How2: furnish your social spaces.
Last few posts I spoke about Ashley Home Furniture’s website and how they connected their in-store experience to an omnichannel presence across the technological landscape. In this installment of How2, we’ll dive into how they do so using social media.
Episode Recap
In our last discussion, we agreed that Ashley needed some space on their mobile website but made up for it in their intuitive mobile application.
Social Presence
As one of the leading home retailing stores, Ashley’s main objective is to drive in-store sales, where customers can experience the furniture for themselves.
However with social media increasing impulse buying habits up to 40% in a consumer, having a foothold in each channel isn’t a bad idea for such a huge company.
It’s fair to say that Ashley has a good grip on their presence online. They have profiles on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest — which I like to call the fantastic four for a good web and search foundation. I included their along Google company profile and Wikipedia Page as well. All of their profiles are verified makes for a very compelling and reinforced social strategy, and can give rise to numerous dynamic strategies in the future. 10/10.
Channel Banter
While Meta (Facebook) and Instagram are a must for connectivity, I give them extra points for being on Pinterest. This strategy of curating content that relates back to lifestyle interests and aesthetics and letting your consumers ‘plug’n’chug’ to their delight is exactly what Pinterest allows such a dynamic company like Ashley to do, hence why they are much popular there than on Twitter.
Their Facebook is mostly used for business connectivity, support and new product releases, as well as promotional campaigns, which is also shared to Instagram. The content strategy on Instagram resembles their Pinterest, which makes sense. Photo and video oriented channels should have content and stories optimized to make the most out of them; Pinterest comes out on top again.
Twitter is a whole different story, since they seem to post their announcements, DEI initiatives and social corporate responsibility campaigns there as well.
I included their Google Business Page along with their Wikipedia profile since it helps tremendously with backlinking and social media optimization. Better rankings on search means more access across all platforms. It’s all a spiderweb of media connection.
Let’s talk content.
I left out one main channel primarily because it’s where content drives the most engagement in all. TikTok!
While the content on the other channels were product oriented, TikTok allows the company to get on board with trends, active social listening, and creative use of the platform’s tools. I like to compare this to their Pinterest profile; endlessly curating content for the shifting identity of social media users. TikTok allows Ashley to show not only how their products affect the lifestyle of their audience, but adds a personality to their content, where brand tone is even more important than before- something that social media has been forcing brands to do.
The content is fairly mediocre, hence the following count and engagement rate being so low in comparison to their other profiles. Hopefully soon they will catch up as right now they are following the same product oriented strategy. I suggest they start throwing some edgy curated BuzzFeed type content, such as “Which corner table would your ex be?”. Gen-Z and Millenials feed off of that kinda thing. I do a little too, but just to see what people comment.
The Verdict
A good grasp on the fantastic four, approved and verified profiles, customized content for each channel with a hint of integral brand tone and aesthetic seems to be the 2018–2020 way of doing social media. Right now, it’s how contextual you can get, and TikTok and Gen-Z is to be blamed for that.
However, they do an amazing job on Pinterest with curating their content to customer sentiment. By making boards and pins to inspire user-generated content, they gain brand love and affinity, and hopefully conversions from it. This type of contextual connection is what’s on track to be the next step for social media for big companies. I love the term used by Deloitte, “Hyper-Personalization”.
There’s always been the “All Bark No Bite” complex when big companies have so many profiles. The bite in this context is when it comes to social listening, content responsibility, and customer support. All of which Ashley seems to check off with timely replies and open messaging platforms.
All in all, a solid foundation is meant to be built upon, and no one strategy is going to work. A day away from digital marketing means you have tons to catch up on- it’s a fast changing industry, and staying on track is a rubix cube that we all have to play and learn to love.
