Before I (Mark) listened to today’s podcast, I asked Jordyn if she already listened to it. She gave me a look like this. That’s probably the same look a lot of you just gave your computer as you read this headline. A podcast about a yarn company? ::Yawrn:: (10 points for that one.)
But, stick with us. This podcast is packed full of info from a 140-year-old company. To stay relevant for 140 years, you gotta be doing something right. And they definitely are.
Lion Brand Yarn Company has been on the forefront of a number of trends. They started doing ecomm in 1998(!), started a blog in 2007, were early adopters of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, the list goes on and on.
One of the coolest things they’re doing is turning their customers into influencers. Lion’s VP of Marketing, Ilana Rabinowitz, is going to unravel that journey today.
The fun starts at 8:40…
- (10:38) Lion Brand uses a tight-knit group of influencers for product development.
- (11:25) Their influencers produce products for them and Lion resells them on their website.
- (11:44) Lion took notes from influencers in their space on how they should present themselves. They then transitioned their own style to more closely match influencers.
- (14:20) Feedback from influencers has also affected Lion’s content strategy. They let employees write social media posts, blogs, etc. in their own voices. There’s no “corporatizing” of the copy.
- (19:30) Lion doesn’t micromanage their influencers. They give them a ton of freedom to do what they want.
- (24:35) One thing they do on Instagram that is really popular is featuring customer content that isn’t fully finished, like a half-knitted sweater. The point is to highlight that not everyone is a pro. It’s about showing the journey.
- (26:57) Give an opportunity for your customers to engage with you. They want to communicate with you, they want to feel like they’re part of the brand.
