SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING CHEAT SHEETS

RETAIL BRANDS

4 key use cases & how to measure them

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BRAND BUILDING Through the Lens of the Retail Industry

Social media platforms are great opportunities for retail brands to build brand awareness and share messaging with a wide network of fans and potential customers. Brand building through social can take many forms, but you’ll know it when you see it: whether it’s a funny tweet showing the brand’s sense of humor or a Facebook post giving a behind-the-scenes look at company initiatives, retail brands use social platforms to show who they are and what they stand for.

How they do it:Target: To further its position as a trendy, in-the-know retailer, Target uses social to showcase its fun brand personality. The retailer uses interesting and fun hashtag campaigns across social channels and in television commercials to encourage followers to engage, interact and share.

Best Buy: To combat the growing number of consumers choosing to purchase goods online, Best Buy uses social to brand itself as “The Ultimate Showroom,” highlighting its in-store appeal by emphasizing competent customer service and price-matching.

• Amazon• Walmart• Target• Home Depot

• Macy’s• Best Buy• Nordstorm• Kohl’s

Which of the biggest retail

brands are doing this?

Find real-time insights to support your social media brand building efforts ubervu.com | 1.800.286.1624

Walmart: The retail giant has been using social to repair its reputation that’s taken a PR hit in the past few years, launching #movingup, a program aimed to provide opportunities for employees to grow within the company, to coincide with its overall #livebetter branding.

• Always consider your brand’s positioning and messaging (information you’re probably already familiar with as a part of the marketing team) when creating content for social channels. Stay on brand!

• Not every post needs to be promotional in order to build brand awareness— sometimes a great photo or behind-the-scenes interview can convey your position just as well.

• Visual platforms are great places for retail brands to shine. Try building a brand presence on

Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, Vine, etc. and let consumers take a peek into your world! Sharing photos and albums on Facebook is also a great way to spur engagement and widen your brand’s reach.

• Don’t just talk: listen! Pay attention to the way consumers chat about your brand online to tailor your message to each audience as necessary. Your fans on Google+ may talk about you differently than those who follow your boards on Pinterest, and listening will help you reach them more effectively.

Find real-time insights to support your social media brand building efforts ubervu.com | 1.800.286.1624

Best Practices for Social Brand Building:

• Sentiment for conversations about your brand

• Presence of related positioning words and

phrases in your brand’s conversation map

• Growth over time in fans, followers, Likes, etc.

• Shares, RTs, +1s, Pins: are people actively

sharing the messages you put out?

• Geographic and demographic breakdowns

of your followers: do they match up with

your targets?

Watch out for:Getting too promotional: while it’s ok to share sales and campaigns your company is working on, be sure to use other types of content as well to build your brand. Include items that aren’t promotional, but rather establish your brand’s position as a resource for your industry online. Know the difference between brand building and selling.

Attracting the wrong audience: it’s easy to get off-track creating content that’s designed to “go viral”, but pay attention to whether the right people (your target customers) are sharing it. If you’re a retailer that specializes in luxury goods and your posts are only getting a reaction from teens, consider tweaking your content to appeal more to your target demographic: wealthier, older individuals.

Find real-time insights to support your social media brand building efforts ubervu.com | 1.800.286.1624

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR CRISIS MANAGEMENT Through the Lens of the Retail Industry

When a crisis about your brand pops up, whether it starts on social media or is simply being discussed there, it’s important to handle the issue gracefully, and in a timely manner. A quick and well thought-out response on social platforms can make the difference between a tiny blip on your brand’s radar and a major impact on brand health—AND sales. Social media is an important channel to monitor and manage during a crisis, and watch out—it moves fast!

Which of the biggest retail

brands are doing this?

Find real-time insights to support your brand during a crisis ubervu.com | 1.800.286.1624

JCPenney: The retailer came under fire after Reddit users drew attention to its teapot that they claimed resembled Adolf Hitler. JCPenney understood the issue had to be addressed before it could turn into a full-blown crisis, but was careful not to take the situation too seriously. The brand took the time to respond to every mention of the teapot with lighthearted messages emphasizing that the resemblance was unintentional.

How they do it:Walmart: After news broke that an Ohio Walmart took up an employee-to-employee food charity collection, the retail giant came under attack for not paying its employees enough to be above the poverty line. Walmart utilized its corporate social accounts to address the controversy, sharing policies and regular updates on what it has been doing to improve over the past few years. And rather than responding to every negative comment, the brand focused on those who were sharing inaccurate information in attempt to set the record straight.

• Walmart• JCPenney

• Amazon• ….and many more!

Find real-time insights to support your brand during a crisis ubervu.com | 1.800.286.1624

Best Practices for Social Crisis Management:

• Respond quickly and acknowledge the discussion—ignoring it will only let the situation get out of hand, making it that much harder to manage later.

• If the crisis was initiated by a social media-specific slip-up, take steps to correct the mistake, apologize, and remove the offending post after explaining the actions you’re taking. Don’t try to pull the wool over consumers’ eyes, but don’t leave your brand exposed to any more criticism (and screenshots) than is absolutely necessary.

• If another department or employee deserves the blame for the crisis, don’t throw them under the bus! Get the story as quickly as possible, and work with your Communications or PR team to come up with language you can use to guide the conversation on social platforms.

• Have a plan! The best way to resolve a crisis quickly and efficiently is to plan ahead so everyone on the team knows what to do if something does happen.

• Sentiment recovery for conversations

about your brand—how quickly does the

sentiment around your brand return to

normal levels after a crisis?

• Percentage of your brand’s conversation

map or word cloud related to the crisis—

is this decreasing to a manageable level?

• Engagement on crisis-resolution posts:

comments, shares, Likes, RTs, +1s, etc.

Watch out for:• Trolls: some people will create meaningful conversation about the issue, but others will jump on the

trash-talking bandwagon just for fun. Don’t waste your time trying to engage the trolls!• Shifting the blame or just plain making it up: when in doubt, check in with your company’s

Communications/PR team before offering any explanation of what caused the problem. Don’t play the blame game.

• Follow-up: once you’ve addressed an issue, don’t just let it lie. Keep following the conversation about the crisis and comments on your brand posts across social channels—many will need additional response, so be vigilant about addressing concerns and criticisms.

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE Through the Lens of the Retail Industry

More and more consumers are turning to social networks to share feedback on their experiences and ask for help from retail brands when they have a problem. The traditional principles of customer service apply here, but instead of handling them over the phone, you’ll be responding to tweets, commenting on Yelp reviews, and often escalating the issue to email or another medium to fully resolve it.

How they do it:Nordstrom: Nordstrom even opts to respond to complaints that aren’t a direct request for help. Following these angry Facebook posts, the brand acknowledged the issues, apologized, extended offers to help and followed up on the resolutions.

• Amazon• Nordstrom • JCPenney

• Best Buy• Lowe’s

Which of the biggest retail

brands are doing this?

Find real-time insights to make your social responses even more effective ubervu.com | 1.800.286.1624

Amazon: The online retailer uses a dedicated support handle on Twitter. Rather than addressing customer complaints on the same page it uses to share new marketing initiatives and respond to fan comments, Amazon has opted to move the customer service side of its social into a separate account, making sure complaints mentioning Amazon and those directed to @Amazon and @AmazonHelp get addressed. And as a personal touch, the customer service representatives always include their initials and the end of each tweet.

Find real-time insights to make your social responses even more effective ubervu.com | 1.800.286.1624

Best Practices for Social Customer Service:

• Address complaints quickly: keep a relatively constant eye on mentions of your brand (both directly and indirectly addressed to you) across the social web. Use social media monitoring services that allow you to tag and assign issues to team members if more than one person handles the responses.

• Know your customers: look for context clues or find them in your CRM system before responding to ensure the best possible resolution.

• Respect the consumer’s privacy and protect your brand: when it makes sense, take the conversation to DM, email, or phone to fully resolve the issue.

• Sentiment for conversations about your brand

• Number of mentions of your brand vs.

number of replies you made

• Response time (ideally, this should be

minutes or hours—NOT days!)

Watch out for:• Trolls: some people are online just to complain, and even fixing their problem won’t make them happy.

Do your best to fix the issue or connect them with someone who can, but don’t stress out if they continue to blast your brand with insults—move on and focus your efforts on someone who’ll appreciate them!

• The medium: Pay close attention to how and where you address someone’s complaint. It’s great to resolve an issue publicly, but consider whether they, or your PR team, would want every detail publicized on Twitter (just a RT away from infamy!). Know when it makes sense to escalate your response to DM, email, or a quick phone call and use public social posts to refer them there if you need to.

• Social influencers who complain: It can be alarming when someone with thousands or millions of followers says something negative about your brand, but use them to your advantage by doing a stellar job of resolving their problem. They’ll often reward your efforts with a public “thank you” or commendation, giving credit where credit’s due—and you’ll be the hero who helped turn a hater into a fan!

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR REAL-TIME MARKETING Through the Lens of the Retail Industry

Real-time marketing is about recognizing an opportunity and responding to it. There are two types within social media: content-based and conversation-based. Content-based involves creating content—video, images, etc.—to interject into trending conversations. Conversation-based is essentially real-time engagement; it’s about listening and reacting to current conversations. Both types of real-time marketing revolve around delivering the right message, to the right audience, at the right time.

How they do it:Target: Target uses content-based real-time marketing to join conversations surrounding popular events like the Emmy Awards. The brand jumped on the attention Tina Fey’s blue dress was getting to showcase products, linking to a landing page featuring all cobalt-colored clothing and accessories available at Target.

Which of the biggest retail

brands are doing this?

Find real-time marketing opportunities with uberVU! See how we can help. ubervu.com | 1.800.286.1624

Home Depot: Home Depot uses content-based real-time marketing to join trending conversations. The retailer participated in the social chatter surrounding the breakup of the Jonas Brothers by posting this image on Twitter shortly after the news was announced, linking to a life-size wall decal available at the store.

• Target• Home Depot

• Best Buy• Macy’s

• Likes, Comments, +1s, Pins: are people

engaging with and talking about your

real-time efforts?

• Shares, RTs, repins: are you increasing your

reach by creating sharable content?

• Increased social following: are you gaining

a new audience? Do people want to hear

more from you?

Watch out for:• Forcing It. Only choose opportunities that are relevant to your brand and your audience.

• Missing the boat: Make sure the opportunity is still timely before you join in.

• Going off brand. All content and conversations should align with your established brand position and voice.

• Hitting the wrong tone. Monitor the conversation to ensure you know the overall sentiment so your content is appropriate for the situation and audience.

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

Find real-time marketing opportunities with uberVU! See how we can help. ubervu.com | 1.800.286.1624

Best Practices for Social Real-Time Marketing:• Look for the best opportunities. Make sure there is a potential for your target audience to be present and

participating.

• Pick the right platforms. Identify where conversations relevant to your brand are taking place.

• Aim to create content that reacts to the conversation around the event and not just the event itself.

• Monitor social conversations around your brand, competitors and your industry to find opportunities to act.

• Make sure your real-time content is branded—include your logo or anything that’s identifiable so the content is easily associated with your brand.

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• Be alerted of any real-time spikes in mentions, sentiment, activity and other important metrics

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