How Spiegel Brands Has Explored Social Media

What Are Your Goals?
Heir recommended that if you want to explore the potentials of social media, ask yourself the following questions and focus on the following points:

1. Which networks are your customers already participating in, and what are they looking for?

2. What are your goals?
* Marketing research;
* product and brand awareness;
* product announcements;
* traffic generation;
* consumer engagement; and
* generating buzz.

3. How do you want to accomplish these goals?
* On Facebook and MySpace pages, keep users engaged while providing product information; offer status updates by feeding them into users’ news feeds daily; obtain consumer feedback and suggestions.
* Use targeted ads.
* Push for friend recommendations.
* Supply content — video or photos?

4. How will you measure your success? Set goals and manage your expectations, Heir said.

Building a Fan Page
Spiegel’s Newport News brand has a fan page on Facebook. “I don’t have that many fans,” Heir pointed out, noting that it has 220 of them. “But I get 700 page views a day from them.” Newport News sends e-mail offers to its fans every week based on their preferences.

What matters most is that marketers can give consumers a forum to discuss their brands. Social sites “give you immediate response,” she said. On the other hand, customers don’t typically go out of their way to voice their complaints with a particular brand if they have problems.

Heir cautioned that keeping on top of your social media presence requires an in-house team. “It’s an animal you constantly have to feed,” she said. “You must spend time and fool around with it. Just don’t be intimidated by it.”