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Client: Charlotte Russe

SOCIAL SITUATION ANALYSIS

Charlotte Russe is an American owned company. It works in the field of fashion for teens and young women in there twenties. Charlotte Russe, not only sells their own brands, but they also collaborate with other brands such as Refuge Jeans. The company first began in the year, 1975 in Carlsbad, California. Ever since the beginning, the company expanded to over 500 stores across the United States and Puerto Rico, selling their clothes to a specific target audience, who prove to be fun, light-hearted, brave and unique.

The goal of Charlotte Russe has always been to make money and inspire young ladies to be the best they could be. They achieve this goal by creating affordable fashion trends for every occasion and creating fun and unique media campaigns. Along with their nationwide stores, they have an online site and many social media outlets that help them to stay involved in their audiences lives. From Nasdaq.com, we see Charlotte Russe’s revenue of $498,310,599 and their net income of $1,356,344. This is important to the company because we are able to see the measurement of our moneymaking goal. The goal now is to increase our income by 30%, and sell out of inventory for the upcoming holiday events.

The upcoming events on the calendar include Fathers Day and the Fourth of July. Since, these events occur in the beginning and the middle of the summer and students are out of school, it would be wise to take advantage of the online site, and special offers in stores. This is also the time of the year when malls are the most filled with our target audience, so the big weekend to focus on is the Fourth of July. Many competitors in the past promoted themselves by adding a deal in the mix of sales. Some have given flag scarfs or cloth bracelets to celebrate Independence Day. This year, Charlotte Russe should take into account for the weather, the need for barbeques, and propose a deal to customers, for example, for every $50 spent, the customer will receive a Charlotte Russe flag water bottle and a flag to wave for the celebration, and for customers over the age of eight-teen a pack of sparklers. This will attract not only the target audience, but also those who love to celebrate their country.

Now that we have our goal and times settled, we have to think about numbers. In fashion, the lead-time, inventory and expansion is key to everything moving successfully. Charlotte Russe should try to make it seem more like a party experience, apposed to a shopping experience, to allow the movement in the store seem, less irritable. Also, the website should allow the customer to have a limited time for free shipping for each customer, which will make the online checkout experience to move faster. Inventory, on the other hand, is part of our goal. We want all of it gone, so that the new set of inventory has a place to go. A way of pushing this, is by continually

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moving it out and having weekly sales. For expansion, we want to draw an invisible map for all employees to direct the customer in a pattern that brings them into the store, into the trending sections, into the dressing room and finally, to the register. This should create a fast flowing system that will benefit our goal. It will also help in terms of units per transaction and sales per hour because the customer is being lead straight to the register in a fast and friendly environment.

In conclusion, there are many ways to create good social media content. First we have to focus on promoting the Fourth of July, America, summer days, family and barbeques, online events and in-store munchies. Promoting these themes will help to connect back to our goal and make Charlotte Russe a more enjoyable shopping experience.

SOCIAL MEDIA AUDIT

Social Media Traffic on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, for Charlotte Russe, Wet Seal, Rue 21 and Forever 21.

Social Media Traffic Charlotte Russe

Wet Seal Rue 21 Forever21

FacebookLikes 1,864,450 2,167,238 1,453,868 13,053,115Shares Between 1-

20Between 1-10

Between 1-30

Between 1-20

New Page Likes This Week

3,081 2,295 2,187 17,971

Check In 25,792 19,925 78,767 105,854People Talking 5,423 2,360 2,749 58,250

TwitterFollowers 88.4K 56.7K 33.8K 2.23MFollowing 10.6K 28.5K 4,369 592Retweets Between 1-

10Between 1-15

Between 1-10

Between 1-400

Likes 7,898 1,692 2,515 4,090

PinterestFollowers 64,100 18,800 35,400 324,900Likes 3,400 67 21 3Pins 104,700 1,100 4,600 13,000

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Evaluation Quality of Content: Facebook

o Engagement All four companies are big on engagement. Forever 21 is the most

engaged with its consumers and as of right now has 58,250 people talking about their products on Facebook. Charlotte Russe falls second in terms of consumers talking about the product. Charlotte Russe could really look to Forever 21 for insights on how to better engage with their audience.

o Customer Satisfaction On Facebook, it was disappointing to see that there were not many

comments under photos for Charlotte Russe, like there were the others. When there were comments, they were either a complaint or a customer asking for a link to the product. In both cases Charlotte Russe ignored many of these comments, this is something they really need to work on.

Twittero Exposure

Charlotte Russe posts three times a day, while Wet Seal posts 2-3 times a day and also retweets others. This compares to Rue 21, who posts 3-4 times a day and Forever 21, who posts 5-6 times a day. It seems Charlotte Russe should up their posts to 4-5 times a day.

o Engagement The engagement levels for Charlotte Russe, Wet Seal and Rue 21

are very minimal. This compares to the highly engaged Forever 21 who receives 1-400 retweets per post. On Twitter you can see that Forever 21 has a different quote about each day of the week and they really connect with their audience. This is something Charlotte Russe should think about.

Pinteresto Exposure

Each brand gets more exposure on Pinterest then any other social site. Charlotte Russe has up to 40 or more pins on each post in each board, compared to Forever 21, who has up to 100 or more pins on each post in each board. Adding more creative outfits to the boards or even inviting customers to join in creating their own outfits, will not only get Charlotte Russe more exposure, but they will have better engagement.

o Spending Habits On Pinterest, each brand contains a link of their website on each

post. This allows for a spending path that might lead to a sale.

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3 Top Findings:

1. More people check-in on Facebook at Rue 21 with a number of 78,767, compared to Charlotte Russe’s customers whom, only 25,792 people check-in. Charlotte Russe could learn from Rue 21 on how to get more customers to tell their friends where they are.

2. Brands who post more on Twitter, like Forever 21, tend to have a higher follower and retweet count. Charlotte Russe could learn from this.

3. It was interesting to see that Forever 21 on Pinterest, although having the highest number of followers (324,900), they had the lowest number of page likes (3). This compares with Charlotte Russe who has 64,100 followers and a total of 3,400 page likes. This is something Forever 21 could learn from us.

Web-Traffic Measurements from Alexa.com:

Web Traffic Charlotte Russe

Wet Seal Rue 21 Forever 21

Global Rank 9,080 32,072 19,277 1,205Rank in US 2,037 6,348 3,991 395Time On Site 6:53 6:58 8:15 10:21Bounce Rate 22% 21.60% 17.50% 19.40%Daily page views 9.12 6.72 9.28 11.07Strength 43% 43% 82% 45%Sentiment 3:1 12:1 5:1 3:1Passion 19% 20% 20% 61%Reach 41% 51% 71% 18%

3 Top Findings:1. Forever 21 has the highest Passion percentage. This means that customers who

shop at Forever 21 love their clothes and are happy with the outcome.2. Wet Seal has the highest ratio for Sentiment, meaning they have the highest

positive mention rate on social media. This is something Charlotte Russe should check out.

3. Rue 21 has the highest percentage for Strength. This means the brand is put into discussion more then the others. Charlotte Russe should follow them as a guide.

Impact and Output Objectives:

Output Objectiveso Increase the daily time visited by 15% by September 30th.o Increase social media posts to 5-6 per day by July 1st.o Increase number of likes on social media 15% by July 30th.

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Impact Objectiveso We want 30% of people who pass through the online site to buy at least

one item by August 30th.o We want 40% of our followers on Twitter and Facebook to share and

retweet our newest trends by the end of July.o We want 25% of people who walk into our store to check-in with a mobile

app by January 1st.

Top 10 Influencers for Charlotte Russe: from Astute SRM:

1. BuyDotExpress – 1 mention – weight 9662862. Iamiphillips – 1 mention – weight 627923. JamaicanHoney – 4 mentions – weight 600724. Esquireattire – 11 mentions – weight 399195. Nicolemilfie – 1 mention – weight 288946. Bendragonborn – 1 mention – weight 283217. ZJemptv – 2 mentions – weight 202828. Shoechic30 – 14 mentions – weight 195869. EcstasyModels – 1 mention – weight 1717910.Dimplesandcurly – 1 mention – weight 16090

BRAND VOICE

Archetype: The Regular Girl

The perfect archetype for Charlotte Russe is the Regular Girl. This archetype represents the girl next door and someone who is down to earth. This person bonds with others, is hard working and friendly. On the about page of Charlotte Russe’s web page, they push this further.

“Our Charlotte Girl is passionate about fashion, shopping, and looking fabulous for every occasion and mood in her life whether it's pretty/flirtylooks during the day or looking sexy/glam for her nights and special occasions. Our Charlotte Girl is daring, shy, adventurous, happy, hopeful, smart, independent, a best friend, a sister, a daughter, amazing, inspirational...she's everyone and every mood – we believe that every girl has a little Charlotte in her and that everyone is a Charlotte Girl.” (Charlotterusse.com)

This imaginative character is brought to life throughout the online website, in the carefully picked models. Charlotte Russe also represents the “Charlotte Girl” in online posts in social media and even attracts young women with these qualities to their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Many of these posts are young women walking on the beach, sharing popsicles or hiking beautiful scenery. They are fashionable, comfortable and happy.Relationship Management Goal:

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Remembering our goal, it is wise to stay on target with our customers. We have already learned that Charlotte Russe has a low respond rate to social media comments, a 19% Passion rate, and a low user engagement level. Fixing these issues would mean better relationships with customers. It is ideal for Charlotte Russe to respond to social media comments, because even though they are low in number, many of them were complaints about the clothing or customer service. Listening and responding to these customers in a timely manner would, reinvent Charlotte Russe’s customer service and increase the Passion percentage. There are many people in the world who love Charlotte Russe for example, 1,864,450 people on Facebook alone that we know of. They just don’t talk about how much they love Charlotte Russe enough online. Charlotte Russe has to get them talking and get them passionate. One way the store could do this is by creating a give-away or other form of contest on social media. Another way, is by holding or contributing to a big event that promotes the Charlotte Russe business. This type of thinking will help with the Passion percentage and engagement levels on social media.

Content Buckets:1. Good Vibes all through the Night

a. A shared purpose could be multiple posts on Twitter sharing quotes about good vibes. For example, a different mood for everyday in a quote form and a shirt that has that quote.

b. An engagement platform could be a contribution and asking customer’s take photos of their weekly vibes and share it using a hashtag that connects back to Charlotte Russe.

c. A collaborative partner could be Starbucks, who also promotes the good vibe trend.

d. Facebook Post: i. Good Vibes all through the Night! Find your favorite Vibe T-Shirt in-

store and receive a 15% off coupon for your preferred Starbucks Coffee.

2. Summer Heat, Let’s Feel the Breeze

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a. A shared purpose could be that we all feel the heat of the summer and we all want to cool off, so why not do it in a bathing suit from Charlotte Russe.

b. An engagement platform could be a contribution asking customers to share their summer pictures on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest using a hashtag that connects back to Charlotte Russe.

c. A collaborative partner could be Ruggle’s Ice Cream. Promoting bathing suits with ice cream equals the perfect summer.

d. Facebook Post: i. Summer Heat, Let’s Feel the Breeze! Look great in one of our most

fashionable bathing suit styles and cool off with the best Ruggle’s ice cream of the summer.

3. Treat Yourself with Stylea. A shared purpose could be a post that talks about how to match the right

colors and patterns. Something that helps young women to create their own kind of style.

b. An engagement platform could be a Pinterest board that young women could post their styles to and they can contain a hashtag that links back to Charlotte Russe.

c. A collaborative partner could be different fashion bloggers, who can help with the shared purpose. This could bring the “Charlotte Girls” together.

d. Facebook Post: i. Treat yourself with Style! Tag a fashion blogger and learn how to

create your own style with the new Charlotte Russe fashion match.

Pay Per Click Ads:

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1. Shoes that are Just Right for YouTuesday Shoesday at Charlotte RusseAll shoes--$20 when you use the App

2. The Best Party Dress in Town Attend Charlotte Russe’s Dress FestBuy One Dress and Get Another Free

3. Summer Shorts and Rompers on SaleRefuge Jeans only at Charlotte Russe10% off when you refer a friend

4. Tank Tops, Shirts and BlousesHappy Hour Now at Charlotte Russe15% off with your Student ID

5. Free Shipping Online Today OnlyTry the New Charlotte Russe App10% of when you register your email

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