MOCIAL is a term often confused. It's pronounced moe-sh-al and means Mobile, Social, Local and also is the name of the last conference I attended and spoke at in San Francisco. The conference was based around technology and social media in retail real estate. It's really the only conference of its kind and happens in a new city every August. This conference started in 2012 and has attracted speakers including: Google, Facebook, Whole Foods, Chico's, Walmart, eBay, Marketing Profs, SparkAerial, Floored, RetailMeNot, LevelUp, Erik Qualman, Jay Baer, Ann Handley, Simon, JLL, CBL, Macerich, Kimco, North American Properties, Cushman & Wakefield and apparently, Linear Retail along with many other notables. There were some great take-aways that I'd like to share with you below.
Market to behavior, not age
The first session I attended was with Liz Bacelar, founder and president of Decoded Fashion out of NYC. The number one take-away from this session was, "Market to behavior, not age." In this session, Liz talked about how tech killed and then saved the mall. "Your time is now," she said. Online retailers reached a point where we (retail real estate) all hit panic mode but now, online retailers have figured out that they need a more Omni-channel approach in order to stay competitive, including a brick & mortar presence. "Ecommerce metrics are not enough to measure success," Liz noted. A few brands she mentioned that were ecommerce-based and have expanded are; Birchbox, Rent the Runway - which is now the largest dry cleaning business in the USA, Warby Parker, ModCloth, Bonobos - "...previously at the center of mobile commerce, now at the cusp of tech and retail integration," and a Japanese favorite of hers, Isetan. She even mentioned the delivery service, Deliv and how they have become a USPS and FedEx competitor.
Update your website with content from others
The Urban Legend of Social Media Marketing with Jenna Langer of Livefyre touched on how the social landscape is constantly shifting. One example is how Facebook convinced brands to create large communities and told them they would have access to it and then made brands pay to market to the community they built. Jenna preached that right now your website is three times more likely to be viewed first over your Facebook page. I think this is true in general (and especially B2B) but may not be the same for restaurants and small boutique shops - some of which don't even have websites. But you should still be focused on your website and social media, and in order to keep people coming back you must produce more rapid content. This can be particularly challenging because you want to create content quickly but must keep the quality of the content high. Some ways to update your site is to use content from others. Jenna gave an example of a record studio using content from artists on their website. In our case, owners and developers can utilize content already created from their tenants/retailers.
Think #HipsterSanta and @Miserable_Men
The MOCIAL keynote presenter, Ann Handley, chief content officer for MarketingProfs, gave a presentation about good content vs. good enough content. She gave two comical examples of companies really thinking creatively and outside the box. One company promoted meeting Santa around the holidays at their shopping center, Central (nothing new), BUT introduced a whole campaign around #HipsterSanta with tagline, Chill with me at Central or Don't, whatever. This was so different than the norm; the shopping center received huge press. Another example is of a company creating a @miserable_men Instagram account where the "global epidemic" of the male shopper is documented. It's hilarious and has grown to 190k followers. I think the themes here are, "personalize experiences" and "don't be boring."
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Diana Podaski is VP - marketing and social media at Linear Retail Properties, Burlington, Mass.