One of my followers pointed me to ModCloth, an online women’s clothing and accessories company. ModCloth focuses on independent and vintage-inspired fashion founded by two sweethearts from their college dorm room.
Since then I’ve had my eyes on them. ModCloth, in my opinion, ticks all the boxes as to what it truly means to be a social business and they are a great example for every brand to learn from.
The key to being successful on social media isn’t about tweeting or updating Facebook statuses, it’s about giving an immaculate customer service, adding value and building a great community, ModCloth does all that and MORE.
1. FACEBOOK
With over 500,000 likes on Facebook, ModCloth shares a mixture of status updates such as elegant photos, memorable quotes, personal videos from their Youtube channel, and engaging questions. They have built an amazing and engaging community through constantly asking interesting questions that invokes participation.
They also have a dedicated album that shares photos from their customers. These photos are also posted on their wall to share with everyone else.
2. TWITTER
With over 80,000 followers, you would expect them to link their Twitter account to their main home page, after all, sales are important right?
ModCloth doesn’t link their Twitter account directly to their home page, but instead it is linked to their ‘Social Butterflies’ page. It is a page dedicated to giving users more information about their team behind the Twitter account, blog, and other social media profiles.
Another thing that WOW-ed me about this company is that they read every conversation on Twitter and respond to them too.
They not only thank people who say good things about them, but they also respond to people who don’t tweet to ModCloth directly. When you talk about engagement, this is definitely one of the most complete examples out there.
A couple of days ago, one Twitter user posted on her feed saying that she loves the ModCloth top that she bought but she doesn’t know what to pair it with. 20 minutes later, @ModCloth responded to her tweet directing her to their ‘ModStylist’.
Users are also able to make one-on-one style consultation with their stylist and it is FREE. Problem solved plus engagement 101 plus making new friends on Twitter. It is genuinely hard to find a reason NOT to engage with ModCloth.
3. REWARDS
Rewards are not only a great way to build customer loyalty; it’s a great way to build buzz and engagement on social media. ‘Name it and win it’ is one of a few contests that ModCloth launches. Customers are given the opportunity to name up to three names for their new featured product.
Each day, ModCloth will take the contest to different social platforms and customers will need to go to those platforms to join the contest. This great marketing idea helps spread the contest further and their brand across those platforms. It’s a great tip to build user-connectivity among all your social media accounts.
4. CROWDSOURCING
Like ThreadLess, another great clothing line currently doing well on social media, ModCloth embraces crowdsourcing through a similar voting concept. What’s great about this voting concept is that it embraces user empowerment to ultimately allow those users to participate as the key decision-makers within the ModCloth production line.
‘Be the Buyer’ allows users to vote and comment about what they like/dislike about their upcoming products. Through those votes, the prototype designs will be produced if they receive enough votes from the people.
If the product that they like is chosen, ModCloth will send an email notification letting them know that the product is available. Comments that users give will also be taken to improve their future designs.
5. YOUTUBE
There are over 4,100 subscribers and nearly one million views on their YouTube channel, so clearly they are able to transfer their customer service charms through videos as well.
ModCloth uses the channel to educate potential customers by giving them make-up tips, vintage style hair tips, useful DIYs, funky interviews, and the always interesting behind-the-scenes videos.
These videos help ModCloth reach their target market and convert video watchers into evangelists and customers.
6. PINTEREST
ModCloth doesn’t directly share photos of their product there, instead they pin beautiful photos from a variety of sources online that fits with their target market, from hair tutorials, arts and crafts, creative decorations, to home-made recipes.
ModCloth also have a ‘Guest Pinner Gallery’, a user-generated Pinterest board that allows users to be a guest and share photos on ModCloth board.
7. INSTAGRAM
If you haven’t realized by now, let me just clarify that ModCloth is EVERYWHERE. They are on Instagram too and doing extremely well with a further 41,000 followers there. Like on Facebook, ModCloth shares elegant photos, behind the scene photos, and oh, their mascot too!
I think it all comes down to the fact that ModCloth took social platforms, found the strength of each of these platforms, adapted and specialized certain features of their company in each of them, and finally connected all of these platforms together to build a massive office suite. If you ask me where their business is based, I wouldn’t say that they are mostly active on Twitter or Facebook, but instead I’ll simply say that they are online.
Because they truly are online.
What do you think?
Although the medium keeps changing, the value remains the same. Take care of your customers, and they will take care of you. ModCloth does that extremely well.
This post was also published on iStrategy Conference blog where I contribute on a weekly basis. Subscribe over there for more great blog post.
Kirsten Lambertsen says
Great coverage of ModCloth’s approach. Much appreciated!
I think it’s important to note that none of this would them any good if they didn’t also know their customer backwards and forwards. ModCloth’s FB page is like your coolest friend’s FB page. They know exactly what to post to appeal to their customer. And it’s a very specific persona. All the extras like cats, dogs, food. It’s all part of knowing your customer and hitting her right where she lives 😉
Lewis LaLanne aka Nerd #2 says
The key lesson I learned here is that if it’s at all possible in your business to have a team that’s sole focus is social media, do it. Let them eat, sleep, and breathe social media. If you’re not the Gary Vaynerchuk in your business and your focus is more on building products and marketing in other channels outside of social, it seems to me that if you want some ModCloth success, you want to be able to sick someone onto your social stuff so that nothing is missed and multiple strategies across multiple platforms are deployed.
Thank you Aaron for sharing this. It was definitely a wake up call for me!
Elena says
I love that they knew that literally all of their customers were on social media so that’s where they went and they went there to be our friend, not to just sell us stuff. They actually did FaceBook ads really well too, very good choice of visual and teaser text. To date theirs are the only FB ads in my feed I have ever clicked on.
Amber says
ModCloth has been revolutionizing brand social media since their inception. I remember when they implemented that Hide n Seek game on Twitter! It was awesome; they are awesome.
Brittany at Sprout Social says
Excellent example of a business tailoring their communications efforts to each platform! ModCloth really knows its customer-base and clearly has a good handle on how to engage them. Thanks for sharing, Aaron!