Social Media Monitoring Project - Final Report

 Designer Shoe Warehouse 

               DSW is a company that has only recently become involved in social media, but has done an excellent job of taking advantage of it. In a relatively short time they have gained interest and activity through social media instead of relying on more expensive (and nowadays often ignored) typical forms of advertising like television commercials and billboards. As with my mid-term report I have divided my findings into categories presented in Groundswell by Li and Bernoff to highlight the positive advances that DSW has made through social media.

1.      Listening to and talking with the groundswell

 While I was researching for my mid-term report, the group had almost 361,000 “likes” with about 18,500 people talking about it at the time  and only a couple weeks later it now it has almost 382,000 “likes” and over 23,000 people talking about it (seen in their new “Timeline” format). In a matter of weeks they have gained 21,000 new customers to not only view but “like” their page, indicating the rapidity with which the organization is gaining a strong online following (and with the “Timeline” you can now very clearly see a the progression of their presence on facebook).             

  The reason DSW has been so successful with facebook is that it has literally gone “all out” with it. Every single comment on the page is responded to by a wonderfully friendly and upbeat sales representative. And they do not just reply back for the sake of it – if a customer has had a bad experience, someone will quickly figure out what went wrong so that they can avoid future problems. Likewise, if they notice a lot of customers commenting on the same kinds of issues, they will take note and address them – this past week for example, they gave away 50 free pairs of shoes instead of 25 with the huge increase of customers vying for them and wishing there were more freebies available.

2.      Energizing the groundswell

Another way their facebook page has been successful is through energizing their customers – most notably through promoting their rewards program. To win any of their prizes you have to both “like” the page and be a rewards member. Rewards members get regular discounts, promotions, and free shipping when they order online. It’s a legitimately good program that encourages and rewards loyal buyers and with facebook they were able to greatly increase the number of these loyal customers. In return their customers are much more likely to promote DSW to others and the facebook page allows them to build up on each other’s energy and make them more excited about being shoe lovers, and will spread their excitement to anyone who will listen.

But facebook is not the only way through which DSW is involved in social media. By using Social Mention we can get a general idea of how strong their presence is on the web. Below are snapshots taken from the summary section provided by Social Mention:

           Their numbers are quite constant and positive, but obviously there is still room for improvement, particularly in the strength category. From doing my own research I have discovered that almost all of the comments about DSW are overwhelmingly positive, but tools like Social Mention cannot properly analyze negative and positive comments given that they use key words which can be very misleading.

            We can definitely see that DSW has a constant online presence. There are a good number of people interested in the company and a pretty high following of returning customers and commenters. To get a better idea of the social media trend over time, Ice Rocket is a great tool to use. The graph depicted below shows the amount of interest in social media with the three terms most commonly used to express the company. “DSW” is the shortest and most common way of referring to the company, and there are definite peaks where there is much higher interest in the company.

These peak days often occur when a new store opens. On the day they send out a large group of spokespeople to spread the word around that the store will be opening soon. In addition to this, openings in larger cities have special events to celebrate the new store and reward the very first shoppers. This form of “guerilla” marketing creates a lot of hype around the event which ensures that there is a steady stream of hightened interest over time which energizes shoe-lovers to stay tuned and keep buying. The hype really contributes to the energizing concepts discussed in Groundswell – their customers are genuinely excited about the store and will share this excitement all over the internet and in person (which generates even more social media precense for that day).

3.      Helping the groundswell support itself

A major way this has happened with DSW is through Twitter. Going back to Social Mention, I was very interested to see that when I searched for DSW only in the microblog category both the strength and reach jumped much higher which seems to indicate that DSW is being mentioned more in shorter comments.

            Through Twitter DSW simply encourages followers to check out a new pair of shoes or store, but for the most part lets the customers do the talking and replies (as always) very positively to whatever comments they get. By using the Twitter monitoring site Twazzup I was able to get a clearer look at the intensity of the comments. There are many tweets involving the company (almost entirely positive) but the following is much lower than on facebook. Regardless, this format does allow Twitter users to help each other and comment on each other’s experiences without feeling like the company is controlling the talking points or keeping up any false pretenses.

While DSW does not have quite the sames kinds of customer self-help forums as described in Groundswell, the facebook page offers the same possibilities. If anyone has a question about how a special offer works or how to get more discounts or anything else, it is often another customer that replies to the query before a DSW representative can. This creates a great environment of goodwill and accord amongst the page followers.

Room for improvement…

            Clearly the marketing department at DSW has a pretty good grasp on the benefits of using social media to advertise their products and promote their brand identity. They now rely almost entirely on their social media, word-of-mouth, and guerilla marketing tactics to attract customers to their stores and website instead of more traditional and expensive forms – all of which rely almost entirely on the enthusiasm that their customers and employees have for beautiful shoes. In particular they have made excellent use of their facebook page to listen to, talk with, and energize their customers. They have that side of their marketing strategy completely under control. But of course there are other areas in which they could do better and expand their reach even further. From the past month of research I have pinpointed two main areas where DSW could improve its presence in social media and get more out of it – through Twitter and customer forums.

            Clearly Twitter is a great way for other people to talk about DSW, but the tool does not appear to have been taken full advantage of by the company itself (like it has done with facebook). Considering they already have similar programs in place on facebook, it would not be particularly difficult to integrate some fun events or promotions on Twitter to further energize their followers. This will give those tweeting customers more reasons to keep tweeting and to further promote the DSW brand to their own followers. It should also encourage many more customers to follow DSW and to comment more about the company, significantly increasing its social media presence. Twitter could also be used to further their guerilla marketing – it would be an interesting experiment to only advertise a store opening on Twitter (of course in a city where they have more followers). This (theoretically) would result in a group of dedicated shoe-lovers who feel rewarded for their continued shopping experience at DSW.

            On a slightly different note, an area that DSW has really made no clear progress in is the use of online customer forums. Groundswell describes the amazing advances that can be made from directly asking your customers what they want. Obviously DSW has an amazing staff filled with style experts who are paid to pick the best styles – but even they can’t possibly know everything about what their customers want. Maybe a particular style that is huge at Paris Fashion Week will not be appealing to their particular audience (which caters mostly to Americans who are trying to not go broke paying for higher quality shoes). Having a better grasp on what exactly their customers are looking for can be really helpful in lessening the risks of buying their shoes in bulk (which is generally how they get lower prices) and it will greatly energize their buyers. Having buyers who feel as though they have made a difference to the company and helped out other buyers like themselves is a great energizing tactic that pays off in the future. 

            DSW is off to a great start and has almost seamlessly integrated itself into the groundswell. They genuinely care about their customers and as a result provide an excellent assortment of shoes and high quality customer service. Confident in the value of their company they have thrived through social media and bypassed much larger and older companies of the same nature. DSW is a wonderful example of the results that can be achieved through embracing the groundswell and allowing your customers to speak for you.

....and if anyone wants to buy me these shoes, please feel free :)