Introduction
Hi everyone. I’d like to take this opportunity to show with you all a short summary of my individual report. The social media platform I’ve chosen to analyse is Facebook and the three companies I looked at are Victoria’s Secret, Topshop and H&M. I chose these three companies because all of them are large established global brands in the retail sector with hundreds of stores worldwide, ensuring an international fan base following.
As a social media channel, Facebook is ideal for connecting with millions of fans worldwide with over 20000 people accessing Facebook every second and with 745 million daily users accessing the site through their mobiles, making the social media network the channel with the highest media reach. In the retail industry specifically, Facebook has the added advantage over other social media platforms of being able to upload albums that allows for the posting of multiple pictures at one time for different seasonal collections. Additionally, with the most recent Facebook roll out of its ‘Likes’ button to a ‘Reactions’ panel of buttons, companies have better opportunities to access the general mood of its audience in reaction to its posted offerings.
Research Questions:
- To what extent do the three organisations use Facebook to reach and engage with their consumers?
- How effective are these organisations in making use of Facebook to reach out and engage their consumers?
- How can organisations can make use of benchmarking practices to learn from one another?
Social Media Analysis and Findings
- Victoria’s Secret
– Effective in reaching out to a high volume of consumers and in engaging with them – 27 million likes and counting on its global Facebook page
– Content focuses mainly on their latest collections and offerings - Topshop
– Does not fully utilise its Facebook page in reaching out to and engaging consumers
– 4.1 million likes on Facebook
– Not an effective tool in creating positive branding for the organization
– 3 posts not including cover photo updates over the last 2 weeks - H&M
– 26 million likes and counting
– At least 2 – 4 posts daily, featuring usual content such as their clothes collections,
– Posts covers onto lifestyle content such as exercise tips
– Though it does not have as high a volume of post activity as compared to Victoria’s Secret, the online conversations happening on its platform are much more positive and constructive.
Conclusion
Based on the analysis of the three organisations, we can see that Topshop has the weakest Facebook presence and currently underutilises this platform. Thus, recommendations will be suggested in the following section.
Recommendations
- Responding Genuinely Towards Complaints and Negative Comments
Given Topshop’s current living wage crisis, the social media team should craft out a more humane response instead of posting the same copied messages on different posts. Topshop can emulate H&M’s tactic of brand journalism by explaining the whole situation in a more transparent manner on their website. After all, many negative comments now have been accusing Topshop of being the ones to hold back on paying the minimum wage for London living rates, when in fact the institution that decides on this is Britannia Services Group (Meaker, 2016). Topshop’s current failure of rectifying these comments has led to consumers that visit the page to view these comments as the truth. - Increasing Media Reach by Directing Attention Towards IvyPark Launch
IvyPark, a sportswear line in collaboration with Beyonce, has generated a lot of likes for Topshop’s post, as fans eagerly await the launch of the clothing line. Topshop can take advantage of the scarcity and exclusivity of this clothesline during the first launch to increase the number of followers it has on its Facebook page. The idea is to initiate a lucky draw that will allow fans to win a $100 credit to shop from this new collection, without fear of the collection selling out as they will have first priority. In order to qualify for the lucky draw, fans must like the Facebook page and post on Instagram with the hashtag #IvyParkContest. This helps to create marketing for Topshop though user generated content and will allow Topshop to increase its following base for its Facebook page.
Marketing communication 