Social Media Monitoring Report
TOMS Shoes
Blake Mycoskie was on vacation in Argentina from is busy and successful
professional life when he had an eye-opening experience. Looking around the
country and meeting many of its natives, Mycoskie realized that almost all of the
children walking around were barefoot almost all of the time. Interested about the
issue, Mycoskie began to look farther into the situation. He learned that the lack
of shoes is not only physically dangerous for these children, in many cases it also
prevents them from being able to attend school due to dress codes. Blake quickly
developed a passion for helping these kids and developed the idea of “TOMS
Shoes.” For every pair of TOMS Shoes sold, Blake and the company would
donate another pair to a child in need. This led to their slogan, “One for One.” To
date, more than a million pairs of shoes have been given away through this
incredible company.
The word about TOMS Shoes spread quickly. Men and women of all ages were
soon walking around in these basic (but cute) canvas shoes. When TOMS first
began, everyone was talking about this emerging company supporting this
amazing cause. However, it does not seem to be the topic of conversation nearly
as much anymore. In order to see if TOMS has lost popularity or if it has simply
become more quietly loved, I have decided to follow this brand for my Social
Media Monitoring Report.
In order to analyze TOMS shoes’ social media popularity, I am monitoring
numerous social media sites. I personally follow both TOMS Shoes and Blake
Mycoskie on Twitter, so I first began my research by looking at how often either
name was mentioned in other people’s tweets. I am also looking at TOMS
popularity within blog posts. For this method I will be using Technorati. I am also
going to look into Google Alerts, which will allow me to check both blog posts and
updated news regarding the company. One of the best resources that I have
found is Socialmention.com. This site shows recent updates and statistics from
every social media I could ever think of. Besides Twitter, I found all of these sites
on Professor Nixon’s blog. My source alone is where most of the credibility for
these sites comes from. Also, the up-to-date data and the popularity of these
sites makes them extremely credible as well.
I began researching hashtags and mentions of the company in Twitter updates.
TOMS Shoes is not an unknown name on Twitter. Each day there are more than
100 tweets referencing to TOMS, whether it is about wanting to buy a pair or
loving a pair recently purchased. A few comments are negative, but as a whole
Twitter users are still loving the TOMS Shoes movement.
“Blake Mycoskie” does not have quite the fame on Twitter that his brand name
has, but he also receives numerous tags and tweets daily. Most tweets regarding
Mycoskie encourage his cause and applaud his efforts to incorporate giving
within business.
While TOMS Shoes and Mycoskie are still very popular on Twitter, the same
cannot be said for blog posts. When I searched “TOMS Shoes” on Technorati,
only 5 matches were found out of the 1196553 blogs that the site connects to.
Blake Mycoskie only had one match on the same site. While I do not believe that
a company has to have multiple blogs writing about it multiple times a day in
order to be successful, this is definitely an area in social media that TOMS is
lacking.
Most of the information I found on Google Alerts had to do with store locations,
styles that were in or out of stock, coupons and sales, and other retail related
topics. While these updates are not very personal towards the brand, the fact that
there are new links popping up daily directing people to the brand is always good
news.
One of the most helpful and informative sites that I used for my research was
Social Mention. This site allows me to search “TOMS Shoes” or “Blake Mycoskie”
and will then give me a list of the most recent updates from almost every social
media a person could think of. This site shows that the most popularity TOMS
receives is from Twitter posts. TOMS is also extremely popular on Digg,
PhotoBucket, and Identica. Unlike Technorati, Social Mention brings up multiple
different blog posts regarding TOMS Shoes and/or Blake Mycoskie. It also shows
the most popular key words for the search. For TOMS, the top three most
popular keywords are “boots,” “shoes,” and “timberland.” Another interesting
characteristic that this site provides is the most popular hashtags that have to do
with the search. The top three hashtags for TOMS are “toms,” “sale,” and “xa0.”
This site also shows that almost all of the posts about TOMS are either neautral
or positive. This site also shows that TOMS has a 36% reach or range of
influence throughout the internet, and a 31% for passion or continued references.
In conclusion, TOMS Shoes was definitely a hit when it first began, but it has not
lost its thunder quite yet. People are still talking about TOMS and they still love
both the product and the cause. While there is definite a level of customer loyalty
regarding this brand, TOMS could definitely work on developing more of a
relationship with its customers. I believe that this will raise the “passion” for the
company very quickly.
Source
Source Credibility
Date/Time
Comments
Social Mention
March 15, 2011
12:45 pm
“The students really
wanted to create a
unique and exciting
event to raise
awareness and
support of TOMS
and their mission,”
YouTube
March 17, 2011
4:00 pm
TOMS Founder and
Chief Shoe Giver
Blake Mycoskie
makes an exciting
announcement at
his keynote
presentation March
15, 2011...
DailyMotion
March 19, 2011
11:00 am
Acttress Kristen
Bell joins TOMS
Shoes for One Day
Without Shoes on
April 8th!
Digg
March 19, 2011
12:00 pm
Tom’s Shoes
MessageIncorporate Giving
Into Your Business
March 19, 2011
TOMS Sunset
Flickr
17.5 M monthly US
people
3:00 pm
Google Alert
March 24, 2011
5:00 pm
Stores supporting TOMS
“Day Without Shoes”
movement through
coupons and discounts on
shoes…
Technorati
March 24, 2011
5:30 pm
TOMS Shoes fan
page blogs and
posts about “One
Day Without Shoes”
event..
March 24, 2011
6:13 pm
Toms make Shoes,
and with every pair
purchased , they
give a NEW pair to
a child in need.One
for One.
Google_blog
March 24, 2011
7:30 PM
This girl discusses how
TOMS are actually
cute…of course they’re
cute! They’re TOMS!
Blogspot
March 24, 2011
10:00 pm
Amazing to see people
still excited about the
cause of this company!
Twitter
88.2 M US people
monthly
Bing!
March 18, 2011
Shops and stores offering
more deals for
participating in “A Day
Without Shoes”
OhComments.com
Feb 24, 2011
Asking about shipping
time and prices
Facebook
March 24, 2011
11:00
Such a cute video
promoting TOMS and
their cause!
Cheap shoes blog
March 24, 2011
9:00 pm
Inexpensive
summertime
fashion = TOMS!
blogspot
March 23, 2011
12:30 pm
Popular shoes that are
comfortable! That’s right
TOMS!
Google
February 21, 2011
10:13 AM
Coupon codes and deals for
TOMS shoes