Social Media: A Shoe Story

SCARPA, a boutique shoe store, well-known by women in Charlottesville, Va. and beyond, understands the value of social media.

Case in point: it was New Year’s Eve when SCARPA tweeted about a silver, sparkly pair of shoes perfect for fancy evenings out.  The shoes, pictured at left, were tweeted first by the store and re-tweeted, shared, and shared again by friends on Twitter throughout the area.

The Twitter community is strong in Charlottesville, so it was only a matter of time before a group of a dozen women or so decided to do a lunchtime shoe-shopping tweet-up at SCARPA. Via Twitter, the women, all influential local business women and active users of social media let the store know they would descend en masse the following Tuesday afternoon.

Amy Gardner, founder, proprietor and online representative of the shoe store prepared for the Tweet-up providing finger foods, Prosecco and generous goody bags for the mid-day party. (Thank you Amy!)

The resulting benefits of the in-person engagement with shoe shoppers continue far beyond the event itself. First, the store was able to introduce itself to people who had previously not shopped there. Amy’s relationship with her customers is a big reason her loyal following returns again and again; meeting a new crop of potential shoppers and solidifying that relationship with a positive experience is a gift that keeps on giving. For many of the tweet-up participants, it was their first time to shop and buy at the store.

The gathering (disclosure: I created the Twitvite to invite my Twitter followers to the event) resulted in further coverage with the weekly CBS-19 feature C’ville Plugged In sharing the story of the tweet-up, a post by fashion blogger Dana Hollar and, I suppose, this blog post as well. Add that to the tweets, twitpics, Facebook updates and of course, the women wearing their new shoes around town and telling the story of tweet-up shoe shopping fun with their friends and you have a customer loyalty and satisfaction story that has legs!

Follow www.twitter.com/thinkscarpa for shoe news and sale updates.

If you have a local business, consider the power of the social media community in your region; do you know how to reach and mobilize them?