Retailers such as JC Penney and Victoria’s Secret are turning to social media interaction to boost back to school sales.  According to an article by Information Week:

Social networking sites, virtual worlds, social shopping sites, visual search engines, interactive video, and widgets have emerged as key marketing platforms for the 2008 back-to-school shopping season.”

It should come as no surprise that reaching out to consumers via cost effective social media channels can be a great way to increase not only sales, but overall brand awareness and visibility.  JC Penney has actually created an online game called “DorkDodge” whose premise is to avoid undesirable dates while trying to find “dreamy” dates.  During the game interaction JC Penney shows girls how to achieve a certain desirable look with various JC Penney outfits and clothing options.

Sears launched a similar campaign with actress Vanessa Hudgens from “High School Musical.”  Vanessa dresses up in various character outfits to show that Sears has a large collection of clothes that are perfect for virtually every girl.

There is still some speculation as to whether or not using social media will actually increase these back to school sales or increase overall brand awareness.  Either way we are looking at a positive result.  I think social media is actually one of the best ways to increase brand awareness AND sales.

how would you use social media to increase sales? have you seen any examples/case studies of companies actually increasing sales with social media?

Comments