Sarah Hickman October 15, 2013

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executive

Executive Summary……………………………………………………………………………......3

The Companies……………………………………………………………………………………..4

Social Analytics……………………………………………………………………………………..5

Facebook Analysis………………………………………………………………………………….6

LOFT Facebook Page 7

J. Crew Facebook Page 8

Recommendations 9

Twitter Analysis…………………………………………………………………………………...10

LOFT Twitter Page 11

J. Crew Twitter Page 12

Recommendations 13

Pinterest Analysis………………………………………………………………………………….14

LOFT Pinterest Account 15

J. Crew Pinterest Account 16

Recommendations 17

Instagram Analysis………………………………………………………………………………...18

LOFT Facebook Page 19

J. Crew Facebook Page 20

Recommendations 21

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………….22

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As competitors in women’s specialty retail, J. Crew and LOFT both aim to

create classic styles for the everyday fashionista. Although J. Crew offers

products for multiple target markets, it can be compared with LOFT

especially when discussing their emphasis on women’s clothing. The

purpose of this presentation is to delve past the base of the company and

analyze how each is using social media. J. Crew and LOFT both maintain

multiple accounts on various platforms including Facebook, Twitter,

Pinterest, and Instagram. Even though both companies are active on

multiple social media sites, by the end of this in depth analysis we will have

an answer to the question:

Who is the social success?

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LOFT As one of their two specialty retail fashion brands

for women, LOFT is the second major half of ANN,

Inc. Viewed as the more casual of the two brands,

LOFT prides itself on being a genuine clothing

option that women can trust. Providing clients

with fashion inspiration, style advice, and a

comfortably chic line of clothing, the brand is a go

to for women in need of a stylish and affordable

retailer who shows their love for their LOFT girls.

LIVE. LOVE. LOFT.

Offering an assortment of women’s, men’s, and

most recently children’s apparel and accessories, J.

Crew continues to capture the attention of young

shoppers looking for fashion forward, classic pieces.

Even with items reaching prices considered high for

average shoppers, J. Crew attracts its clients with

edgy, stylish, and fun pieces that can be mixed and

matched to create fashionable, yet comfortable

outfits that are tangible to most shoppers.

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LOFT

Before analyzing each platform, it is

important to look at Social Analytics to

gain a better idea of each company’s

presence in social. Comparing the

numbers provided by Social Mention side

by side, the companies both excel in

different areas. LOFT tends to have a

better ratio of sentiment than J. Crew, but

at the same time J. Crew has greater

strength throughout social media than

does LOFT. They both have very similar

levels of reach in terms of unique prints,

but LOFT currently has a greater amount

of passion. This analytical measure

fluctuates fairly regularly for both

companies though. Overall, both have

good numbers in terms of social analytics,

but an area of concern for LOFT is its level

of strength.

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LOFT After joining Facebook in August of 2008, LOFT has made

users aware of its presence on this social media platform. It

has a strong following with 1,355,127 likes on the brand’s

Facebook page and growing. Other numbers indicating its

strength are the 3,851 “people talking about this” and the

5,977 unique indications of people visiting LOFT locations.

With such a strong presence, it is evident that Facebook is

the main focus for the company when it comes to social

media. The page invites fans to “like” the page as an

incentive to be the first to learn of new deals, sales, events,

and more. LOFT also utilizes the views and apps section of

the page to allow followers to enter contests, sign up to be a

“LOFT Insider”, as well as providing views of their Twitter,

Pinterest, and Instagram accounts. The posts on the LOFT

page are not all uniform in look. Some use the large photo

format with text in the photo or describing it while others

are only text and the posts appear to be more

conversational. The main uses of the Facebook page are to

promote new collections and highlight certain items,

update followers on current sales, and for insight into what

LOFT is currently working on or involved with.

With a much different approach to the company Facebook

page than LOFT, J. Crew has a following that is also strong,

but is not what would be expected for a company with

multiple target markets spanning men, women, and

children. Since joining Facebook in July of 2009, J. Crew

has 1,067420 likes with 5,929 unique people “talking about

this”. In the area for views and apps, the company only has

a section for events and a link to their J. Crew on Film site.

Almost every post utilizes the larger photo format,

highlighting one specific topic of interest or clothing item

with barely any text. J. Crew also uses the large photo

format to bring attention to albums that present a few

photos of new collections or articles and posts about people

in the J. Crew workplace. Each post contains at least one

photo, few words, and is finished off with links to more

complete content.

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LOFT After looking through the posts and content on the LOFT

Facebook page, it is clear that women who follow the

company on here want to share their opinions and engage.

What is missing from the posts is a prompt or an

invitation/reason for them to engage in conversation with

both the brand and each other. The conversations on the

current posts are not sparked by buzz created strategically by

LOFT and this is definitely an area that can be capitalized on.

LOFT has many other great ways to get women involved with

the company such as the email sign up section offered and

the multiple views that allow followers to check out their

other social media sites. Another area that could be changed

is the constant sales updates. Even though women want to

know about them, Facebook is not the best place to throw

sales at their trusted clients. LOFT prides itself on being the

personal stylist and confidante to women, but that is not the

image portrayed with the constant sales talk. Instead, LOFT

needs to use the large photo format and highlight key pieces

for the season, how bloggers are wearing it, and invite their

Facebook followers to share their own style tips and advice

and make them feel a part of the conversation and brand.

When it comes to J. Crew’s company page, compared to its

other social media platforms, the Facebook platform seems to

be given the least amount of attention in terms of thought and

strategy. The posts are very random and do not follow any

direction. They range from employee “meet and greets” to

store opening events to clothing highlights to posts including

only a picture and one sentence about something that may or

may not have to do with the clothing line. The company

would benefit from providing at least a weekly post that

followed the same format each week. This would give

Facebook followers something to look forward to and a post

that they easily recognized on a regular basis. J. Crew targets

a young, hip, stylish crowd and they are missing an

opportunity to really engage them through Facebook. Lacking

any views and apps, J. Crew is also missing out on providing

another place for their loyal fans and newcomers to quickly

interact with their other social media sites. J. Crew is also

missing out on the ability to run contests through Facebook.

The company has a more solid foundation on other platforms,

and they could use that to their advantage by creating a photo

or style contest on those sites while using Facebook to

organize and promote it.

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LOFT Although the company is very active on Twitter with 5,892

tweets, LOFT only has 35,890 followers. The content found

on the LOFT Twitter account follows a different direction

than that found on the company Facebook page. There are

two main categories of content that is continually used: daily

#LOFTGirl quotes and fun advice, as well as sales updates

and the newest deals of the day. Mixed throughout these two

main areas of content are tweets that mention current

campaigns and causes that LOFT supports and is involved

with. As Twitter only allows 140 characters, the tweets fit in

to this format and many of the tweets are accompanied by a

shortened link. Hashtags are used in most of the tweets such

as the previously mentioned #LOFTGirl, #LiveInPink, and

#LoveMondays. Some other random hashtags are used

depending on the content for each individual tweet. LOFT

does not tweet pictures or videos very often at all and most of

the pictures are advertisement type photos with sales codes.

Although J. Crew is not as active in terms of tweeting from

their company Twitter account with only 547 tweets, the

company has 194,268 followers. This number is growing

quickly considering as of two days ago, their number of

followers has increased by over 500. Tweeting twice a day on

average, the content on the J. Crew Twitter page does not

contain mentions of current sales or offers anywhere. It

focuses more on providing interesting information on

different behind the scenes elements of the brand, style

advice and tips, and content that is more utilitarian and

useful to the J. Crew Twitter followers. Every tweet is

accompanied by a link to their blog, articles, videos, photos,

or pictures posted to Instagram. In doing this, J. Crew

employs a more visual element to their strategy. The brand

image is also strengthened via the company Twitter account

as J. Crew tweets about more than just their products and

deals. The company has a persona on Twitter with tweets

such as, “Happy First Day of Summer. We’re dreaming of the

beach (naturally). #summer #surf” A link to a Pinterest board

with surf inspired fashions brings the consumer back to the

products without shoving it onto the newsfeeds of followers.

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LOFT Even though LOFT properly follows the Twitter format and

keeps their content within the 140 character limit, they need

to reevaluate their Twitter strategy. It is evident from

analyzing the retweets and favorites from the two main areas

of content which direction LOFT needs to focus on. The

tweets containing sales information and offers receive fewer

retweets, mentions, and create less conversation versus the

tweets with relatable quotes, fun statements, and updates on

the current campaigns such as the current one “Live in Pink”.

Twitter is a forum where people update their followers on

what they are doing or feeling at the present moment and is

more personal than platforms such as Facebook. LOFT needs

to put more focus on tweeting material that women can

relate to, such as their #LOFTGirl tweets, and that speaks

directly to them as a woman and not as a consumer. In doing

so, women will want to retweet and share the fun tweets with

their followers which will create more buzz and LOVE for

LOFT as a brand. Using Twitter to update sales is not a good

use of the platform and does not build brand image. Also,

LOFT could engage and excite people on Twitter by adding

more related pictures of fun products to their fun tweets.

Right off the bat, you notice the lack of hashtags. They are

not mandatory per say on Twitter, but it certainly is a very

active element unique to the platform. Hashtags help to tie

events together and create buzz over one specific topic. J.

Crew has a great presence and strategy for the most part on

Twitter, but there is not common element among any of the

tweets. Give followers a hashtag that they can attribute to the

J. Crew brand. This will allow them to tweet at J. Crew and

mentions can be compiled based on this certain hashtag. It

just makes sense when using the Twitter platform and

attempting to create conversation. Also, despite the fact that

J. Crew has useful but also personal content that helps to

strengthen the brand image, there is no rhyme or reason to

the posts. They are too random and there needs to be at least

one or two areas of content that occur on a more regular

basis. Give followers something to look forward to such as a

weekly style idea from J. Crew that also encourages followers

to tweet pictures of their own takes on the style of the week

by using the hashtag #jcrewyou.

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LOFT LOFT also has a presence on Pinterest, which is a pin-

board style photo-sharing website. They currently have

15,914 followers, 82 boards, and 1,301 pins. Each board has

a common theme such as the board called “One Piece

Wonder” which features one item favorites from the

Summer 2013 collection. From some of LOFT’s favorite

pieces of their newest collections to some of their Style

Icons, the array of boards on the company Pinterest

account is pretty diverse. Although there are many random

boards that do not follow similar patterns and formats,

each board does have its own “story”. The boards that

continue to have the most repins and favorites are those

that tell the “story” of the latest collection and show LOFT’s

favorite items. Another popular set of boards are those that

highlight pieces and people involved with the “Live In

Pink” Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign. The random

boards showing favorite foods, style icons, or even best

places in New York City (where LOFT headquarters is

located) do not receive nearly as many repins.

J. Crew has a more uniform approach to their Pinterest

account. With only 24 boards, the company has an

impressive 85,491 followers and 1,165 pins. Each of the 24

boards has a unique theme that carries throughout each

picture. As a viewer, you can tell that each picture was

chosen carefully and for a specific reason for each board. The

boards also have very simple, easy names with most of them

consisting of only one word. One of the coolest boards is

called “My Shoe Story” and it literally follows the style

inspirations in photo form for each shoe in the collection. J.

Crew not only has a large following, but the Pinterest boards

are very active when it comes to repins and favorites. Many

photos have at least 200 to 500 repins! What is interesting is

that there are boards devoted to showcasing collections and

pieces through a monthly Style Guide, while other boards

bring the inspirations and collections to life through related

photographs and artistic pieces in separate boards. It is

almost as if each collection tells a complete story through

other boards and then is revealed in the Style Guide. The

Pinterest account is very well thought out and clearly shows

that the Pinterest target group, women, enjoys J. Crew on the

platform.

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LOFT LOFT also has a presence on Pinterest, which is a pin-board

style photo-sharing website. They currently have 15,914

followers, 82 boards, and 1,301 pins. Each board has a

common theme such as the board called “One Piece

Wonder” which features one item favorites from the

Summer 2013 collection. From some of LOFT’s favorite

pieces of their newest collections to some of their Style

Icons, the array of boards on the company Pinterest account

is pretty diverse. Although there are many random boards

that do not follow similar patterns and formats, each board

does have its own “story”. The boards that continue to have

the most repins and favorites are those that tell the “story”

of the latest collection and show LOFT’s favorite items.

Another popular set of boards are those that highlight

pieces and people involved with the “Live In Pink” Breast

Cancer Awareness Campaign. The random boards showing

favorite foods, style icons, or even best places in New York

City (where LOFT headquarters is located) do not receive

nearly as many repins.

J. Crew has done a great job with its Pinterest account. It

is neatly organized, looks as clean and classic as the

clothes do, and appeals to the younger female

demographic that they are tarketing. The inspirational

boards and photos that flank the clothing photos look

great and are correctly used in terms of strategy. J. Crew

utilizes the Pinterest platform as it is intended, and it is

clear that Pinners enjoy the J. Crew Pinterest page as

well. One recommendation that is similar to LOFT is to

limit the random boards, such as the one labeled NYC.

The quirky photos may be fun and interesting, but the

amount of repins is significantly less than those albums

showing inspirational photos side by side with clothing

items that are styled to play off of the inspirational photo

choices. Also, the description under the J. Crew name

states, “Sometimes things that don’t seem to go together,

do.” This is a really cool and interesting main theme if

followed throughout, but it is not. The description should

be changed to something about inspiration being all

around, which would tie in all of the boards much better.

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LOFT On the Instagram platform, it is evident that LOFT has very

recently, as in the past two months, changed it strategy.

Beginning in August, posts are more frequent and occur

around once a day instead of randomly throughout each

month. One common element that has also become a major

part of the strategy is LOFT’s #5secondstylist photos. A well

photographed image of a styled outfit is explained in the

short text blurb. This new format and hashtag is giving the

LOFT instagram more engagement and action than ever

before with photos receiving upwards of 1,000+ likes. The

LOFT Instagram page has 19,497 followers, which has

grown by over 100 people in the past two days, as well as

240 posts. LOFT does attempt to use the platform to create

engagement and buzz through contests and giveaways by

posting a picture with the text box explaining the contest

and redirecting followers to the contest rules page. Last

Spring, LOFT attempted to engage followers by inviting

them to share a photo of them with their mom using

#LOFTlovesmoms and LOFT would then feature their faves,

but only two photos were put on to Instagram.

J. Crew has embraced Instagram and continues to grow in

numbers every day. Boasting 272,685 followers, this

number has rapidly increased by almost 10,000 followers

in a mere three days!! The average number of likes per

photo hangs around 5,000 showing that J. Crew has

captured the attention of its target market on Instagram.

The photos posted to the account do not just point out

clothes from the J. Crew line. Instead, they are more

organic in nature in that the photos chosen to post have

stories behind them, just as the photos on personal

accounts do. J. Crew does post photos that show styled

outfits which is only fitting considering they are a specialty

retail company, but the outfits are placed on people that

are more relatable than just looking at a body with the

brand’s clothes on. Another fun element found throughout

the posts is one of J. Crew’s newest ideas that is indicated

by #Discovered. The main purpose of this hashtag and

movement are to show the brand community what J. Crew

as a fashion icon has discovered itself over the years and

even in the present. Different foods, stores, designers,

other fashion icons, etc. can all appear and be seen as

having been #Discovered.

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LOFT Although LOFT has recently changed its strategy on

Instagram, there is still room for improvement. It seems

that they are still unclear on the exact purpose of

Intagram and how to properly use it to enhance their

brand image and engage their followers at the same

time. The #5SecondStylist is a great addition, especially

because it can be used throughout any campaign LOFT

has throughout the year. Women love style tips! And it

feeds into the image LOFT wants women to have of the

company as being their personal stylist. Even with this

great addition to the newsfeed, one area LOFT needs to

revisit is their strategy for engagement. Instagram is not

the place to post advertisement s for contests or to put

words in the place of the artistic and creative photos.

Instagram is very visually stimulating, and text

completely takes away from the brand image. LOFT is

hurting their image by throwing their contests at their

followers. That is for Facebook. Instead, use Instagram

for its hashtags such as exciting followers by saying “post

a photo of your #5SecondStylist moment”. Get them

involved. Do not annoy them!

J. Crew is doing very well on Instagram. They understand

the platform and utilize what it has to offer to add to their

brand image. The #Discovered campaign gives a cool insight

into what the company has learned and found over the years,

and using Instagram to share this with followers is a great

way to show how authentic the brand is. Using real people

from the company, such as their own stylists and designers,

to wear the clothing item being photographed is a great idea.

This also feeds into the authenticity of the company and

shows that if they can wear it, so can I. J. Crew does not use

Instagram to continually post photos of their clothing or

fashion, but they have tailored their strategy to reveal their

brand identity to their consumers. As their target market is

the younger crowd, Instagram is the perfect place to do just

that and reach them. One recommendation for the J. Crew

Instagram account is that the company needs to engage their

followers in more ways than just expecting them to like the

newest photos. J. Crew could add to the #Discovered

campaign by encouraging and exciting J. Crew followers to

share their own #Discovered things.

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Throughout the analysis of both LOFT and J. Crew, it is evident that they each

have their own strong areas when it comes to social media. LOFT focuses on

Facebook and has gained a large following because of it. J. Crew focuses more

on the visual platforms and excels on Instagram. Although they both have

their strong points, it is safe to say that J. Crew has a more mature

presence in social. The company effectively and properly uses each

platform, but they still have room to grow. With some minor tweaks and more

strategic ways to engage their followers and fans, J. Crew will only continue to

grow. LOFT needs to make sure they pay attention to guidelines and “rules” of

each platform. Not everyone wants to see a sales pitch or offer on every social

media site, and they need to be aware of which platforms to use for each

purpose. Overall, both companies are very active on multiple social media

sites and have created large fan bases, but J. Crew is the Social Success.