246 - Exercise 1 - Desigual's Social Media Efforts

For this assignment in LIBR 246, I was asked to look at the social media used to discuss and build the brand of a for-profit company.  I chose Spanish clothing company, Desigual.  

1. What are people saying about this organization online?

According to the collection of comments aggregated by SocialMention.com, comments about Desigual, an “atypical” and trendy Spanish clothing company, are largely factual and neutral--609 neutral comments, 59 positive, 2 negative.  In fact, most comments gathered were Tweets about the company’s product offerings, store openings, and special events.  

What tools are they using to talk about the organization?
HowSociable.com listed various sites involved in the Desigual discussion: Twitter, Facebook, Technorati, LinkedIn, LiveJournal, MySpace, Ning, YouTube, DailyMotion, Vimeo, Flickr, Ustream.  

2. Is the organization responding to these people through social media?
If so, how effective do you think they are?

With so few negative comments in the midst of the discussion, there is little for Desigual to feel they must address or counteract.  There are no absolutes in fashion, and it is hip to be edgy and to generate controversy.  The company tweets regularly, and has a blog with posts made multiple times a week about events, articles, and products.  Consumers of fashion like to be aware of the “latest fashions,” and Desigual.com’s RSS feed, in addition to Facebook posts and Twitter posts, will push the latest news into the customer’s info-sphere.

3. What social media tools is the organization using to proactively communicate with their user base (rather than just responding)?  How effective do you think they are in building relationships & engaging their customers online?

Desigual’s blog page (http://blog.desigual.com) features links to their Facebook page, Twitter account, Youtube videos, and Flickr pictures, as well as the aforementioned RSS feed.  Their site is colorful, well-designed, and obviously up-to-date, a reflection of their brand and their customers.  Blog posts have 0-4 comments from fans, and icons for social media make it easy for users to share website info with their networks.  According to the Facebook sidebar, Desigual has 342,182 fans, and if you like the brand, you can become a fan now, too, with the click of a button--and subsequently receive updates from the company via Facebook!  As a user and customer of the company, I like their visual website which features their products, the easy link to their blog, the design of their pages, the few links to the social media I use most, and the ability to add them to Google Reader.