Excellent social media strategies contribute to Forever 21's success by reaching out to its young customers and building online communities. This fast-growing fashion empire continues to create buzz and engages its customers by collaborating with designers, or brands. Their collaborations are brilliant as it combines the popularity of Forever 21 and the designer, namely “Rocy Beca” and “Petro Zillia” in the past 2 months. By collaborating with designers, not only does Forever 21 wisely tap into the designer’s fans, but also at the same time, those fans are likely Forever 21’s target demographic. Besides, collaborations would catch attention of many fashion bloggers and encourage them to spread the news throughout the bloggers world.
“100% for Japan, Shop for a cause”
-Cares about situations in Japan
-Long term brand image
-Personality
-Timely event to respond to
-Do not want to miss a chance to create even more buzz
Target Audience:-Timely event to respond to
-Do not want to miss a chance to create even more buzz
Trends:
-Success
-Petro Zillia (Late Feb, Early March)
-Time and duration issues
Participates in:
By constantly updating their status with photo shoots of their new merchandise, Forever 21 attracts their fans to notice new collections, and triggers their desire to skim through more photo shoots that are available at Forever21.com. The page had 4,109,806 likes on March 16th, and now has 4,187,276 likes after 2 weeks. The online community is growing steadily.
140,000 followers on March 16th to 145,000 followers in two weeks time. The twitter feeds are very similar to the ones on Facebook, because the brand uses HootSuite to cross posts, but the fan base is smaller and less active. Twitter serves as a tool that allows customers to share individual experiences with the products.
"The skinny"
Love Tweets
It is very groundswell-oriented, clever and resourceful. At first sight, it is noticeable that “The skinny” is not packed with Forever21 products, but offers fashion news from Paris and New York. There are columns dedicated to celebrity style, fashion off the runway, and finally Forever 21 features. Instead of filling the blog with Forever 21 style ideas, the brand’s pieces are featured along with the current fashion style trends. It is a one-stop shop to inquire knowledge about the latest fashions and then purchase them. The blog also includes a playlists of songs that is available for free downloads. It creates a fun atmosphere that is beyond what Forever 21 products have to offer physically.
Tone, Message, Engagement
Topic: Fashion, video, coat, clothes, outerwear, Japan, relief, efforts, earthquake, tsunami, , sales, shoes, flats.
Tone: positive, fun, friendly, concise, and usually includes links to the official blog or website
Engagement: around 300 likes and 50 comments per Facebook post. It seems that they are reaching their target audiences. Twitter is less about getting re-tweets, but to have customers discuss about the products or the brands. Most people would post tweets about their recent purchase or recent trip to Forever 21, as well as their passion for a particular piece or collection. Recommendations
1) Increase Strength
Sentiment: (deserves mor positive tweet?)
Lowest in strength, which measures the likelihood that the brand is being discussed in social media. Even though the official site has a lot more traffic and unique visitors, as well as people who are referring to the brand more frequently, it is still not likely that the brand is discussed in social media.
Why is the strength low? Fast Fashion, lack of originality, industry specific problem.
2) More interesting Tweets
identical message on Facebook and Twitter
3) Sustain the engagement and passion
The goal of Forever 21 is to maintain the high level of buzz by encouraging its customers to discuss about the collections after they have purchased it. One way to encourage customers to extend passion to hold competitions that allows customers to post photos of their outfit and show creativity that they have exemplified through wearing pieces of the collection.
4) Get on Groupon and geo-location applications
Groupon: 15-20% discount/ free special t-shirt, Attract new customers, low cost, create buzz, keep fans excited
Geo-location: “First 50 check-ins would receive a free sweater”
4) Get on Groupon and geo-location applications
Groupon: 15-20% discount/ free special t-shirt, Attract new customers, low cost, create buzz, keep fans excited
Geo-location: “First 50 check-ins would receive a free sweater”
