Specialty Hardlines Suddenly the Hottest Retail Sector on Facebook as Bed Bath & Beyond, Cost Plus World Market and Best Buy Post Strong Liker Growth in December and January
While retail brands in the Specialty Apparel and Department/Discount sectors continue to enjoy the largest Facebook Liker bases (Victoria’s Secret with 11 million, Target with 3.6 million), the big surprise of the January 2011 Update to the The Media Logic Retail Marketing Report is the vibrant growth of brands in the previously socially-moribund Specialty Hardlines sector. Bed Bath & Beyond grew a crazy 1210% in December and an additional 27% in January.[1] Cost Plus World Market drove past 230,000 Likers, with December and January growth that easily outpaced sector averages. And Best Buy continued its charge, growing 16% in January on top of 45% growth in December.
Brands in the Department/Discount sector also saw solid growth on average, led by a few standout performers. Office Max grew 90% in December. CVS grew a phenomenal 305% in the same month. And Nordstrom, with its multi-stream strategy, broke new ground on Facebook, and in January, grew its Twitter base 95%.
All Retail Sectors Continue to Show Strong Social Growth[2]
As noted above, brands in Specialty Hardlines grew the fastest during the measured period, posting a 26.8% average gain from mid-November to mid-December and an additional 7.8% gain from mid-December through mid-January. Recreation brands grew the slowest over the holiday season, posting only a 14% average gain by mid-December and an additional 5.5% through mid-January. Department/Discount brands grew 21.7% in December and 5.7% in January. And Specialty Apparel retailers grew a steady 20% in December and 5% in January.
Other retailers that saw strong growth over the measured period include: Specialty Hardlines brands Pier 1 and Lowe’s; Recreation brand Build-A-Bear Workshop; Specialty Apparel retailers Tommy Hilfiger, Cato and Justice; and Department/Discount brand Macy’s, which broke the million Liker mark during the period to become one of 24 retailers on our list that can now make that boast.
What About Twitter?
While the gross numbers pale in comparison to Facebook, a few brands are demonstrating that Twitter can serve as a powerful owned media marketing channel for retailers. Notable is Nordstrom, which within just the last week broke through the 100,000 follower barrier on its main brand feed to join fellow Twitter success stories Urban Outfitters, American Apparel, Coach, BCBG, Forever XXI, Sephora and Staples.
And Is Multi-stream the Future?
Speaking of Nordstrom, as part of the company’s aggressive “conversation-centric” effort launched last August with its redesigned website, Nordstrom started offering multiple Facebook and Twitter stream options. As of January, the brand was managing 6 Facebook and 3 Twitter instances; an innovative segmentation strategy that has attracted more than 568,000 Facebook Likers and 137,000 Twitter followers total.
A Season of Experimentation With One Simple Conclusion: You’ve Got to Give to Get!
During the reporting period – mid-November 2010 through mid-January 2011 – the 100 retail brands tracked by Media Logic experimented with just about every configuration of walls and tabs possible within Facebook. Subtracting the 8 brands that had yet to attract 10,000 Likers by mid-December[3], we divided the remaining brands into two categories – movers and slackers – based on the percentage growth of their Liker bases. Roughly, this broke down into brands that grew their Liker base 15% or more from mid-November to mid-December and those that saw an increase of 14% or less (no brands saw their Liker base shrink).
With the data crunched, the most obvious conclusion is that active promotions – contests, sweepstakes and offers – drive growth. In December, all retailers that defaulted non-Likers to a tab that promoted a contest, sweepstakes or some type of “like and get” offer were movers.
Additionally, it appears that active promotions are the only sure path to better-than-average Liker growth. Other Facebook strategies – defaulting to the Wall, asking to be liked without offering a reward – may have ancillary brand benefits, but are not good strategies for building a Liker base.
Of the 17 brands that defaulted non-Likers to their Wall during December, only 6 were movers. Of the 18 brands that asked new visitors to “like us” but promised nothing tangible in return were movers and slackers in equal numbers. Similarly in January, brands that defaulted new visitors to the Wall without channeling them through a promotions tab were also equally likely to be movers and slackers.
One additional strategy Media Logic monitored was the somewhat “anti-social” decision by 24 retailers to land visitors on their Facebook Info tab during the weeks leading up to Christmas. The Info tab is typically not used as a landing page for non-Likers. But since it is the page that offers links to a retailer’s commerce web site, retailers probably landed visitors on the Info tab both as a convenience for their customers and to capture all the sales they could. Regardless, it seems this strategy did come at a small cost, as only 10 of the 24 who deployed it were January movers.
Takeaways
Channeling non-Likers through a Facebook-based promotion – a contest, sweepstakes or simple “like and get” – rather than simply asking to be liked or dropping new visitors on the wall, appears to significantly increase the chances of a being liked.
Select brands with large Liker bases (perhaps limited to Department/Discount brands?) and a broad range of product or service offerings should consider a segmentation strategy similar to the one deployed by Nordstrom.
And finally, Twitter is far from dead, particularly for “gossipy” brands in specialty apparel who can use the platform to offer interesting behind-the-scenes access.
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[1] Bed Bath & Beyond’s December number probably represents pent up demand, as the brand only launched on Facebook in late November. Still, going from 0 to more than 25,000 Likers in two months is a notable achievement.
[2] For this analysis, Media Logic excluded brands with less than 10,000 Likers and a few extreme outliers (Bed Bath & Beyond, Office Max and CVS) for the months analyzed in order not to encourage unwarranted conclusions.
[3] Brands with fewer than 10,000 Likers in –mid-December included: J. Jill, Oneida, Jones New York, Jos. A. Bank Colthiers, Bob’s Stores, Eastern Mountain Sports, Mikasa and Cache
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