Internet Marketing By Leslie Carothers

The September/October issue of FURNITURE WORLD Magazine contained information on how furniture retailers can use social networking sites to connect with consumers. This month, we will expand that discussion to help you understand how your sales consultants can use the major social networking sites to network and connect with real and/or potential customers.

If you didn't see last month's issue, you can easily find it on furninfo.com website, but, for those of you who don't have the time to do that, let’s define social networking again.

Social networking websites connect people with common areas of interest and allow them to share information through various tools such as profile creation, picture posting and commenting. In the last issue, we looked at how social networking sites can be set up for free using applications such as www.ning.com and www.kickapps.com. 

Over 570 million people worldwide use some type of social networking site. Social networking is here to stay.

Three of the most widely used social networking sites in North America that furniture retailers can use to advance their branding and marketing agendas are www.facebook.com, www.linkedin.com and www.twitter.com. I don’t think www.myspace.com is right for our business, but if anyone reading this has had success with myspace, please email editor@furninfo.com.

Here are some stats on these three social networking sites:

Facebook has approximately 70 million registered users, 49 million of whom are in North America. It is the fastest growing social networking site. According to ComScore, from June of 2007 through June 2008, it was up 153% and in Europe it was up 303%.

Millions of vertically branded businesses have their own Facebook page. If you want to get an idea of this, just use the search function on Facebook's home page.

Remember, ANYONE can create their own Facebook page about your store or their experience with your store. It is very important that you create your own page for just this reason. It is the only way you can have SOME modicum of control over your store's brand perception on Facebook.

Facebook pages give brands and businesses an opportunity to create a presence on Facebook for no cost. Retailers can customize a Facebook Page to maximize user interaction and interest. This allows them to deepen connections with users and gives the ability to maximize viral promotion through Social Ads. To create a Page, go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php  or click on the 'Create a page for your business' link at the bottom of any page. Facebook also offers ads that leverage the power and viral nature of Facebook's feed systems by serving relevant stories when users' friends take actions with a Facebook page or application.

LinkedIn is the world's number one business social networking site with over 21 million registered users in 2008. That’s up from 8 million in 2007. The average income of a LinkedIn user is $110,000/yr. and the average age is 41. LinkedIn offers individuals hundreds of ways to network in order to drive business.

The newest social networking phenomena is twitter.com. Twitter is a microblogging site. In the past five months of this year, Twitter has grown from 800,000 users to over 2.2 million users. Companies such as zappos.com have used their engagement with Twitter to drive enormous free publicity to their company. Twitter is extremely valuable to furniture retailers when it comes to customer service and driving people to your website.

It is fair to say that social networking is a phenomena that all furniture retailers (and manufacturers) should engage right now in order to drive business.

BLUEFISH USES FACEBOOK

An example of a manufacturer using Facebook to drive business to retailer partners is bluefish.com. Bluefish has a Facebook page (shown left) where pictures of collections are posted, new pieces and special events. A discussion with their VP of Marketing, Heather Brown, revealed that Bluefish is getting "found" by architects, designers and others who want to know where to find their pieces in the offline world. In addition, the types of connections those interested in Bluefish's line are making with Heather tend to be more "personal" due to the Facebook interface. So, Heather is able to direct these inquirers to retail store owners who showcase the line. In addition, she has been successful in connecting with influential media people. The result has been favorable PR for her line and, sometimes, product placement on TV shows and elsewhere. When consumers see the product, they email the show's producers, who give them Heather's Facebook page and, voila, the circle is completed as Heather refers them to a local retailer.

HOW SALES ASSOCIATES USE SOCIAL NETWORKING

So, how can your retail sales consultants use these three social networking sites to drive traffic to your business? Let's begin with Facebook.
First set up a Facebook business page for your store. The process is simple and the interface is intuitive. Business pages (go to www.facebook.com/business) are a bit different than personal facebook pages. Instead of having “friends” you collect fans who can post pictures, reviews and comments. You can also add your own notes, photos and video See the IKEA facebook page in the exhibit for a good example.

Invite selected sales and/or design consultants to set up their own business related Facebook pages-subject to your review and approval with respect to content, language, pictures, etc.. It isn’t possible to set up two Facebook accounts under one email address, so if your associates already have an account, you will need to either provide them with corporate email addresses or have them set up a free additional account (gmail, yahoo, hotmail, etc.) they can use for this purpose.

Give them access to the email addresses of their own customers or any customers for whom there is not already an assigned salesperson.

Ask them to invite these customers to become their "friend" on Facebook. (This is an automated process through Facebook.)

Have sales associates notify you each time one of their customers or potential customers accepts their "Friend" invitation. They can forward you the acceptance email.

If they have people in their "out of store" email list whom they think would refer potential customers, allow them to also invite these contacts to be their "friends."

Now, anytime you have a special event, a great new item comes in, a big sale is going on, etc., your sales consultants can instantly notify their Facebook friends and get their comments. They can post photos they take in the store or that you supply to them, and they can build a professional online presence by posting decorating tips and furniture buying advice (their own or supplied by store management). It is extremely easy, it is free and it is a way for them to build sustaining relationships with customers with a minimum of time and effort.

If you have a large organization, you may be thinking that some controls will be necessary to manage this process.

• First, it is important that your people understand that it is an honor to be selected as an official Facebook representative of your store's brand. Your consultants will appreciate the trust you are placing in them.

• Insist that sales associates sign off on written store guidelines for their professional Facebook pages.

• Ask associates to provide you with email and password information for their professional Facebook account so that you can access and alter their Facebook page at any time.

• Assign responsibility for periodic checking of sales associates’ professional Facebook pages. This person can also provide associates with tips on making their pages more productive and remind them to post content to their “wall”, upload photos or video content.

• And, you may want to have them agree to relinquish control of their account should their employment with you cease.

Important: Your employees may already have their own personal Facebook, MySpace, Friendster and other social networking site pages. If you are not already checking this prior to hiring a new employee, start now. Experts often advise employers to steer clear of non-job related questions in formal interview settings.

These can include questions about age, marital status, sexual orientation, political affiliations, medical conditions and children. Certainly you don’t want to use and document information gathered to systematically discriminate on the basis of personal, non job related factors. Many people don’t make their “profiles” public, but others put their innermost feelings, thoughts, friends, affiliations and activities on display. ANY consumer can go onto Facebook (or ask their kids to do so) and check out anyone. Make sure you know what image your employees are projecting. Your employees represent your brand and have chosen to put this information on the world wide web where it could potentially be visible to your customers.

Next, LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a goldmine for prospecting for new customers. It is the number one FREE way your retail sales consultants can use social networking to develop business:

1. Help them set up a LinkedIn profile. Again, this is a very easy process. It must be KEYWORD ENRICHED for maximum benefit. Check it for accuracy, professionalism, spelling and content.

2. Next, have them set up a LinkedIn Group for "All People Interested in Furniture (and Design) in XYX town. This will be a public group that anyone can join. People WILL join and, once again, LinkedIn allows them to invite into their group ANYONE they choose to invite from their contact/email address book (easily uploaded from Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, Yahoo, etc.) list.

Again, you can provide your sales consultants with their customers’ email addresses and any others you would like to include.

You will be amazed. Just check out some of the groups on LinkedIn related to furniture and you will see that some of them have hundreds of members already.

3. Once their group is established, they will be free to post any discussion they want about your store's special events, articles of interest about interior design, sales being held, etc. In essence, you are allowing them to become your area's expert in all aspects of furniture and design.

They will be able to invite their group members to drop in to your store for a visit. There are no limits to the types or quantities of discussions they can host and post.

This is an excellent and FREE vehicle for you to add value to your potential customers and show them that your store(s) are connected and aware of new media and marketing.

Lastly, Twitter.com A Powerful Retail Tool

Twitter is not as well known as the other two applications but may have the most value of all of them in the long run.

Twitter is a website where you can go online and post "tweets." These are microblogs of 140 words or less that allow your sales consultants to connect at any time of the day with their customers. The messages appear on the desktops or cell phones of customers who’ve agreed to become “followers”(as they're called on twitter). Some examples of tweets follow:

Tweet: Hi! If you're interested, all of my twitter friends can get an extra 3% off when you come in by giving me code number 123 when you buy from me. (Notice how this is measurable.)

Tweet: Visit our website at www.xyzstore.com to see our latest coupon offer-it's a winner-don't miss it! Notice how this is measurable if you have analytics software. If you don't know about analytics yet, see the earlier archived article on Google Analytics at www.furninfo.com.

Tweet: Hi! Come see XYZ Famous Local Personality tomorrow and give me code word FAMOUS for an extra 5% off anything you purchase! (Again, measurable.)

Now, Twitter shouldn't be used exclusively for driving business. Your sales consultants must add value to their "followers" in order to gain even more followers. So, they can post "tweets" about articles of interest, links to great design based websites that will help your customers explore color, paint, window treatments, etc.
I think you get the idea. With Twitter, you must give value before you get value. But, it is fast, easy, free, a lot of fun to use AND, best of all and most important of all, it is USED WIDELY for mobile text messaging.

Imagine, you're having a big sale. It's Saturday morning at 9 am. You open at 10. At 9:30 am you give all of your consultants with Twitter accounts permission to "twitter" their lists with this "tweet" which will be received on all of their "followers" mobile phones:

Tweet: If your receipt says 12 pm or sooner today, we will give you an additional. 5% off your purchase if you tell us "twitter" before we ring you up.

This is easy, measurable and, if your customers get used to getting twitters like this over time they will look for them! That's powerful, new and free. And, don’t forget to download some really cool desktop widgets and accessories for PC, Macintosh and cellular phones, at www.twitter.com/downloads.

As I come to a close, I'd like to say, "Don't be afraid. Your customers are ALREADY in control of your online reputation through online consumer opinion sites and ratings and reviews. They are already on the social networking sites emailing and twittering their friends about their experiences with your store, products, employees.

So, jump in carefully, and join their conversation. Show them you understand social networking, that you care about creating a genuine and mutually beneficial dialogue, and you will impress the heck out of them. Show your consultants that you trust them, that you're open to social networking, you understand it's value and you will create a company culture that everyone wants to be a part of.

Good luck! Please email success stories to leslie@furninfo.com  for inclusion in future articles.

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