Companies that cater to consumers are always chasing after the latest consumer technology trend (anyone remember Second Life?), and this holiday season that means following them into the world of social media.

Companies ranging from Wal-Mart and Panda Express to J.C. Penney and Target are experimenting with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Flickr. Some are tweeting special coupons or limited-time deals, while others are doling out fashion advice or providing play-by-plays from product launch parties on Facebook. M.A.C. said it is using its Facebook page to feature artists, color collections, and what is happening backstage at fashion shows. 

While figuring out if all this tweeting, posting and friending is increasing sales is difficult, companies said one thing is certain: Social media is giving them a direct, unfiltered link to consumers.

For instance, when Target asked its Facebook fans what they thought of its mens clothing line, they got suggestions like: “MORE MLB, NFL, NBA merchandise…” and “Could use a better selection of mens jeans, and tall mens shirts (not just dress shirts) too.”

Target is now using the responses to tweak its merchandise selection.

When Panda Express wanted to celebrate its new SweetFire chicken breast, it allowed Facebook fans to print a coupon so they coud visit a restaurant on Sept. 25 and try it for free. Chief Marketing Officer Glenn Lunde said 25,000 coupons were redeemed and traffic in its restaurants rose that day. 

Larry Weintraub, the chief executive of marketing agency Fanscape, said that unlike traditional media, social media can give companies tangible results.

“If I run a TV ad or I do a billboard … I don’t always know the direct effect,” he said. “If I do Facebook and there’s a coupon or a direct link to buy it, I actually see the results.”

Coach said it is luring shoppers to its stores and its website by using Facebook, Twitter and establishing relationships with influential blogs. For this holiday, it is developing an iPhone gifting application. Users can type in who they are shopping for, what that person’s favorite color is, and their price range. The application will respond with a bundle of possible gift ideas.

But Zain Raj of Euro RSCG Discovery said companies need to keep social media’s potential in perspective for this holiday. He pointed to Dell, which has said it raked in more than $3 million from Twitter followers who clicked through its posts to its Websites to make purchases. 

However, Raj said that is “not even a drop in the ocean” for a company that posted $12.3 billion of revenue in the first quarter of this year, alone.

(Photo/Reuters)

The indicators are there: people are saving more and they’re spending less.  The era of the savvy(er) shopper has officially arrived. But how long will it last?

Family financial guru Ellie Kay has been talking about smart shopping for years, publishing numerous books and maintaining a blog about how to shop smart. With the back-to-school shopping season running up against the recession, she’s been hearing a lot from her readers about how they’ve changed their buying habits.

“It’s not enough to run a sale, there has to be something extra that retailers are putting out there for the consumer to want to spend back-to-school dollars in their store,” she said. “That includes sales plus store coupons, or free gifts, or if they’re shopping online, they want free online shipping.”

Kay said it’s also not enough for retailers to have a value message anymore. With consumers surfing coupon websites like fatwallet.com and doubling up on store coupons, she said retailers have to work extra hard to get consumer’s attention.

“I do see the trend shifting to implement the use of social media sites–the use of tweeting and Facebook and soforth,” she said, pointing to consumer’s reactions to viral media campaigns such as Starbuck’s free pastry and free ice cream giveaways through Facebook. “When there’s a really good deal out there that’s working that people are going to want to take advantage of, they’re going to start chatting about it.”

Indeed, the co-founder of RetailMeNot.com told Reuters that online coupons are taking on a life of their own as they get re-posted on blogs or on Facebook, while the CEO of Savings.com said retailers are already looking for ways to offer creative online deals for the upcoming Christmas shopping season.

Kay said the recession is leaving a lasting impression on consumers.

“I think a lot of them are going to smarten up, and be mindful that when they saw their college funds go away, they’re going to be very careful the next time around,” she said. “I think there will be good things that come out of this, especially to those who are hit hard by it.”

That goes for future generations of shoppers as well.

“It’s an incredible teaching opportunity for children to help them realize that what’s really important in life is not how many toys they have,” she said. “That’s a way to teach a generation that’s always had what they want how to live on a budget.”

(Additional reporting by Nicole Maestri)

(Photo: Reuters)

A new report by Inside Facebook discusses some best practices for retailers hoping to set up shop on the popular social networking site.

Some of the recommendations include letting users shop from within Facebook, including even the ability to share product information with friends.  Another suggestion is to have contests, giveaways and sweepstakes.

But what’s most interesting is the last suggestion: keep it simple with status updates.

Life is Good does. With simple status updates (much like the name of the brand itself), Life is Good elicits more pondering from its fan community. Their most recent update: “Whatever you are, be a good one.”

Expanding that to “conversation in general,” it seems that specific approach is the key between a social networking presence and a successful social networking presence.

One example from outside the industry is NASA, whose Twitter feed for the Mars Phoenix lander was a huge success.

Part of what helped NASA’s Twitter experiment rocket to such success was how personal it felt to the viewers. Throughout the mission, NASA actually took the time to respond to people’s questions and share in discoveries.

These ideas do translate to retail, of course. JetBlue is very conversational on its Twitter feed, offering travel tips and discounts. Dell became e-famous for offering exclusive discounts both through Twitter and Facebook. And Whole Foods suggests recipes, all through social networking.

What’s challenging, however, is that there is not one simple answer for any of these companies. Each seems to have taken some of these basic principles and applied them to their own brand to create interestingly different outcomes.

But each of the successful ones has the same strategy in the end: conversation. Most of the top brands on Facebook all create original content, post comments, or respond to customers through social networking to increase the conversation about their company and products.

The popular social networking website has a new champion among its brands: Starbucks.

With a combination of recent social networking promotions and front-page ads, the Seattle-based mega coffee company has attracted more than 3.6 million fans to reportedly passed Coca-Cola to become the most popular brand on Facebook.

While that huge fan base makes Starbucks the No. 1 brand, statistics compiled by the website Inside Facebook showed Starbucks as the 8th most popular “page,” behind Hollywood star Will Smith, President Barack Obama, and the current leader, Michael Jackson.

Facebook “pages” are public profiles that are designed to help companies advertise, and to also connect with the website’s users by sending them messages and interacting in conversations.

Retailers like Wal-Mart and Target have used their pages in the past to promote seasonal sales, and other companies like Dell and Apple have offered exclusive promotions through the site to boost popularity.

According to Inside Facebook, Starbucks’ Facebook page saw spikes on July 18 and July 21, when the company was running its free pastry giveaway. Earlier this month, the company also purportedly gave away free ice cream through Facebook as well.

(Photo/Reuters)

Check out hopeful signs that the recession may be abating.

While recent reports showed slumping sales at many big-box retailers, there are other signs that the economy may be bottoming.

U.S. retail sales rose in May and the number of workers who filed new applications for jobless benefits last week fell for the fourth straight week.

The Commerce Department today reported that U.S. retail sales rose 0.5 percent in May, thanks partly to gasoline sales that jumped 3.6 percent. Meanwhile, the Labor Department said initial jobless claims fell to their lowest levels since Jan. 24.

Discount retailer Target has increased its quarterly dividend, Clorox did the same while also affirming its 2010 profit outlook and financial targets for 2013, and Del Monte posted far stronger-than-expected quarterly earnings and provided a better-than-expected 2010 forecast.

Not all the news has been hopeful, however.

While last month’s U.S. foreclosure activity ebbed from April’s record high, homeowners were still struggling to keep up with house payments and May foreclosure filings were the third-highest on record.

Unemployment is at its highest level since July 1983. Some economists are talking about a “jobless recovery”, gas prices are rising and spiking mortgage rates are cooling demand for new home loans.

The weak economy has led to haggling in some unexpected places – namely  Tiffany – and forced other exclusive brands like Juicy Couture and Louis Vuitton to join the retail hoi polloi in trolling online for sales via Facebook and Twitter.

Also in the Basket:

Stimulus cash brings hope to poor U.S. youth

Jamba CEO eyes long-term growth, menu expansion

Lululemon posts lower profit, sees flat quarter

Look Who’s Shopping Goodwill (New York Times)

Restaurants Take Trip to Store (Wall Street Journal)

(Photo: Reuters)

We know the U.S. recession is gloomy for retailers, online stores included, but at least a third of these e-commerce sellers say they’re taking greater market share amid the slump. 

That’s according to Shop.org and Forrester Research in a marketing study based on their annual State of Retailing Online report. Shop.org is a division of the National Retail Federation.

The survey of 117 online retailers showed that, despite the economic downturn, some 46 percent of respondents said they would spend as planned on their web businesses, with no scale-back of original budgets. Moreover, a quarter said they’d spend even more than originally planned, while fewer than a third said they’d spend less.

“As weak retailers disappear from the eCommerce landscape, companies that remain do have an opportunity to capture orphaned shoppers,” the report said.
 
Online retail has continued to outperform the brick-and-mortar retail environment, which has been hurt by lower mall traffic as shoppers try to avoid all but the most necessary shopping trips.
    
Analysts have pointed to Amazon.com as the online retailer finding the most success getting consumers to shop. With a strategy of lowered prices, increased selection and a discount shipping program, the Seattle-based e-commerce giant has managed to beat sales forecasts in its last two reported quarters. 
    
In January, Forrester forecast a 11 percent jump in total U.S. online sales to $156 billion, representing 6 percent of the overall retail pie.
    
With a renewed push for customer acquisition — and retention — some 88 percent of retailers listed email communications as a high priority for 2009, higher than paid search, which is more expensive.
    
And, demonstrating the rise in popularity in sites like Facebook and Twitter, some 11 percent of retailers said that social media was an effective acquisition tactic.

(Reuters photo)

Meet Kogi, L.A.’s newest celebrity.

It’s not a buxom starlet or a hunky leading man, it’s a Korean-themed taco truck that sells things like Korean short rib tacos to home-made ice cream sandwiches and daily specials.

In a city where taco trucks are as ubiquitous as New York City’s hot dog vendors, Kogi has used technology lure fans.

It has a website, a few Facebook fan pages and diners can track its every move on Twitter.

Kogi has taken hard-to-impress Angelenos by storm.

Jonathan Gold, a Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic for alternative weekly paper LA Weekly, had this to say about Kogi: “From Rosemead side streets to Venice dive bars, hungry Angelenos have a new way to roll.”

(Photos\Lisa Baertlein)

By Shivani Singh

Jack Box, hamburger chain Jack in the Box’s snowman-faced mascot, is alive and kicking.  

Last month, the mascot was hit by a bus in an advertising spot aired during the Super Bowl. The campaign continued online for a month, with a cliff-hanger that left fast-food fans wondering whether Jack would survive. 
  
Following some intrigue involving corporate underlings, Jack woke up last week to take back the reins of the company and launch its new logo that blows up the word ‘Jack,’ which is how most customers refer to the fast-food chain. 
 
The post-Super Bowl viral campaign targeted the company’s core audience of mostly 18- to 34-year-olds, who used YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to cook up millions of hits, Chief Marketing Officer Terri Graham told Reuters.  
 
The multichannel campaign was also supported by coupons. On Tuesday, the company gave a free soda and small fries to people who printed a coupon on the ‘Hang In there Jack’ site. Restaurants saw an increase in traffic on the days the coupons were offered, the company said. 

Fast-food companies have been quicker than other restaurant operators to embrace technology and social media. Rival Burger King made a splash earlier this year with its Facebook campaign that gave a free Whopper to users who dumped 10 friends.
 
The next phase of the Jack in the Box campaign is scheduled for March 16, when the company debuts a new website where users can sign up to get Jack do their dirty work — whether it’s calling in sick or breaking up with a girlfriend or boyfriend.

(Photos\Jack in the Box)

If ever you needed a reason to clear the dead wood from your Facebook posse, here it is: Burger King will give you a free Whopper hamburger every time you cut 10 of your “fair-weather web friends.”

But beware. While Facebook lets you anonymously eliminate your “friends,” the Burger King application notifies them when you “sacrifice” them in your quest for free fast food.

The Whopper Sacrifice ad campaign, spotted by Adweek, sends a message alerting your former friend that the sentiment you carry for him or her is nothing compared with the sizzle of a Whopper.

According to the Whopper Sacrifice web site, more than 12,000 friends have been bitten the dust — all for a (roughly) $2 Whopper.

In an economy like this, is anyone safe?

(Photo/Reuters)

Worried about the safety of your personal information? On second thought, maybe you’re not — if you shop with your American Express card, surf eBay or use an IBM system.
 
Those three companies are consumers’ picks for the top most trusted when it comes to protecting their customers’ privacy, according to a survey by TRUSTe, a consumer privacy protection organization, and the Ponemon Institute, an independent research group. 
 
Consumers reported that identity theft is the No. 1 factor influencing their view of how companies handle privacy concerns, with only 45 percent of respondents saying they felt they had control over how their personal information was used or shared. That’s down from 56 percent two years ago.
    
The worries over data security are real — companies from discount retailer TJX Cos to Bank of New York Mellon Corp have had major data breaches compromising the personal information of millions of consumers.
    
The top ten list is rounded out by Amazon.com, Johnson & Johnson, the U.S. Postal Service (which shares the No. 6 spot with Hewlett Packard), Procter & Gamble, Apple, Nationwide, and Charles Schwab.
    
The survey, now in its fifth year, polled nearly 6,500 U.S. adults to determine their view of the most trustworthy companies and brands when it comes to protecting personal information.
    
Companies including Disney, AOL and Dell made it to the top 20 list, with Yahoo, FedEx, Facebook and Verizon joining that group for the first time since 2004, when the Ponemon Institute began conducting research on the topic. It was also the first time for Apple, at No 8.

Google, whose growing dominance of the search market has prompted questions over how it uses its data, found itself ousted from the Top 20 list this year, as were Countrywide and Bank of America.