Social Media Helps Retailers Promote Brands as Lifestyles

Social media e-commerce has gotten a lot of buzz in the retail industry during the last year. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are all now testing versions of a “buy” button, in an effort to keep users from leaving their sites to make purchases.

While good for social media, “buy” buttons might be a hard sell for retailers.

Brad Lawless, vice president of social strategy at Rogers-based shopper marketing agency Collective Bias, said social commerce is a boon to social media sites. 

In a 2014 piece for Adotas, an advertising and media news publication, Lawless wrote: “In today’s attention-deficient world, time-on-site means almost everything. A Twitter user who leaves to buy something likely won’t come back for a while, checking Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook first. In-network purchases not only provide an additional revenue stream, but more importantly increases the potential loyalty of Twitter’s user-base.”

Lawless predicts standalone brands will utilize social selling more than retailers will.

“Native buying functionality gives major brands another place to sell their goods, while Twitter-with-a-cash-register could easily become just another competitor for retailers facing competition in an already crowded industry,” he wrote.

E-commerce entities, in particular, pay close attention to the latest technologies and ever-changing social media horizon, and some of them are reluctant to embrace the concept.

Country Outfitter, for example, does not use “buy” buttons on its social media pages.

The Fayetteville-based company has a brick-and-mortar store in the downtown square, but a vast majority of its business is online. Most shoppers will never be exposed to a physical storefront and in-person staff, so Country Outfitter’s website and its social media pages represent its only touchpoint with customers.

With this in mind, Country Outfitter has shifted its focus from social media posts that feature direct advertisements and immediate transactions, to posts that promote a lifestyle and show personality through editorial content, photos, links, videos and quizzes.

Although the retailer still uses classic marketing techniques as well, and is actively pursuing new customers, the primary goal of its social media strategy is to engage those who have already shown interest in the brand, the country lifestyle.

 

Country Style

That’s where Lela Davidson comes in. She is vice president of media and entertainment at Acumen Brands, which owns Country Outfitter, and the woman behind the retailer’s social media accounts.

Davidson said a story about Carrie Underwood, Blake Shelton or country cooking will engage the consumer more than just another ad.

“Online and in the store, people buy from people they like, and we are working on our likability and giving people a reason to come back,” she said. 

It’s a more organic approach to engaging customers.

On Facebook, Country Outfitter might publish 50 posts in a day, although some are repeats, as Davidson recognizes the life cycle of a post on that outlet is about 24 hours. Titles include “The Easiest Way to Add a Little Cowgirl Style to Your Home,” “If Country Music Stars were Disney Princesses,” “7 Things You’ll Find Odd, Unless You Live in Rural America” and “7 Things Southern Girls Learn from their Daddies.”

The retailer’s blog and social media sites are plastered with other fun tidbits, including photos of country music star Jake Owen skipping rocks with his daughter, “Easy Weekend Meal” recipes, and quizzes like “Which Miranda Lambert Song Are You?” 

Davidson tries to provide a panoramic view of the country lifestyle, which is often Southern, but not always. She said the country lifestyle is an archetype deeply ingrained in Americans’ psyche, and one that appeals to consumers from the West Coast to New York City, one of the brand’s biggest markets.

“From my end, with brand building, frankly, there is no other platform that is incorporating the overall country lifestyle, from country music, fashion, to food and home,” Davidson said.

And when Country Outfitter does post advertisements, the audience quite possibly has interacted with the brand’s postings previously.

Also, Davidson said the Facebook algorithm favors posts with more fleshed-out content, and is looking to have more content housed on the site, rather than linking to elsewhere on the Web. 

The social media giant confirmed this at its recent F8 developers’ conference in San Francisco.

Top-tier publishing companies The New York Times, BuzzFeed and National Geographic are in talks to publish content directly to Facebook, according to the Times.

 

Brand Blend

The Fayetteville-based clothing company uses its social media to share lifestyle-oriented blogs, photos and inspirational quotes that usually relate to outdoor experiences, including but not limited to those in the Ozark and Ouachita mountains.

Facebook and Twitter users might see, for example, links to blog posts and photo collections of a recent trip to Big Bend National Park in Texas, where the groups biked in the mountains and rode donkeys over to Mexico.

“It’s what our brand is all about,” said Mo Elliott, Fayettchill owner and founder. “We don’t just want to show a product on a white background.”

Although Fayettechill is primarily a brick-and-mortar store, about 30 percent of its business is online, he said.

It takes full advantage of online channels, finding a lot of business on the backend through niche websites like those for reviews on outdoor gear.

Fayettechill also has some presence on Pinterest, although it is not a major platform, because the majority of Pinterest users are female, and the brand has a much broader male following, Elliott said.

And Fayettechill is also getting on Snapchat, he said. Elliott plans to use the medium to post glimpses behind the scenes of the company, further perpetuating the narrative of the brand as a lifestyle.

Elliott said the company tried the Facebook “buy” button, but no longer uses it, instead gravitating toward commerce on Instagram, which he said works well for showcasing fashion.

However, noting that social media is constantly changing, Elliott said he might circle back to the Facebook “buy” button down the road.

Lawless believes it’s just a matter of time before social commerce takes off.

“Retailers will have to determine their place in this brave new world of social commerce,” he wrote. “Much as mobile search has begun to displace desktop search, social commerce may eventually eclipse Web- or app-based commerce. Why should anyone visit a store, or that store’s website, when she can buy a product anywhere, anytime she wants it?”