Photo from: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704648604575620931506617098.html
After studying the branding power that social media presents to businesses, I wanted to explore what people in cyberspace are saying about the Betsey Johnson clothing line. I perceive this designer as one that thrives on innovative and creativity. Therefore, I assumed that the label has catapulted themselves into the world of social media and that they possess a strong presence for consumers to interact with.
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In my hunt for Betsey Johnson’s social media voice, I first set out to find blogs discussing the company. I used the social media-monitoring tool BlogSearch. Through this tool I was able to uncover the blog, "Discovering More About Betsey Johnson Swimwear". It discusses the history and inspiration for the clothing company. It also states that Betsey Johnson swimwear is flattering to many different body types but not necessarily "suited" (like my pun?) for women that are shy. This blog seemed to exquisitely capture the attitude behind the brand as well as give honest advice regarding for whom this swimwear is best.
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The second blog I stumbled upon is titled, "High Maintenance Woman". This blog critiques a variety of jewelry designed by Betsey Johnson. It is full of compliments and critiques, giving the reader a fully honest description.
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The third article related to Betsey Johnson belongs to a blog dedicated to shopping, stores and boutiques in the Seattle area (NW Source). This blog announced an event that Betsey Johnson would be hosting. At this event, people could meet the designer, hear her give a speech about surviving breast cancer and buy merchandise with a portion of the proceeds going toward breast cancer research. The blog expressed the clothing line's ability to spread awareness for a cause. It also described the designer's personal connection with breast cancer.
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The second tool that I used to monitor Betsey Johnson's social media activity was Tweetscan.com. Through this tool I detected four current Tweets about Betsey Johnson. Two of the Tweets were from consumers expressing their love of the brand. The third tweet contained a link to a Wall Street Journal article titled, "Betsey Johnson Faces a Makeover". This article states that the new CEO of the company is determined to revamp the brand by opening more boutiques nationwide and increasing its e-commerce revenue. In the article, the designer Betsey Johnson claims that she will still remain onboard as the head designer and that she will not sell out her brand. However, the author of the article speculates that the brand will mellow out and become more commercial as a result of this new CEO. The fourth tweet detected by Tweetscan was a coupon for an online store that sells Betsey Johnson products.
Photo from: www.online.wsj.com
The last tool I used was Social Mention. This tool provided a great deal of information regarding what consumers are saying about Betsey Johnson via Social Media. After searching for the brand's name, I found statistics on the type of information posted about it. For example: 9:1 sentiment, which means most of it is positive; 9% strength, which indicates the likelihood of the brand being mentioned in social media; 38% passion, meaning those individuals mentioning the brand are doing so passionately; and 25% reach, which means the range of influence.
After reviewing the information found through SocialMention.com, I realized that the majority of what is being said about the brand is positive, but Betsey Johnson does not seem to have a strong presence within the world of social media.
In order to see how popular the official Betsey Johnson website is, looked it up on Delicious and found that there have been 309 bookmarks since November 2005. I also searched for the brand's name in Wikipedia. There I found an entry for the designer. Although mostly biographical, it did contain information about her successes and failures with the clothing line.
The brand has made an effort to proactively interact with their customers through social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter. Through their Twitter page they are able to announce sales, new products, articles covering the label, upcoming fashion shows and events. Currently they have 65,229 followers on Twitter.
Through their Facebook page I viewed a plethora of status updates about new products, upcoming fashion shows and contests for winning prizes. Currently there are 129,334 Facebook users that have "liked" theBetsey Johnson page. On their Facebook the brand has a Discussion Page. Here the designer provides the opportunity for consumers to ask her any questions and she promises to answer them. Some of the questions I observed were related to the jewelry line, employment at the brand's boutiques and the designer’s inspiration. For the most part, the designer was able to respond to each individual question with enthusiasm and gratitude. However, on the brand's Facebook wall one consumer posted that they were disappointed in how easily Betsey Johnson purses break. There was no response from the brand. I believe this would have been an excellent opportunity for the company to acknowledge the complaint. By ignoring it, they allowed the comment to damage their reputation.
From the observation of all of these tools, I was able to deduce that Betsey Johnson does have a presence within social media and that the company has exerted effort and resources to create a place for the brand to interact with consumers. However, there is a lot more they could be doing such as responding to consumer complaints on their Facebook page or creating their own blogs and responding to comments there as well. By simply posting announcements on social media outlets, they are not facilitating the development of relationships between the brand and its fans. Instead, they are throwing information at the consumer and not responding to any of their feedback. I acknowledge that their Facebook Discussion page is a great way to engage with consumers but it seems senseless to respond to customers’ questions through that page and not when they make any type of comment on the main Facebook wall.
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