What do Floyd Mayweather and retail giant Target have in common you ask? Both had one heck of a payday today proving money making under 24hrs is becoming a new habit forming addiction. If you've been on Twitter over the past few hours (for those of us who are skilled enough to simultaneously leverage social media and entertainment), you probably were tweeting under the #floydmayweather hashtag or #philliplimfortarget, tracking the play by play victory lap of the champion in the ring or the consumer in retail who scored Target's latest design collaboration with Phillip Lim. I'm not sure if it's intentional, but Target seems to plan launches around major sports events-this could be purely accidental but remember Jason Wu for Target? It was released on Superbowl Sunday in February 2012. Wonder if they assume women would be more prone to spend more money knowing that husbands and boyfriends alike would be too preoccupied to notice their shopping habits. *shrugs* Who knows, With yet another designer collaboration dawning on the world of fashion, Phillip Lim for Target was not just another collection sending fashionistas into a frenzy, feverishly racing to add wish list items 'a la their shopping carts. No, this was the dawn of something else. Something no one could have ever imagined or orchestrated in online buying-not even Target itself. Enter epiphany. Online shoppers discovered a new way of shopping through the #philliplimfortarget hashtag which began trending minutes before midnight when certain platforms reluctantly prevented customers from purchasing the collection.
Fashionistas know that with every big Target collaboration release runs the risk of being confronted with 'sold out' items or even worse 'error messages' when adding items to your shopping cart. As soon as the frenzy started, many of us, including me, *raises hand* couldn't figure out why some of us could see the items go on sale while others couldn't.
The kindness and generosity was an instant hit! It was contagious! Instead of the horror stories we typically hear of on Target's release date of fights, hair pulling and showing of 'fangs' for the coveted items, strangers went from customers to bonding buddies in a shared sisterhood to help one another out. It was literally a perfect study for social shopping purely by utilizing hash tags. Since hash tags aggregate all information into one topic, we communicated by the seconds asking who was looking for what then tweeted the item link for people who rushed to add it to their shopping cart for safe keeping. As others kept shopping, the social media professional in me refreshed many individual tabs to track pieces as they slowly were released piece by piece on the website, then tweeted the direct links with one careful eye on my computer and another on my cell phone to track Instagram questions on my feed (my day job consists of leveraging social media to better serve customers, so naturally this was my element.) So as a fashionista myself, the truth was I wasn't shopping
By far it was the most fun I've EVER had assisting people with their shopping needs! In the past, I've styled people before as a stylist in Mercedes-Benz Fashion week and worked in visual display in a major department store but this was something different. People were so friendly that we ended up 'feeling like a family' as one follower put it! From midnight to 5 a.m. I never knew the morning would accumulate so many connections with so many people who continued to express gratitude across all three of my social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram).It was only after the shopping frenzy had subsided when I started to receive 'thank yous' realizing that regardless of the size of my following, my voice made a ripple in the social sharing pond along with many others, which taught me a valuable lesson. Of the people that I shared my knowledge with, I don't think there was a single person who I had actually met in real life, yet people felt comfortable enough to tweet me their request and their styling questions as if we were best buds (or jolly saint nick himself). Thanks to the whole ordeal, I met a great group of fashionable males and females that I will continue to offer fashion advice to and further connect with beyond digital boundaries. Leaving a digital footprint was the last thing that I thought would happen by merely staying connected. This is just the beginning. {^_^}
Next Post: What I Bought from Target
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