Making Visual Social Networks Pay Off For Retailers This Holiday Season

As
consumers are gearing up to shop for the holiday seasons, visual social media
platforms are a great tool to showcase retail products, engage brand fans and
build buzz around upcoming sales. The hyper growth of social on mobile has been
an emerging trend in retail over the last year. Even Facebook has been heavily
switching their efforts towards mobile. By now it is clear that the best way to
cut through the clutter is through images. They are fun, eye catching and
easily shared. With the growth of social networks and dominance of short visual
communications we are seeing Pinterest, Tumblr and Vine become more relevant
for the retail brands.

Pinterest Rising: Macy’s
As Accenture’s retail
survey points out, holiday season will be all about the discounts for the
consumer. Visual platforms like
Pinterest provide a great way to build buzz and announce sales. Macy’s boldly stepped forward this holiday
season by giving sneak preview of its Black Friday offerings on a dedicated Pinterest
board.

This
is a great strategy which allows Macy’s to build buzz and excitement leading up to their Black Friday sale weeks before
it actually starts. When the event does come around, customers have already
thought about the sale and what they want to buy, keeping Macy’s on top of their
mind. In addition, visual representation of products can provide important
feedback as to what customers are actually interested in and what products are
a flop.

Micro Video
Micro videos on social platforms like Vine and Instagram are the Twitter of video.
Vine hosts 6 seconds videos (15 for Instagram)
which people can easily take and watch with their smartphones.
Micro-videos are fun to make, easy to share and easy to consume. Many brands are
already taking advantage of this platform to showcase new products, its benefits
or simply entertain featuring the brand. Keep creative and provide value, and
if you manage to entertain your viewer they might share your video providing
for free advertising. It also doesn’t hurt that Vines are much cheaper than
creating a TV ad.
Below is an example of Target, cashing in on the Football season and showing
off their snacks in a fun video.

Target – football Vine

Here’s an example of Oreo showcasing a different use for an existing product on
Vine. Want Oreo sprinkles on your ice cream? This 6 second Vine will show you
how. Entertaining and useful.

Oreo – Sprinkles Vine

For more ideas check out 10 Vines You Must Watch If You're
Marketing Online

Make your Omnichannel beautiful
The final trend we are coming back to over and over again is the importance of
providing a consistent customer experience across all channels. As mentioned in
many previous
posts customers are checking out your brand, your website and prices on
their mobile and social long before they come in (sometimes while they are already
inside the store). If you are adamant about having beautiful displays in your
store, there is no reason those beautiful products shouldn’t be on your social
channels. Take some time to invest in creating visual digital content to create
buzz around your products, and keep the consumers engaged when they are not in
the store.