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.

Facebook



 

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.

Twitter

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.

Take Advantage of Customer Reviews

Customer reviews are one of the power weapons in social network. Since customers and companies are connecting with multiple social media, customers have the control of what they think about the companies. Social media changes the relationship between customers and companies. In the past, customers have limited information about products and services which provided by the productors. But right now, people can share their experience about the products and services to public by using social media tools. These comments are much more powerful than what the companies said about themselves through other media channls. In other words, people prefer to believe others' reviews or comments rather than advertising.



In the book "Groundswell", the authors also points out five strategies for tapping the groundswell: listening to the groundswell, talking with the groundswell, energizing the groundswell, helping the groundswell and embracing the groundswell. Based on the power of social media, I think energizing the groundswell is the most important part for companies to tap their customers by using social media. In the book, it explained that energizing the groundswell means tapping into the power of word of mouth by connecting with, and turning on, your most committed customers. But it's not that easy. In order to succeed in this endeavor, companies should make effort to connect your brand's enthusiasts with your customers. First, tap into customers' enthusiasm with ratings and reviews. Second, create a community to energize your customers. Third, participate in and energize online communities of your brand enthusiasts.

Speaking of the interaction between companies and customers, the first one come out of my mind is socail media reviews. Reviews change the relationship between companies and customers. People can make any comments about any companies, products, services on any social media at anytime in anywhere. Consumers have gone social, and businesses are overwhelmed. With a Twitter, Facebook status update or instagram picture, customers have more ways than ever to publicly praise or criticize your business. Ron Kaufman, author of the New York Times bestseller "Uplifitng Service: The Proven Path to Delighting Your Customers, Colleagues, and Everyone Else You Meet", says customer reviews are more important than any marketing you could pay for because they're seen as more credible. He also says that businesses can take back the power and leverage social media for their own benefit. In his book, he mentioned that marketers should tell happy customers to go ahead and be social about their great experiences and encourage unhappy customers to come to you via social media so that you can make it right and improve your overall service.

 

There is an old saying that give people what they want. It's exactly what marketers need to do in social networks. Social Media is impending flood of customer unlikes.Many brands are now fouriously creating profiles in social media such as Facebook and Twitter in hope of building engaging communities with customers and giving people what the brands think they want. The main activity in this effort is to spur consumers to "like" and "follow" a brand's Facebook and Twitter streams. But it's not enough because sooner or later more and more people in social entworks will begin realizing that they hold control of their social streams and can simply unlike or unfollow brands that don't deliver values. So it's time for companies to rethink their approach in social media. Effective brand engagement is directly linked to the value customers take away from the branded social experience and how closely their expectations and desires are met. In order to connect with customers effectively, it's important to understand what customers want in social relationships.

 

Consumer reviews are incredibly important. Over 70% of consumers trust the reviews of others more than any from of advertising. It is clear that reviews are important, but what if your product or service receive negative reviews? I believe that many companies are afraid of receiving negative reviews. Consider of the power of social networks, negative reviews do can damage brands' image or even worse. However, how exactly people think about negative reviews. For me, I would like to view some negative comments as constructive criticism. So in my opinion, companies don't need to panic when you receive negative reviews because these reviews also can be very positive.Here are some positive effect of negative reviews.

1. Mitigate Skepticism

Consumers have been trained though experience, advertising, media, education, and many other external influences, to be skeptics of anything that appears to be "too good". While I certainly won't argue against the obvious value of receiving mainly positive reviews, the odd negative review can actually mitigate consumer skepticism by pointing out the flaws that exist in each product, service or anything they might be making a decision on. The end result is that consumers will be able to formulate what they feel about your product or service and will make their purchase decision with increased confidence.

 

2. Opportunity for continuous improvement

Negative reviews can function as a modern day comment box and provide you with valuable information and insight on how your company can be improved.

3.Create brand evangelists

Receiving a negative review can be a huge opportunity to convert those individuals into brand evangelists. Because of the inherent consumer skepticism that exist, if you are able to over-deliver on how you address a negative review, you have an opportunity to parlay that negativity into a huge emotional swing for the consumer and shift them toward becoming a brand evangelist.

 

4. Transparency

As a community manager, it is important to leave negative reviews visible for all to see. This demonstrates a willingness of your business or brand to be transparent with consumers, which will result in increased consumer trust, greater value given to positive reviews, and a perception of increased legitimacy of brand or corporate communications.

Social Media-A New Public Relations

Public Relations specialists were some of the first people to embrace the power of social media, and as a result they are often the ones who leading the way in the social media space. In the past decade, the social media has had a huge impact on how PR works. The growth and the impact of social media is not only changing the face of PR, but also gradually becoming a new Public Relations.

At first, social media impacts the function of Public Relations. PR professionals started using "social media release" instead of traditional print press release. Amanda Miller Littlejohn, founder of Mopwater Social Public Relations, commented on the importance of the social media release and how it enables readers to interact the press release. She said that the press release isn't dead, but it has been transformed to become a living, breathing thing. Social media gives a release legs so that a release can be commented or shared by viewers through their social networks.

In addition, social media also improves the format of the press release. In the past, there were only three ways to release a press: print, radio, and TV. But social media broke this limitation. Thanks to social media, now the press release are evolving into multiple iterations for various audiences, channels, and situations.

Moreover, the social media doesn't change the mission of Public Relations. In other words, the social media provides more opportunities for PR professionals to complete their mission which is to reach and communicate with their clients and to build up a long-term relationship with them. The widespread use of social media has fundamentally changed how people communicate and share information. Thus, Public Relations is certainly now exception as practitioners seek to communicate with, and hear from consumers, as well as using social media to share information with their audiences. However, the social media is a
double-edged sword. It can easily boom your PR campaign, but it also can make a PR disaster. So PR professionals should take serious about social media and use the right social media channel in the right way.

Refreshing your memory, have you ever thought that one day you can talk to a company directly? It seems impossible in the past. But the soical media makes it come true. The social media makes the company and customers get closer. It doesn't change the physical distance, but by using social media, customers can point out the problems, give recommendations or just tell their feelings at any time in anywhere. On the other hand, the company can receive these feedback at first time and respond them as soon as possible. Consider of the effective of social media, companies are moving their focus on "social media relations". Build up their own social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, hold online PR campaign in different social media channels, interact with customers in social media...PR professionals bring PR actions from real life into the net world. It's not hard to imagine that in the future Public Relations will be all about the social media relations.

Branding with Pinterest

Have you ever heard about Pinterest? Well, as you see, Pinterest, pin what you interested in. Offically, Pinterest is a pinboard-style social photo sharing website that allows you to creat and manage theme-based image collections such as events, interests, hobbies, and more. Pinterest's goal is to "connect everyone in the world through the 'things' they find interesting" via a global platform of inspiration and idea sharing. At the end of 2011, Pinterest already has over 11 million unique users and became one of the top 10 largest social network services in US. Since Pinterest is such popular, many marketers started use Pinterest as a new social media marketing channel to branding themselves.

However, branding with Pinterest is more complicated than with Facebook or Twitter. In Pinterest, marketers need to think about how to stand out your brand from thousands of photos, and how to attractive Pinterest's users to "pin" or "re-pin" your brand.

In the book "Pinterest for Business: How to Pin Your Company to The Top of The Hottest Social Media Network", it pointed out that when staring on Pinterest, marketers should keep in mind that a company is only as strong as its understanding of its own market and customer base. Marketers should think of their brands in different ways. For example, if your company were a car, what would it be on Pinterest? The book suggested maketers think of their boards as different car lots, and their pins as different cars. It will help marketers understand the reasons why their pins will exist, and why their followers should care about their brands. To be specific, is your car traditional, fun, or outlandish? Is your car rusty or affordable? Family-friendly or stylish? Just remember one thing-don't allow your brand to identify with a plain, boring car when you show off on Pinterest because with Pinterest, your images tell the story. Here is a successful case how promote your brand in Pinterest. Let's see how Volvo uses Pinterest to re-branding itself through a customer-driven social media contest.

Business is all about purpose, and so is social media like Pinterest. Understanding your brand and how it affects your potential clients is necessary to accessing all possibilities of Pinterest. For example, many hotels have the opportunity to sell themselves by pinning photos of their rooms, facilities, and surrounding areas. By pinning and organizing photos on your hotel board, you are able to reach out and grab the attention of an audience that may or may not know about your hotel. In addition, the social aspect of Pinterest enables other users to repin photos of your hotels, pin their own photos to other boards, and write reviews for others. Pinterest offers a best way for you to attract a wider audience.

Here are some best Pinterest Brand Pages. Let's see how they branding themselves in Pinterest.

Chobani Pinterest Page doesn't just feature its different yogurt types, but it also shares recipes of how users can use its products differently.

Oreck has taken its industrial cleaning product and made you forget that a vacuum cleaner brand is behind the pinboards you're looking at.

In particular, with Pinterest, it's important for marketers to understand and define their competition. In Pinterest, marketers have an opportunity to take direct advantage of their competition's pins, promotions, or contests, while directily reaching customers.

Social Media - A Permanent Magic For Your Business

Have you heard of "Groundswell"? Of course, it's not just a kind of ocean wave. Right now, it's a new word to describe the boom of social media. In the book "Groundswell", the authors Charlene and Josh told about how social media influence the business and how should the manufacturers should take advantages of social media to improve their own business.

In the book, the authors gave a new definition about groundswell which means a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need form each other, rather tan from traditional institutions. The social media is definitely a new things. It changes people's behaviors, the business strategies and the relationships between manufacturers and customers. Groundswell, the book brings out a point about the attitude that people toward to social media, especially the manufacturers. It said that the boom of social media is something that we can't stop and the only thing we can do is to understand it, live with it and thrive in it.  At this point, I absolutely agree with it. In my opinion, social media is a magic that can bring a lot of unexpected outcomes to your business.

Let's go back to the past first. How we did business without social market and what differences between our traditional marketing and the new social media marketing?

There is no doubt that manufactures do their best to build up their brands and try the multiple ways to make sure their brands' images look great in front of their customers. But now, there is a new way to manage your brand or your brand is been managed. It's called social media. In the "Groundswell", the authors pointed out a truth that customers are talking abut your brand in any social media without your control. And what customers said in social media will all influence your brand and your business. Your brand is what your customers said it is. Many manufacturers may worried about the power of social media since in the social media people's comments are worldwide and totally visable. And don't forget the most important things is that people are willing to listen to others than yourself. So what does this mean? It means people in socal media are building up a long-term relationship which based on trust.

Let's have a look how exactly social media is changing our business.

It's clear that social media is a boom right now, if marketers can know how to use it in a correct way, social media will give you a surprise. The picture list below is showed the benefits that social media can bring to your business.

Actually, many marketers recognized the power of social media, and move forward to the social media area to make sure they don't miss this big potential market.

But even through marketers want to use social media, how they can start with social media? Before marketers can get benefits from social media, the first and the most important thing is to understand the relationship between themselves and customers in social media. This picture gives us a clear explanation.

Then marketers can start using social media to grow their own business. There are a lot of social media tools, marketers should know what differences between them and what's the main feature of these social media. Then they can choose the best social media tool and use it in the most effective way.

Here is good example to show us how social media will help our business.

I talked a lot about social media and social media marketing. Well, what I want to say is that social media is a fantastic thing in our life and in our business. We should fully use it to improve our life and our business. After that, you will see the magic that created by social media.