What Makes Urban Outfitters Ultimate
It’s a bird! No, it’s a plane! No…it’s Urban Outfitters’ Instagram pics and Vine videos all over the place!
Well, okay. You get the point. Urban Outfitters is an American publicly traded company with multiple retail stores and brands under its umbrella.
UO is a prime example of user-generated content and engagement with its consumers.
Currently, UO is using:
Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, Vine, Tumblr, YouTube, Spotify, & a blog.
Gosh. You might be thinking to yourself, how on Earth is a retail brand using so many social media outlets?
Let me answer your question- they are using all of them, and are using them well.
Adorned with crazy visuals and fun colors, the website alone has just enough personality to stand for the entire brand. Updated daily, the UO website is constantly changing and new fun/interactive graphics are providing a new experience for consumers when they enter. Connected to their blog, the site provides click-through tabs to all of their social media platforms.
The UO blog (featured below) is similarly styled, with fun colors and typography covering the site. The blog includes interactive features like contests, projects that UO is currently working on, a link to shop, stories about employees at UO, and music that is currently on their mind. Provided as the centerpiece, a stream from their YouTube channel is the main feature of the blog and below are clickable links to the rest of their social media.
UO does a great job at staying current with their consumers.
Jumping on the Vine and Instagram bandwagon, UO has created a massive following. Currently, UO has 764k followers with 1115 photos. The average “likes” on a photograph typically goes over 1000 and comments range from 30 to 100+.
The photo below portrays that same fun attitude that UO has throughout all of their social media platforms. It’s not just about posting a photo, it’s about telling a story and engaging your consumers and possible spectators. Increasing audience with visual storytelling is a great way to create content that is relevant with the brand and also helps the brand grow.
In addition to Instagram, UO has a great presence on Vine. Currently, UO has 28, 617 followers on Vine with an average of 100+ likes. Vine videos are short and sweet, so it takes a strategy to get the right messages across. Vine videos for UO include cute puppies at the office, new chuck shoes playing duck-duck-goose, and new merchandise being worn/used. Vine videos provide a great opportunity to give the consumer a glimpse into a world that they otherwise would not have a chance to see.
UO also uses visual storytelling to connect with their consumers in-store. Photo contests with people who are currently walking around the store is just one example of a fun and interactive look into their user experience.
UO also utilizes a tool that many retail brands do not. Spotify! What is Spotify? It allows users to seemingly listen to any music they want, for free. Not into having commercials? Sign up for a small fee each month AND have unlimited access on your smartphone. Spotify allows users to connect through their Facebook and/or Twitter accounts. UO has decided to utilize this tool by creating “UO Playlists” and fun mash-ups of their favorite jams. Since UO also sells products like record players, records, headphones, cameras, etc., it allows them to expand their reach on other platforms like Spotify. These playlists are frequently subscribed to and once again show another fun side to what the UO brand is all about.
Another social media platform that gets a lot of attention from UO is Pinterest. Just take a look for yourself,
Once again, UO has collected fun photographs, relative content, and interactive features on their Pinterest. Most boards have up to over 200 pins and have a thorough insight on what that board is all about. Pinterest is a great tool that allows for users to decide what makes them a UO fan and organize what they like on their own boards.
Urban Outfitters is a great brand with a loyal following. They utilize social media in the right way by staying relevant, having great content, interacting with consumers, keeping current, and having fun in the process. Need help on your social strategy? Heed my advice and take some tips from Urban Outfitters.
I think this is a really solid example of all-inclusive integration, Rosalee. With a clothing brand like Urban Outfitters, relevance is key. They have to constantly be pushing out the trendiest, newest information in order to stay in the viewing range of their customers. It’s great that they are utilizing visual-based, sharing-centered platforms like Pinterest that let users stumble upon, save, and revisit their favorite items. Nice job!