Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Social Media Monitoring Final - Abercrombie & Fitch
Following my last social media monitoring blog post, this time I used some other monitoring tools to monitor Abercrombie in order to collect more comprehensive data about Abercrombie.
Magnitude Score
HowSociable
HowSociable's magnitude score provides an indication of the level of activity around a brand during a given week. The range is from 0 to 10. A score of zero means there is zero or near zero activity for the brand. A score of 10 means the brand has practically saturated the social web and will likely be recognized by everyone that uses it.
From this Magnitude Score, we can find out that in the last week, Abercrombie’s social web activities is mediocre. The top 3 social media are Google+, Youtube and Foursquare.
Based on this result, we can conclude that people who are concerned about Abercrombie are much like its loyal customers who are in the Abercrombie’s circle and will check-in when they visit Abercrombie stores.
Buzz
Omgili
The Omgili Buzz is the percentage of the term out of the total number of discussions Omgili covered on a specific social media data.
In last month, from the Omgili Buzz graph, it shows that in October, Abercrombie are barely discussed in social media web. The highest appearance started at the beginning of November because the Thanksgiving sale is on the way.
Recommendation
Based on my social media monitoring about Abercrombie, I think Abercrombie need to make more efforts to enhance its social network influence to promote itself.
It can’t be denied that the economic downturn made consumers move on since Abercrombie still keep its higher price.But Abercrombie still faces another big difficulty-Abercrombie began to lose its attractiveness.People already got visual fatigue on its image: the half naked super hot model. And some people even displeasure about its brand image by considering its bad impact on teenager.
Considering all these factors, it requires Abercrombie to relocate its marketing position in order to keep more loyal customers and attract more new fans.
In social media aspect, Abercrombie need to build up a more effective social media strategy.
Here are my recommendations for Abercrombie.
Official Website: Abercrombie.com
WooRank
Abercrombie.com is the only official online shopping website for Abercrombie. Abercrombie should take full advantage of this online database to track their customers. In Abercrombie.com, it has two registration system. One is for people who shopping online, the other one is for Abercrombie member. Only the Abercrombie Member will get the latest information about Abercrombie’s promotion events and its special discount events. But for those people who just purchase items online but never joined Abercrombie club, they will never heard from Abercrombie. Does Abercrombie notice that it lost a big opportunity to increase its sale? If Abercrombie can send its sale information to each person who ever purchased on Abercrombie.com, even through these email maybe be treated as trash mail, but there still have some chance that people will notice Abercrombie’s deal and go back to shop again.
From the Facebook Insight Data, it seems that Abercrombie’s Facebook is quite successful. But If we dig deep for the inside information, we will find a different story.
SocialDon
By using SocialDon to analyse Abercrombie’s Facebook Page, we can find out that even through the total uses number is quite high, but the interactions on Facebook is not much as we thought.
According to the users analysis, we can find out that the biggest users distribution is Abercrombie itself.
When we look at the actual interactions on Abercrombie’s Facebook, we can find out that the most interactions are about photos.
So, based on these data, my suggestion for Abercrombie is that to post more interesting photos on its Facebook Page,not only the official one, but also the fans’ pictures like how customers coordinate Abercrombie’s clothes. Moreover, don’t just post the official poster, but also post some inside pictures like how their models do the casting, how they act during the photo shooting. All these photos will engage more fans to get involve into Abercrombie and will inspire their loyalty of Abercrombie.
Wildfire
The Wildfire monitoring shows the development of Abercrombie Tweet. We can see since it opened its Twitter account, the number of the followers is gradually increase.
Sentiment
TweetReach
According to TweetReach monitoring, we can analyse that even through Abercrombie can reach over one hundred thousand people via just 50 tweets, but most tweets are regular tweets and most of people just impress on one tweet. There are a few of retweets or @ about Abercrombie. From this, we can feel that people are not passion enough about Abercrombie.
TweetArchivest
Based on the trend how users use Twitter to follow Abercrombie, I suggest that Abercrombie should engage with followers more often. The most tweets on Abercrombie Twitter are contributed by Abercrombie itself, and it also barely respond to its followers. Abercrombie should use its Twitter to spread out its latest information or hold some promotion event on Twitter to encourage people to get involve.
Blog
BoardReader
From this forum posts percentage rate, we can point out that the total percentage is low and is not frequent enough for people to recognize Abercrombie in social web.
In the Blog field, Abercrombie has fall behind. First of all, it doesn’t have its own blog site. Blog is the best way to keep a long-term relationship with your customers. But Abercrombie hasn’t realized it. So, I will recommend Abercrombie to start blogging itself. In its Blog, it not only can talk about itself let people know more about Abercrombie not just its clothes, but also it can repost others blog which related to the Abercrombie. By build up its own Blog, it will provides another channel for Abercrombie and its customers to communicate.Right now, Abercrombie can’t respond others blog, can’t make any comment, even can’t state for itself.
In short, my recommendations for Abercrombie are:
1. Link more applications like Facebook, Twitter on its website to increase its activities on social networks.
2. Send promotion mail to all the customers who purchased online.
3. Recreate its Facebook Page, make it more attractive for people to interact.
4. Use Twitter to spread out its newest information.
5. Create a Blog and respond each post that tag Abercrombie
6. Cooperate with more social media such as Foursquare, Pinterest to enhance its social impact.
7. Hold promotion campaign on social media like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest to excite its consumers.
Example: Abercrombie Social Media Strategy in China
Even through Abercrombie was depress in the U.S., but Abercrombie definitely raises upsurge in other countries such as Dublin, Singapore and Hong Kong.
The unique style of Abercrombie has lead a new fashion boom in other countries, and people indulge in it. It’s a great opportunity for Abercrombie to manage its international business to cover its lost in the U.S.
This year, Abercrombie opened its first store in Hong Kong, China. And this business action brought it 1 million dollars in the first week. There is no doubt that China is a big and profitable market for Abercrombie. Abercrombie also see the future and potential of Chinese market. It plans to open its second store in 2013.
Since Abercrombie is going to move its step into China, I would like to give it some advice about its marketing in social media area.
The first thing that Abercrombie should know is that in China, we have our own Facebook, Twitter, Blog and many other social media. The original Facebook or Twitter don’t work in China. So if Abercrombie want to increase its social power in China, the things it need to do are listed as below.
1. Create its Weico (Chinese Twitter)account, release all the information at the first time on Weico.
2. Cooperate with Jiepang (Chinese Foursquare) to give reward to people who check-in with Abercrombie.
3.Release its video on Youku (Chinese Youtube) for people to relink it.
Actually, in China, people are prefer to use the particular social media tools. We don’t have that many social media tools in China, so it makes it easy for Abercrombie to use social media to target customers. Just remember to choose the right social media tools and use it in a correct way.
Conclusion
By monitoring Abercrombie in this project, I learned more about social media- not only know how these social media work, but also know how to use these social media in business area.
Right now, people’s life are depended on social media. People barely can live without social media. Under this situation, marketers need to change its business model. Even through using social media to do the marketing is still a tough task for the marketers, but I believe that in the future, social media marketing will become a new war field.
Social Media Monitoring - Abercrombie & Fitch
In social media monitoring project, I choose the brand Abercrombie & Fitch as a target to monitor how it uses social media to manage its market and make recommendations on its social media marketing strategy.
Background
When I in China, I heard a lot about Abercrombie & Fitch: super handsome and sexy sales assistants in the store which just like a nightclub that filled with an alluring fragrance. Even I can't buy it in China, I still crave it. In China, only stars and celebrities have the way to get it. So it's definitely a fashion icon. But, when I finally came to U.S., Abercrombie is suddenly not as glorious as before.
This year, Abercrombie announced that it will shutter 71 U.S. stores in its most recent fiscal year, and will close another 180 stores until 2015. And based on the report from Bloomberg Business Week, Abercrombie & Fitch’s skin-filled ads and nightclub style has delighted American teenagers and infuriated parents. This once-edgy retailer has lost a third of its market value in the past year as it grapples with falling sales in Europe and the U.S. At Abercrombie & Fitch, sex is no longer sells.
Brand Introduction
A&F is known for its racy marketing photography. It is rendered to grayscale and features outdoor settings, usually with semi-nude males and females for an increased tone of sexuality.
Business Analysis
Google Finance:
During the fiscal year ended January 28, 2012, the Abercrombie & Fitch operated 1,045 stores, which include 294 Abercrombie & Fitch stores, 159 abercrombie kids stores, 571 Hollister stores and 21 Gilly Hicks stores. A&F operates websites for each brand, both domestically and internationally. Aggregate total net sales through direct-to-consumer operations, including shipping and handling revenue, during fiscal 2011 it represented 13.3% of total net sales. During fiscal 2011, A&F purchased merchandise from approximately 170 vendors located throughout the world, primarily in Asia and Central and south America.
Income Statement
From 2008-2012 Annual Income Statement, we can find out that even through the revenue in 2011 and 2012 are increased, but the net income is declined and the profit margin is not as considerable as before.
Even in 2012, A&F has reached a higher revenue level, but the reason is in 2012 A&F opened its market in China that brought a huge income for A&F this year.
Cash Flow
From the cash flow sheet, we can see that A&F decrease its financial activities in recent years in order to keep balance.
Social Media Monitoring
Search Stream
Google Trends
Based on these two different search trends, we can know that people prefer to search Abercrombie at the beginning of the year. I guess it because people still interest in its campaign such as its new commercial advertising, its new representative. But the product search of Abercrombie is showed up at the end of the year. I think the reason is very obviously- the sale. At the end of the year, it’s a big sale season so that people want to find out what kind of Abercrombie’s product will have a discount. But actually, Abercrombie will offer several different sale promotions in a year, especially when the season changed. But from this product search trend, we can conclude that its promotions didn’t bring out the good result.
Web Search
Product Search
The Regional Interest Map shows that people in the U.S. and Europe are more interested in Abercrombie itself, while people in China and South America are more interested in its products.
Traffic Stats
Alexa
Abercrombie.com is the only offical online shopping website for Abercrombie. Since the online shopping revenue is a big part of its income, the website traffic stats will affect its sales volume.
From the Daily Traffic Rank Trend, Daily Reach and Daily Pageviews, we can see that the highest traffic stats are both showed up at the end of the year.
Audience Demographics
From the Audience Demographics charts, we can find out some interesting features. In the female aspect, the demography is match the orientation of Abercrombie. On the other hand, in the male aspect, the demography shows the different orientation. In general, based on the data, we can conclude that most male audience who visit Abercrombie are parents.Apparently, elder male are not the target customers for Abercrombie. I think the reason why they visit Abercrombie is to find out why their daughters are interested in Abercrombie.
Besides, from this demographic, I think Abercrombie should pay attention to target their male customers, especially the male who aged between 18-25.
Social Mention
From the Social Mention monitoring result, we can find out that the strength of Abercrombie is just 1%. The likelihood that people will discuss Abercrombie is unexpected low.
According to this result, we can find out that people only mention Abercrombie when they purchase it. All the Top Keywords and Top Hashtags are pointed to its products and sale promotion.
In addition, the result of Sources is extreme differentiation.The most popular sources that people like to use are Photobucket and Youtube. However, other popular social media like Facebook and Twitter are barely mentioned about Abercrombie. Thus, we can infer that people prefer to use visual content rather than using words.
Comments
Samepoint
Based on the Samepoint Monitoring result, the overall comments about Abercrombie are Positive. Samepoint analyses 200 comments relating to the term Abercrombie. The most discussed topic is Wall Photo. And Blogs are the leading source of information about Abercrombie.
According to the results from Samepoint, I suggest that Abercrombie should use photos to engage into social media. The below graph illustrates the breakdown of topics being discussed with social media as it pertains to Abercrombie. From this graph, we can find out that photos are the good lead to the Abercrombie.
When looking at the new social sources and social networks, we found the greatest concentration of comments happened in Blogs.
Based on the analysis from Samepoint, the best way to engage Abercrombie is Facebook.
Facebook
IceRocket
Based on the IceRocket Monitoring, the photos are the key that attract people to interact in Facebook.
Twitter
Samepoint
In Samepoint, the TweetTest reported that the most tweets about Abercrombie are positive. The social tone about Abercrombie is affirmative. Moreover, there are several positive words appear in tweets such as love, like, great, quality, etc.
Blog
IceRocket
This is the daily bolgs trend from August to October. In this graph, there are two highest percent happened in August and in October.
In August, Abercrombie opened its first store in HongKong, China. Abercrombie held a grand campaign in HK. And Abercrombie earned 1 million US dollars in the first week. It was a big news in August. While, in October, Abercrombie started its business in Dublin. It was also very attractive.
In conclusion, all the information listed above are my first social media monitorig about Abercrombie. From these data, we can get a general image about how Abercrombie use social media tools to active its business. In my nest blog post, I will organize all the social media monitorint data and give you a comprehensive cognizance about Abercrombie's Social Media Strategy.
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