Social Media Week began today in Toronto in addition to 8 other cities from around the world. First off today Ad Buzz was at the presentation by James Connell and Tanja Zelko of Roots to learn how retail brands can leverage the power of social media. The presentation took place at the TED Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University and here is some of what they had to say.
Roots currently has 40 stores in Asia and they expect within the next few years to have more stores in Asia than in North America and as a growing international brand social media allows them to reach their audience more effectively, no matter their location.
Roots has only had a serious presence in social media for the past year or two and one reason for the recent focus is because Internet usage has surpassed TV in time spent in Canada and this is a trend that can be seen across the globe. That figure by itself shows how dominate and pervasive Internet usage has become and a big part of that is social media where Facebook has over 16.8 million members in Canada alone making it a nature place for the Roots community to call home.
They go to where their customers are like Facebook, YouTube, twitter and more recently they have begun experimenting with flickr. On Facebook Roots tries to make sure that fans know they are talking a person not just a brand. It is a way they use to personalize the experience.
Tanja said that the retail experience can be likened to a theater while the online experience tends to be quite lonely and they wanted to create a sense of a crowd and she explained that they want their Facebook page to be the party you want to be at..
Tactics they use on Facebook are the ability to share any ratings or reviews. Usage of the like button for products which then get pushed to your feed and that of your friends. They cross promote all their web properties and use Facebook to interact with their customers and bring them into the brand experience by having previews and special offers specifically for Facebook.
They are seeing more sales through Facebook and traffic being driven from Facebook to their website. They have found that their fans are more active on their wall since they began engaging with them and it has put a face to the brand that they didn’t have before.
They also recently started to include ratings and reviews on the Roots site which has helped to engage their audience further and get feedback from their community. James said that they have found that most of the reviews are positive and that you shouldn’t fear negative reviews and instead see them as helping a brand be authentic. Instead it can be used as a chance to turn a poor experience into a good one.
Some of the results they have had is they found that people who leave reviews have a transaction value that is 20% higher than the norm and that the time spent on their site is increased during the holiday compared to the year prior.
Ratings and reviews really helped with SEO on Google because of certain words that appeared in them regularly. All the feedback they get from reviews and customers is then sent back weekly to their designers to help them improve their products. Finally make it easy for people to leave feedback about products, their experience and even issues because they are doing you a favour that provides important information for the brand.
Video is one of the most powerful tools that a brand has in their arsenal.. Root always tries to entertain, educate and create content that is sharable. They have created their own videos and have gone to companies to create professionally produced ones.
While the costs vary between the two they both have their uses. Roots uses simple videos for company events, behind the scenes, contests and they post them on YouTube, their blog Facebook and on their site. While they have created professional videos like the one with Scott and Tessa to showcase their relationship with them and that has been one of their most popular videos.
Tanja summarized the lessons learned in doing video. On YouTube they have had over 100,000 views of the Roots channel, seen more traffic from YouTube to Roots.com and have seen an increase in subscriptions to their channel.
The content and placement of the video dictate the production quality and you should include topics that have an established fan base to help with distribution. Videos shouldn’t be a hard sell and commercials are less likely to be shared. Use YouTube to promote sharing and content creation by your community.
One thing they found is that people want to know who they are talking to on Facebook and by having James and Tanja in the videos allows for the community to put a face to a name.
The key points that Roots shared about using social media was that you should go to your competitor’s sites to listen. Determine your goals and how you will share them, monitor online chatter using Google alerts, twitter to be proactive. Check your Wikipedia page which is one of the highest SEO targets for information.
Use Linkedin for recruiting because there are people searching. You don’t have to be first, instead make sure that it makes sense for your brand, that there is a measurable ROI before you jump in and finally determine who is going to own the space. Determine who is going to own the space and report in.
The Roots presentation had a great mix of examples, tactics and both hard and soft results. After that there was a panel which went over the experiences in social media for brands like Sears Canada, H&M, Home Depot Canada and Black’s Photography where they discussed the challenges they have faced and were the audience was able to ask more questions.
It was a great event that really showed the power of social media for retail brands and what they can do if they take the time to engage their community online.