Google Zeitgeist – I searched Victoria’s Secret on their website search and it showed a line graph of the visitor traffic per month. The data suggested that more people get onto the website during the Christmas seasons because there was a peak in traffic during that time and it slowly and gradually tapered off as the months went past ending with October/November as the slowest traffic, then it peaks up again during December. I also looked up lingerie searches for the Zeitgeist and it reported a high search for lingerie especially during January/February. The interesting thing I found was that the online search for lingerie was much higher in Utah and considerably lower in New York. My assumption before this was that more people in New York would be into shopping and living a liberal lifestyle, therefore they would look up products online, especially provocative lingerie. One factor not accounted for is the in-store traffic. They could be people that prefer to go in and see them rather than shop online for it. The recession also had a negative impact in our nation, especially in New York, and people may not think it is necessary to invest in more lingerie than what they already had.

Google blog search – I typed in Victoria’s Secret and the brilliant thing about this is that through the “related searches” they found Victoria’s Secret personal blog. I never knew they had a blog, Twitter, and Facebook until today. It also brought up blogs where Victoria’s Secret was mentioned. The first few were blog posts regarding the most recent news Victoria’s Secret put out about finding a model for their runway show this December 2009. This is a great tool that I had never known about. Companies can use these tools to help track the postings from (dis)satisfied customers and provide feedback to help alleviate the problem.

I find that blogs have one of the most effective abilities to create experiences. Twitter is a social media tool to quickly promote an event or get a quick update out there for followers, where as blogs can engage customers through postings, videos, and pictures. It specifically works so well for Victoria’s Secret partly because this company’s advertising strategy is through using visual aids like beautiful women, sexy lingerie, and bright colors. The flexibility in adding all these visual aids create a holistic and engaging experience for the consumer. Blogs can also gain insight from people through asking their followers about their questions and asking for feedback to know what they want and how the company can create this experience or product. On the Victoria’s Secret blog page, they have a section up top that asks you what you hope for. You’re allowed to type in about 50 characters of what you hope for and they post it on their page. It’s brilliant because what they did was include a mini-twitter on their blog, bringing the two social media sites together to create a better experience as well as gain insights. As long as companies are involved with sites such as blogs, Facebook, and Twitter actively communicating with their consumers, they are capable of creating a wide range of experiences for their consumers. Companies just need to know when to use each site to fully maximize on each one. Twitter gives brief updates, but if consumers want more detail they can go to the blog to read detail information regarding the Twitter update. If they want to reach college students then they need to create a Facebook group. By connecting these three sites and using it to benefit and backup one another, companies can create holistic experiences on the web for consumers.