By Alicia Fiorletta, Senior Editor
Ever since I started working at Retail TouchPoints, social has been my “thing.” Some may argue it’s because of my Millennial nature, but in reality, it’s because I just love the potential opportunities that come with social engagement.
Think about it: Facebook started as a way for college kids to connect, socialize and of course, share the dirt on their day-to-day experiences. Now, it’s an outlet for that interpersonal communication, but also is a valuable service channel and content sharing network.
The same thing goes for Twitter, which for so long has been limited to 140 characters. While that threshold still exists, businesses now have the opportunity to share images, videos and even embed forms to encourage people to opt in to programs and download resources.
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Anyways, what I’m getting at is that for so long, marketers saw social media as a way to push out information. But now, some best-in-classers see social media for what it truly is: A complex, tangled jungle of information and conversations. It’s a service channel, a source for inspiration and it’s ongoing, real-time information.
Despite some success stories, there are some retailers and brands that still can’t quite crack the social code. And that’s perfectly fine, because that’s where we come in.
Our goal is to spotlight the innovators and forward-thinkers: Their challenges, goals, strategies and outcomes. And of course, their lessons learned. With these stories, we hope to provide inspiration, encouragement and a figurative fire under your butt, driving you to move forward.
That is why we’ve created our awards programs. To honor the progressive organizations and provide a tactical overview of what you can take away from their stories.
We’ve developed a series of successful awards programs that focus on store operations and customer engagement. This year, we decided to step it up a notch and focus on social media. Hence the birth of the Social Media Maven awards, which was developed to honor the brands and retailers that have implemented cutting-edge campaigns and tactics, have embraced analytics, and have used social data and content in new, compelling ways.
If you know a brand or retailer that should be honored as a Social Maven, we encourage you to nominate them here. Heck, even if you want to nominate your own company, we won’t tell…
We’re mining through nominations as they come in and plan to release the report later this month. We hope you enjoy it!
