The Retail Social Juice Index Spotlight: Weight Watchers, Hobby Lobby, Blue Nile and Timberland
When Jan. 1 comes, we all recommit to healthy lifestyles, targeting extra weight as enemy No. 1. It's no coincidence then that on New Year's Day Weight Watchers leapt above the 200 mark on Media Logic's Retail Social Juice Index (RSJI), setting it apart from all but the index's top 10 or 15 most engaging brands.
Even a weight loss brand with 1.1 million fans can't take engagement for granted — not even during resolution prime time. So what did Weight Watchers do to encourage interaction and remain at the top of the RSJI? It didn't wait until the last minute to give fans and followers reasons to turn to its Facebook Timeline looking for support and encouragement. Throughout December, Weight Watchers published the final links to its 2012 365 reasons to believe Tumblr and later in the month helped fans recap their 2012 as well as set goals for 2013 via its pic your amazing Facebook app.
In January, with the full attention of re-energized dieters, Weight Watchers has been focusing on the tagline of its newest program: When a weight loss program is built for human nature, you can expect amazing. Weight Watchers is aggregating customer resolutions across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram onto a Pinterest-like board via the #ExpectAmazing hashtag. The user-generated content on the "tagboard" isn't only conveniently interactive for visitors, but it's also a truly branded representation of the hard work and aspirations of its fans and followers.
The resulting collection fits well with popular content published by Weight Watchers on its Facebook Timeline, including inspirational quotes and affirmations (one from Oprah Winfrey on Jan. 1 earned over 5,300 shares and 35,000 likes); customer success stories;
company history; and healthy, tempting recipes. For example, Weight Watchers boldly shared its lower-calorie cheesecake recipe on Jan. 3, just a couple days after so many pledged to stick to their diets, showing great confidence in the quality of its recipes and affirming to customers that they won't feel deprived.
Another high scorer on the RSJI is rallying fans in a dramatically different — and controversial — way. For Hobby Lobby, a battle over health care, religious beliefs and women's issues is playing out on its wall and comments section, keeping its score over 200.
We've seen debates spike engagement before: Lowe's, Susan G. Komen Foundation, Sony, ProFlowers and Sleep Number come to mind. Sometimes, even though calm is restored eventually, conflict in social media can be damaging to a brand (Komen is, perhaps, the best illustration). However, in the case of Hobby Lobby, its fans seem to embrace the company's religious principles, and it appears the brand's base has rallied around it. According to Facebook, the brand gained over 40,000 likers in December.
Though Hobby Lobby has been vocal in the news media about its plans to defy a federal mandate requiring it to offer employees health coverage that includes access to the morning-after pill, it hasn't — at least that I've seen — addressed the issue via social media. Instead, it's conducted "business as usual" on its Facebook Timeline, going ahead with planned content such as daily gift guides, sale notices and project ideas. Take away the comments, which fans are still using to debate the health care issue, and these posts still seem to engage fans, who, by the hundreds, like the brand's very frequent posts. For example, on Jan. 8, Hobby Lobby wished Elvis a happy birthday, netting it 1,356 shares and 6,224 likes.
A much lighter sort of content has fans of Timberland and Blue Nile liking and sharing: gorgeous photos. I've covered before how photos work for a jewelry brand (Tacori, from the September 2012 Spotlight column), and I've detailed engaging ways to use photos on Facebook. A frequent objection I hear is, "My brand isn't photogenic."
Timberland has published a terrific series of boot photos, demonstrating that most portrait subjects, even simple ones, can be very photogenic. It just takes a little creativity and the right angle, which includes the pitch. Timberland's series focuses on lifestyle, attitude and craftsmanship, and it accomplishes it with close-ups, great (and unexpected) scenery and status updates (pitches, of a sort) with personality.
On Jan. 3, Timberland posted a close-up of its logo embossed on a boot with the status, "Reputation matters."
The photo received over 9,000 likes and 426 shares. Other popular photos included a black-and-white shot of a pair of worn, dirty boots captioned "Against the grain" and another shot of a woman sitting on a porch railing with snowy mountains and a glacier in the background accompanied by this status: "It's Timberland season."
Blue Nile's photo strategy may be a bit simpler. The brand's photos are known to have twice the engagement of other content on Facebook, and jewelry brands truly benefit from showcasing their sparkly wares. So how does Blue Nile stand apart and excite its fans? As with Timberland, the copy in the status update matters. While some jewelry brands lean toward romantic or flowery language, Blue Nile says things like "dare to be different," "obsession with diamonds" and "playing with fire."
Takeaways from this month's RSJI spotlight include the following:
- Embrace your brand's cycles and calendars. Know the times of year that consumers turn to you automatically, and prepare to welcome them in grand fashion. Go beyond "good enough" and, to borrow a word from Weight Watchers, attempt "amazing."
- Got a real-time social media crisis plan? (Good. We've covered that in previous columns.) Now, do you know when you won't be needing it — even if there's a big battle on your Facebook page? Hobby Lobby seems unphased by the social media bickering, which, in comparison to the $1.3 million a day in fines it's willing to accept for its stance, must seem like a tiny kerfluffle. If you're engaged in a battle you've chosen — and it's in line with what customers expect from you — there may be times when it's OK to sit back while fans defend your brand. But be careful. You're never off the hook for offensive remarks on your Timeline. Police those comments and posts!
- Photos aren't just for pretty brands, but it's no longer enough to publish images to get attention. Photos on Facebook are now commonplace, so your brand has to make its pictures extraordinary. Like Timberland and Blue Nile, know the pitch that will compel your unique fans to like, share and comment.
Media Logic's RSJI has been measuring social engagement for hundreds of national retailers since November 2011. Data for this post was compiled with engagement scores from the early weeks of 2013, and the brands featured spent more than that time with scores over 200, a hallmark of some of the most engaging brands on the index.
Carolee Sherwood is the conversation manager at Media Logic. Carolee can be reached at csherwood@mlinc.com.