The midterm monitoring report #1: Target

Why: the reason of why do i choose Target to be the monitoring client is because Target is the second-largest discount retailer in the U.S., just behind super Walmart. People have studied and talked about the NO.1 Walmart lots of times with data and market analysis and their influence. i want to find out how is going on the NO. 2, does it have the change to exceed the Walmart, it it is keeping growing? I'd like to go shopping in Target, and I have the interests to learn more about Target, especially in social media world. What are their social media strategies? Do they work well to expand Target influence? I will find out..

Targetcorporation:

Target is an American retailing company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It's the second largest discount retailer in United States . The company is ranked at number 33 on the fortune 500 of 2010.

Founder: George Dayton             

1902: Dayton Dry Goods               

1969: Dayton Hudson

2000: Target

Revenue          US$ 67.390 billion(FY 2010)

Operating income   US$ 4.495 billion (FY 2010)

Employees        355,000 (FY 2010)

Market expansion:

-By the end of 2000, Target expanded to 977 stores in 46 states.

-In 2000, it separated its e-commerce operation from its retailing division,     called-target.direct

-In 2006, it expanded to 1488 units and sales reached $5914 billion.

-On March 4, 2009, Target expanded outside of U.S. continent. 2 stores in Hawaii and 2 stores in Alaska.

-On Jan 13, 2011. Target announced its expansion into Canada. It will open 100-150 stores in Canada by 2013.

Market Strategy:

Target corporation has many different forms of store. Like target, a chain of discount store carrying clothing, shoes, jewelry, healthy, beauty, electrotonic products..etc. Target Great-land, a chaine of general merchandise superstores, carry a large  selection of general merchandise. Super Target, a chain of hypermarket, and feature double entrance on one-story stores. And also City Target and Urban store

Social media monitoring

On Target's official web site, there are some social media links like Target twitter, Target face book, and Target Youtobe channel. These are the tools for target to connect consumers. And also through some website like Addicttomatic.com, IceRocket.com, Social Mention .com.and Gooogle Insight.com .I can monitoring Target social net work's growing.

This data I found in social mention.com on March 20, it shows when people talk about Target, most of them are without positive or negative trend. As I found in other web site, people who are talking about Target are most about the coupons, discount, and gift card. Maybe there are number of people talked about Target's revenue or strategies, they are in the neutral attitude. Compare with the date I collect on March 14( positive 156, neutral 448, negative 25), there are no big differences. There are more positive talks because on that day, Target provide lots of discounted new products.

This chart shows the key words people use when they talk about Target, compare with the ones in March 14( founded 55, symbion 5, phones 4, free 4, goal 4,.. Etc) we can analyze the data are more active on March 20. Comparing people talk about some brand products, people on March 20 talk more about the economic data.

Positive and Negative

Which part of Target people like, and which part people are complaning, through some key words, the managers could overall have the expression.

Negative                                                                                                              Positive

 

There are also provide these talks are mainly from which tools, this is one of the most important one,Target managers will see which social media work well to rise people's attention or participation. Compare the data in Mar 14, the twitter, blog, flicker, youtobe are the stable channels.

On Addictomatic.com and IceRocket.com, the top topic are about new products ads, target feature video, target commercial, gift cards, and target market plan or financial news.

Google Insights provides some chart about comparing Target with their competitors' social media activity.

We can through this chart see which topic people are most concern about Target.

Target on Twitter:    299,929 followers by 3/19

                                 299,117 followers  by 3/14

                                 5851   tweets

Target Twitter interact with the flowers, the followers feedback, complain,advice, and share intersting ads with Target.

Target on Face book:  10,015,088 likes 3/19

                                      9,962,475 likes 3/14

Target update new post almost everyday, mainly about their new coming products, coupons, or some links to know more about the products.

Target Youtobe: Target owns its own Youtobe Channel

Subscribers 7507

Video views 23,545,395

Upload video 419

Target featured video 63

Current TV spots  98

Web Exclusives  24

Favorite video   9

Holiday ads     61

Video has its vision tension to attract people's attention to see Target, there are also some famous people take part in some activities in Target. People like to watch them, it's a kind of successful advertising propagate. This is the most popular video in Target Channel, David Beckham sold perfume in Target.

Overall, this report explains the reason of why I choose Target as client; Introduction of Target; Target market stategies and expansion; Target's interaction with social media users; tracking the cutomers' attitude of Target..i will keep monitoring to see if Target's social media influnce is expanding or not.