Brand Monitoring Project: Final report

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:

(Source: Quantcast.com )
Trends:

-Success
-Petro Zillia (Late Feb, Early March)
-Time and duration issues

Participates in:
Facebook

 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 16^th, and now has 4,187,276 likes after 2 weeks. The online community is growing steadily.

Twitter

140,000 followers on March 16^th 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"

Music Playlist
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”

Brand Monitoring Project: Forever 21

Who?

Forever 21 is an American clothing retailers with branches in the United States, Canada, Ireland, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, China, S.Korea, Japan, Philippines, UK and 7 other countries offering fashion and accessories for young people.

The chain, originally known as Fashion 21, was founded in Los Angeles, California in 1984 by South Korean Dong-Won Chang and his wife, Jin Sook. Trendy designs were targeted to the Korean-American community. However, people from many other ethnicities began noticing the trend-setting fashion designs, and the store became increasingly popular. By the end of the first year, sales had risen from $35,000 to $700,000. Fashion 21 eventually expanded at the rate of a new store every six months and changed the Fashion 21 brand name to Forever 21. Adding new stores every six months, Forever 21 had reached a total of 40 stores by 1997. Read more about the Fast fashion empire here. The brand is also active in collaborating with other brands (Disney) or designers. Recently, they have put out a collection with Rory Beca (March 4th, 2011) and Petro Zillia (February 11th, 2011)
Did it create buzz?

Because the brand targets young people, its social media presence is extremely important. They are doing an excellent job to stay updated on twitter, Facebook, blog (Fashion, Tunes, Tweets, & News), and the online store.
On Twitter:

140,000 followers
On Facebook:

4 Million fans

200-350 Likes, 25 comments
3 posts per day
On their website:

On The Skinny (the blog):

The Forever 21 Retail Inc. owns and operates numerous stores in different formats:

• Forever 21: main and original store carrying women's clothing, accessories, swimwear, lingerie, and shoes.
• XXI Forever: flagship high square footage store carrying merchandise from all store formats.
• Heritage1981: offshoot format store carrying vintage inspired clothing, accessories, et cetera.
• For Love21: Accessory store.
• Twelve by Twelve: Upscale Los Angeles couture inspired clothing.
• Forever 21+: formerly named faith 21, is Women's clothing in extended sizes
• Love21: Contemporary line for women
• Forever 21 Twist: An exclusive limited edition collection, launching a new theme every 4–6 weeks. Collections so far include Cirque 21, Twist of Punk, Ballet- Tutu Cute, Disco 21, Tres Paris, Rocker Babes, Twisted Wonderland, All Dolled Up, I Love Nerds, Street Chic, and Boy Meets Girl.
• Forever 21 girls: formerly HTG81 Kid format equivalent to the Forever 21 adult line.
• 21Men: Formerly named Heritage1981 Mens, is the mens portion of clothes from the former Heritage1981 mens line.

The fast-growing retailer operates more than 450 stores under the Forever 21, XXI Forever, ForLove 21, and Heritage 1981 banners in the US, Canada, and a dozen Asian countries, as well as an e-commerce site. The chain, which helped to pioneer fast fashion, offers cheap and chic apparel and accessories for women, men, teens, and kids. It also carries women's footwear, lingerie, and cosmetics. (Yahoo Finance)

Controversy
-working conditions and payroll
-accused of infringing on designs from other fashion brands. (Read more here)

How?

Addictomatic

Twitter Search

Other bloggers:

I like what you're wearing
Hit it or Quit it
Little girl Big closet
Budget babe

(Future of groundswell, Wine company example)

Groundswell, Re-blogging, Creating Buzz

Trends:
Profile of customers
Importance of online store

Twitter search

Generally positive

Industry specific, no troubleshoot or crisis management

Photo search
Look Book for forever 21

(Lego case)

Things I have learned:
Reach young customers through social media
Energize the online community to talk about the products
Fashion bloggers are re-posting information
Word of mouth
Campaign with designers are not particularly effective, quality issues?
Excited customers, allows creativity
Developed online platforms
Updated all the time

IBM took advantage of the internal groundswell

After listening to, speaking to, embracing and energizing groundswell with customers and users for the purpose of innovation, crisis management, marketing, or immediate responses, it is extremely important to look at groundswell inside a company. In the reading, the authors discussed the example of Blue Shirt Nation within Best Buy.  Best Buy offers an internal community site where workers can communicate, share tips and information that could be helpful for daily work. It gives workers a great sense of responsibility to help each, and participate as a part of the human capital. Best Buy understands that its employees knows best in this bottom up approach of businesses. Corporations are no longer dropping off instructions from the top and expecting works to follow through perfectly. Instead, managers and decision makers hope to hear from the bottom, from everyday workers to find out what works best for the company and which direction should future developments be heading towards. Of course, Best Buy is not the only company that make significant effort to enhance internal communication. Microsoft has a similar platform and calls it TownSquare, IBM has its Beehive, so on and so forth. 

Industries from retailing to banking, to manufacturing, are building networks behind the firewall where employees can create profile and connect with each other. Some companies may also choose to take advantage of the existing platforms, such as LinkedIn, Facbook, and Twitter. (Read more on ComputerWorld) As discussed in previous chapters, people are willing to share information because they feel good about helping others, openness is necessary because control can no longer be maintained. As oppose to running away from the complaints that workers have, companies choose to listen and make changes accordingly. Gathering people within an organization no only allow them to help each other in effective ways, but also gathers useful information, which then creates communication channel and enhances effectiveness that best benefits the company. For IBM, good interpersonal relationships in a company is fundamental because it allows trust building, cultural exchange, and constructive criticism. Just like BestBuy, they know that it is all about relationships at the end, not technology. With the advanced social media platform, employees can now better interact with colleagues. As suggested by an article from ComputerWorld, "Companies may start with the idea of helping employees feel more connected, but that's just the beginning. With easier and faster connections among people, suddenly cross-division collaboration happens more naturally, leading to greater innovation."

As for IBM, they created the "BluePages", where employees are encouraged to exchange personal and professional information. Listen to this podcast to find out why they created their own social network and how is it being used. According to IBM, "Beehive is an internal social networking site that gives IBMers a "rich connection to the people they work with” on both a personal and a professional level. Beehive helps employees make new connections, track current friends and coworkers, and renew contacts with people they have worked with in the past. When employees join Beehive, they get a profile page. They can use the status message field and the free-form “About Me” section on their profile page to let other people at IBM know where they are, what they are doing, and what they are thinking. Beehive also lets them post photos, create lists to share their thoughts, and organize events. " In short, it is basically a web-based corporate directory that includes profiles with contact information, photos, experience, blog entries, etc. It is heavily used by employees everyday. Because it is behind the firewall, employees feel more comfortable to disclose personal information, upload vacation photos and chat about sports or anything. For them, stronger relationships = more effective organization. CIO Acherbauer says that such connections help his teammates relate to each other like human beings and not just resources or assets. At the same time, IBM provides clear guideline for how employees should behave on social media platforms. Read more here.

Should you build a social media platform for internal communication? it is important to know that building a social media platform is not for every company, as it would only be effective is the majority of workers are enthusiastic about participating and joining. Some employees may not be technology savvy and may have difficulties using it. Therefore, it is important to understand different profiles of workers within a company and decide whether having your own version of "BluePages" would work for you. 

How did Dell do it?

Why companies are not in control anymore?

This video provides a nice summary of previous chapters we've read of groundswell. Charlene not only explained the importance of a bottom up approach to engage users to review and help innovate for product development, but also the value of building a culture of commenting, in which some control of branding must be let go. With groundswell, everyone is able to comment and publish. Therefore, it is important to listen to what the customers have to say, and respond appropriately. It is in a company's best interest to embrace it well, and make the most of what social media has to offer. As we have learned from Chapter 10, the transformation that dell went through was not easy. 

Go to Idea Storm

First of all, Dell observed the conversations among users about why are they no longer interested in Dell's products. It took Dell months before they published their first blog post that responded to the problems. With social media today, anyone can be a publisher, and any users are able to post reviews of any product, and these information cannot be controlled or contained. Instead of letting the conversation go on, Dell chose to get involved, and commit to listening to the customers. It may seem simple that companies should be investing time and resources in hearing from its customers, so that they can better improve their products and better market their customers. However, it takes a lot of courage from a company to change the way things work. 

Embracing groundswell is really about letting go of the control and trusting that the customers would help innovate, and improve the products. One of the steps that Dell took was to have a forum where customers could discuss about issues that they are concerned with, or share ideas that they have (Idea storm). Changes happened step by step, and each stepping stone lead to a progression. The biggest challenge is to gain executive support from within the company. For companies with long history like Dell, each worker see himself as  "I am my position": Every worker has a fixed position and responsibilities in the company, and they often forget the ultimate goal to work together to meet the need of an organization. Success of a company requires more than partial effort from each worker, but mutual effort of each person to come together as a unit. To convince each department to trust the customers' needs and give up control of the brand message was revolutionary for Dell. However, if you stop and think about it, people are talking about your brand and product anyways, why not have them discuss at a forum where you can read, monitor, and facilitate the conversation? It is not necessarily giving up control for nothing in return, because being engaged in customers conversation would help building close relationships and trust. Digital media can no longer be a supplement of a campaign, but in the center of attention. 

With IdeaStorm, Dell was able to talking directly to customers, as an online barnstorm sessions for customers to participate in. "Product development is hard. Why not let your customers help you with it? (P.181)"To involve customers into the innovation process, is to hear what new products or service they'd like to see Dell develop. After listening to, talking with, energizing, and supporting groundswell, you have gained insights from the customers, and these insights could be beneficial for the company's future development. Ideal Storm allows customers to develop empathy for the company and think in the company's position. Making customers an integral part of the way Dell innovates, is to use the knowledge that customers have about what is wrong with the product and how to fix it. This is one of the approaches that Dell took, in order to embrace groundswell, and adapt to changes that comes with the transformation. 

Read more about Idea Storm on Wikipedia

Even if the responding customers are not a representative collections of the entire customer population, the activist always help to define expectation, and provide useful ideas (Crowd-sourcing). But don't just ask for opinions, follow through and act upon these suggestions! Stay authentic and honest to earn your customer's trust! After building a community of contributors or speculators, solutions to common issues or problems would be available to all customers, which would lower the number of people that would come to Dell for solutions. This is an example of how a Dell customer helped Dell in products innovation.

If you plan to embrace groundswell, do so when you are ready because there is no way to back out once you have opened the door. What is out in the internet is not erasable and it will always be there for others to reference to it. Be aware of the context that you post because people are going to decide if they should become a fan or not based on your context. On the final note, check this video out about how embracing groundswell benefited Dell. 

How has groundswell helped Dell?

Listening and talking to groundswell (Respond to reading #1)

Social Media marketing done right Youtube Video

Valentine’s day is coming up and I was looking for a place for dinner. First thing that came to my mind was to go to Yelp.com and look for a good restaurant in Boston. I was filtering the results with restaurants that are most reviewed, if the restaurant is just okay, people would not bother writing about the dining experience or uploading pictures for the place. Therefore, if a lot of people are motivated enough to write about it, it must be pretty popular, or at least worth a try. The thing I like about Yelp.com is that, there is no advertisement from the restaurant, but simply comments and reviews posted by real people who have eaten there. Sometimes, they even include coupons or special offers. Users could even share pictures taken at the restaurant and post it so that more people can check out the place. This is groundswell, interactions among the customers, and comments from real people, which is more cost-effective and popular than traditional ways of advertising. It is not to say that social media is the only way to market, but sure is an effective way to do so. 

If customers and users are on social networks, where should the companies be? Obviously, they should be listening to them through social networks. Listening from people who actually use the product or the service, companies can better market their prospective customers and understand what their customers think about the product.

Every company wants to sell lots of products and make profit. However, if the company only aims to make money without listening to what the people really want, they will never be successful. In this era, the only companies that can grow fast are the ones who can listen to its customers, respond quickly, and carefully monitor the brand through social media marketing. Therefore, it is extremely important to listen from groundswell and make changes accordingly in order to improve service quality or the product produced.

In the chapter, the author clearly asserted, “Your brand is whatever your customers say it is.” It is not the way you advertise it, it is not the way you imagine or present it. If restaurants owners were monitoring the comments on Yelp.com, they would be able to get insights from the customers through observing interactions among customers. Thus, they would know what do customers really think about their services and food quality. They could also search the brand on Google, blogs, communispace or youtube, and find out what customers are saying about the products. By carefully monitoring the brand, companies are able to take advantage of the groundswell by taking actions on the information gathered through listening, being responsive, changing future products and marketing plans, or generating new products.

Social media marketing with Youtube

After listening, companies can also talk to the groundswell by posting videos, joining social networks, blogging, or forming private communities. Building a community of loyal customers is essential, as they would help spread the word to their friends. As a result, conversations among users can be stimulated, and the brand image can be improved and monitored. So, wouldn't you begin to market through social media? 

This is a respond post to the Groundswell reading