Finish Line sells footwear, athletic gear and accessories on finishline.com and in more than 600 malls in the United States. In 2010, the company needed to further position itself as the leading athletic retailer, as well as increase web traffic and online sales. Because the retailer’s young audience uses social media and the Internet throughout the day and night, Finish Line also needed a social media monitoring strategy to ramp up online customer service and to garner customer loyalty.

MKR developed a solution to the Finish Line situation that was twofold. First, a proactive content strategy — which included a blog, video and social media graphics — was implemented. Shareable pieces of content were designed to help increase audience and engagement across all of Finish Line’s owned media channels, and ultimately help position the retailer as a leading footwear and athletic gear store. The proactive content strategy also included shoe release campaigns, athletic gear new arrival announcements and sale promotions to drive traffic to the website and increase online sales. Second, MKR implemented a 24/7 social media monitoring and moderation strategy to answer questions, direct customers to the customer service department and engage in real-time conversation with customers.

After implementing the content and social media monitoring strategies, MKR was able to increase Finish Line’s direct Facebook audience from 100,000 fans to 1,500,000+ fans in 10 months. By establishing direct correlations from engagement to intent to purchase at retail, MKR increased online sales by 60.1 percent.