campaigns.

1. Topshop

Aim

The fashion retail giant wanted to engage with customers both in-store and online, bringing both channels together by creating its Wish You Were At Topshop campaign, all while increasing image content for its Facebook and Instagram feeds.

Campaign

Shoppers received a free make-up and style session in-store and were asked if they would like to capture the results using Instagram. With the photo snapped on an iPad and Instagram filters applied, the shopper was then given their own copy, and offered the option to upload the photo to Facebook and Topshop’s gallery.

Result

• 2,595 images were captured on Instagram.
  
• The campaign was covered by 640 blogs; that’s a potential reach of 1.3 million viewers.
  
• What would normally be a year’s worth of activity on Topshop’s Facebook page took just four days to attain.
  
• Total reach of the campaign? Over 7.5 million.

SOURCE: Econsultancy

2. Tesco

Aim

The supermarket wanted to stand egg and shoulders above its competitors during Easter 2013 and to achieve this, it created the innovative #Find The Eggs competition.

Campaign

Shoppers were challenged to find hidden eggs to win prizes including chocolates and tablet PCs. The difference from a normal egg hunt? It was online – visiting Tesco’s competition site presented visitors with a special version of Google Street View where they were asked to locate eggs. Locations were diverse, from Downing Street all the way across the pond to New York.

Result

• Generated 9,293 posts.
  
• The hashtag #findtheeggs trended more than Easter itself with the former generating 7,062 posts while the latter limply bounced in behind it with 1,397.
  
• Tesco beat competitor Asda’s admittedly in-store-only digital egg hunt, which managed to drum up a mere 133 posts…

SOURCES:
Mashable
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Our Tesco

3. Toys R Us

Aim

To engage with families via social media in the run-up to Christmas 2012 and throughout 2013.

Campaign

The Toys R Us campaign was simple but effective – a callout was sent to parents, asking them to submit their family snaps to be featured in the company’s Big Family Album area on Facebook. The most-liked and commented-on images were then aired in the company’s Christmas commercial.

Results

• 90,000 new Likes were directly attributed to the successful campaign – after only a month.
  
• The campaign was warmly received by parents with 51.9% saying that it produced a positive effect.

SOURCES:
Roland Dransfield PR
Sentiment
Ernan Roman Direct Marketing Corp.

Remember:

1. Make your social media campaign, well, social. The more fun, involving and creative the campaign is, the more chance your target audience will get involved.
   
2. But ensure that the social media campaign adds value to your customer’s experience or they’ll ignore it.
   
3. Takeaways such as pictures add a real touch of personalisation that consumers will enjoy long after the experience itself.

Discover how to future proof your business with omni-channel retailing in this eGuide: Make omni-channel retailing work for you with these 6 top tips

This article first appeared on the Sanderson blog.

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