Mall of America has set up several social media campaigns to boost in store traffic:
- Access for Twitter followers to special parking places on the busiest shopping day of the year: “OnDecember 18, tomorrow, the Mall of America will close its north surface parking lot, just steps away from the north entrance to the mall, reserving 96 spaces for its Twitter followers. To snag one of the coveted spots, Twitter followers needed to register on Eventbrite.”
- Special promotions for Foursquare and Facebook Places users: “the Mall of America will offer a $25 gift card to the first five people who check in on Foursquare each day from December 20 through December 23. And on Facebook Places, the Mall of America Youth Foundation will donate $1 for each check-in through December 24, up to $500 each to VEAP, or Volunteers Enlisted to Assist People, and One Heartland, which operates camps for children impacted by HIV/AIDS.”
The mall business is wondering right now how they may become more attractive to counter attack the Internet offensive. I actually attended last year a conference in France with most of the main mall business people on how to use new technologies to lead traffic in store. It was quite interesting; even though I saw that these people were far from understanding the new customer trends (those people are more real estate managers than marketing/customer relationship management experts).
I hope it will give some ideas to some mall managers in France, to incorporate technologies and/or social media to boost foot traffic in malls.
What do you think about it?
