Future Shop Canada is now on Twitter. Surprising, as usually brick and mortar retailers are slow to adopt innovative marketing strategies, especially where digital channels are concerned, and especially in Canada. Their first tweet was on June 4 which was a week ago.
Barry Judge, Best Buy USA’s CMO, has plunged in with both feet. Blogging at BarryJudge.com, he discusses his marketing strategies for the company in a candid and discussion provoking manner. Active on Twitter personally, and with stores across America creating their own Twitter accounts, he clearly sees the shift in importance to digital channels and is experimenting with methods to make this work for BBY. Barry Judge is enlisting user generated content for BBY – from getting true stories from staff to partnering with MoFilm. Not stopping there, they have created a sort of digg-like site called IdeaX where consumers can suggest ideas for bettering Best Buy and vote on the accordingly.
While I think that they might be missing an element – being true value for the user, they are making attempts which does expand their online presence regardless.
I think for the Future Shop deals Twitter to work, they need to incentivize it, perhaps by offering deals that are only advertised on Twitter. This might create a buzz, not only for Future Shop but for Twitter in the Canadian market. They should also allow consumers to Twitter deals from their online flyers to their own Twitter accounts, as well as to the Future Shop Deals page.
I don’t think IdeaX will last long, I think rather they should invest in enhancing their forum as this venue can also achieve what IdeaX does and allows for more user interaction and frank discussion. This should be promoted more prominently on their home page to draw consumer interest. Heavy moderation would be important of course. Same goes for Twitter for BBY as with Future Shop. Increased sophistication and alignment with other channels is required, and there should me more opportunities for consumers to Twitter from other digital channels.
It is important for larger brick and mortar retailers to explore these new online and mobile channels to survive in the new economy where consumers are not interested in brands being pushed upon them, rather they want to centre their strategies around consumer needs to pull them into being loyal to that brand.
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I always read blogs in similar topic, but I never visited your blog. bookmarked and i?ll be your constant reader. Thanks
Hey Danielle,
I’m working on the IdeaX project for Best Buy. My role is emerging media manager and IdeaX is one of my projects. I wasn’t on the team at the birth of IdeaX but am helping to shepherd it to its next phase.
A couple points. I see your point about potentially using forums as a way to encourage and leverage customer or employee ideas, in a sense I would argue that IdeaX IS a forum. There’s an important distinction between the two. A forum is traditionally a place for questions to be asked, or complaints to be registered etc. True enough, out of those discussions come ideas for how to improve the thing that led to the issue or problem in the first place. The distinction I would make between a forum and what we are doing with IdeaX is that IdeaX focuses not just on solutions to problems, but completely new ideas as well. In a nutshell, I would say that is why we separate the two. A bit of semantics perhaps, but I think having a pure Idea place is important.
In any case, I appreciate the commentary, and I hope predictions of IdeaX’s demise are premature :). We are working on phase two of our feature sets, and more importantly a more robust plan for giving the ideas that have merit a pathway into the business.
Cheers,
Joshua Kahn
Hi Josh,
Thanks for your comment – I think that the people at Best Buy definitely have it right – you are experimenting with new ways of communicating with your customers and potential customers and being bold in your efforts. What I have noticed since I wrote this post is that the teams working on your social media projects are ADAPTABLE – as you say you are working on phase 2 which means you are constantly adapting to the needs of your customers and also adapting as you redefine the role social media will play in your organization as your following grows.
Again, thanks for stopping by and I will be watching closely as Best Buy successes are compounded. ;)