EyeBuyDirect.com Boosts Webtraffic With UGC
How to use UGC and social networks to boost website traffic? Just look at the smart social media strategy of online eyeglass retailer EyeBuyDirect.
Traffic at EyeBuyDirect.com has increased between 10% and 15% since the online discount eyeglass retailer added a social networking hub to its website about five months ago. The new feature is now the main engine driving traffic to the site, ranking above search and other marketing efforts, says EyeBuyDirect CEO Ron Hessel.
About 20,000 consumers have added pictures of themselves sporting nearly 500 different styles of eyewear to EyeBuyDirect.com’s Wall of Frame social network. Here, friends, family and strangers can offer feedback on photos.“We’re finding that people love monumenting their activity on the site or their purchase with a photo that others can see,” Hessel says.
EyeBuyDirect.com, launched in March 2006, allows visitors to upload photos of themselves and virtually “try on” different frames before making a purchase. Hessel says the social network was added after visitors asked for a way to share photos.
“Customers started calling and asking if we could provide links to their uploaded pictures,” Hessel says. “People started saying: I want my friends to see how I look before I buy”.
Hessel says a team of about five employees manages the “Wall of Fame,” monitoring for inappropriate comments and posts, but also conjuring up creative ways to increase traffic and encourage use.
I feel it’s a great disruptive thinking and a strong case of a brand really listening to it’s customers! And facilitating it’s customers to spread the word (read merchandise!). In my opinion, this is a great lesson for many marketers on how to use social media and UGC.
Maybe it’s also a lesson to marketers that whispering and listening can be great marketing too?! Maybe facilitating is sometimes even better than launching another expensive, bragging and overpromising ad campaign? I believe mass interaction is at least as powerful as mass media campaigns!
Let us know how you feel about the EyeBuyDirect approach?
Sources: Molblog and InternetRetailer.
Share your opinion and leave your comment below. Subscribe to our rss feed, connect to Twitter, get and spread our Viral Friday widget or sign up for our monthly e-mail newsletter.
Related Posts
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
