Rugged and Engaging - Home Depot on Facebook

Note: This was originally posted in a discussion as part of a Boston University Metropolitan College graduate-level course in E-commerce with Professor Jason Shapiro.

With over 5 Million likes and their page reports close to 5 Million check ins, The Home Depot's Facebook page is well thought out and consistent with their overall digital footprint. For example, The Home Depot has unique desktop and mobile websites that optimize their web presence on the different mediums.

The Home Depot is doing many things well on Facebook. First, there is a prominently featured “Shop Now” button that appears in different locations on the desktop (top of page) and mobile (bottom of page) versions of their page. Next, the Home Depot has a steady stream of posts that vary in topics, including products, events, employees, etc. Their audience is engaged, liking, commenting and (perhaps most importantly) sharing posts. Finally, they post about topical events. For example, February’s posts are focused on Black History Month. This is not quite Newsjacking, where marketers leverage a news topic to garner buzz (Scott, 2013), but there are notable similarities. Home Depot makes connections between Black History Month and their offerings, and their posts come across as genuine, which is very important in engaging their audience.

Home Depot could improve their Facebook presence in a few different ways. First, they could leverage the platform to increase interactions with customers through their page. All interactions and engagement I noted were one-sided - people engaging with their posts. Properly leveraging social media means getting into meaningful interactions with your clients, not just using the platform as a bullhorn for accomplishments. Next, Home Depot could add more video posts. I only observed two of many posts that provided video. Video is really effective on Facebook and adding more video to their many posts would make their posts even richer. Finally, The Home Depot could focus on posting about home improvement without always directly connecting their posts to their products. This kind of thought leadership helps encourage engagement and also builds trust.

Interestingly, researchers have used social media analytics to define brand personality. Not surprisingly, Home Depot’s brand personality is defined as sincere, competent and rugged (Hu et. al, 2019).

References

Scott, D. (2013). The New Rules of Marketing & PR. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.. Fourth Edition.

Hu, Y., Xu, A., Hong, Y., Sinha, V. Akkiraju, R. (2019, July 3). Generating Business Intelligence Through Social Media Analytics: Measuring Brand Personality with Consumer-, Employee-, and Firm-Generated Content. Journal of Management Information Systems. Retrieved February 18, 2021 from: http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.bu.edu/bsi/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=9d8958e1-3b24-4448-b432-eacab30596ed%40sessionmgr4007&bdata=JnNpdGU9YnNpLWxpdmU%3d#AN=137887538&db=bth