FAO Schwartz social media fail with new #Muppet WhatNot builder page. | Cynosure: Dishing on the Digital Universe

Missed Muppet Opportunity

Today I discovered that you can make your own Muppet! Really. You just head on over to FAO Schwartz and put one together at the Muppet WhatNot Workshop. Each customizable Muppet costs $129.00 which seems hefty, but it’s a real Muppet! How cool is that? The ones you see on the page are a couple that I designed.

What I found most frustrating about the process when I was at the website was not how to put the Muppet together, or the price, or anything having to do with the product itself. Rather, I was frustrated that there was no easy way to tell my friends!

This is a huge missed opportunity for FAO Schwartz, IMHO. That one click button to share on Facebook or Tweet to friends could mean thousands more people aware of these amazing toys that head right to the heart of nostaglia for millions.

I know, I know, it’s easy enough to post the link in Facebook, which I did, but when I did so you didn’t get to see a photo of how cool they look, just the FAO logo. And with Twitter, it’s a multiple step process to log in, shrink the link and write the tweet. Not that these steps are hard by any means, it’s just that they are extra steps. People are lazy. And they have grown accustomed to seeing those share buttons on websites.

Although most might argue that those share buttons tend to be on news sites, not retail shops. It would be cumbersome (and perhaps ugly) to implement them for retail in all the products in a shop, I imagine. Ok, that’s fine. But this is clearly a top billed product, one that is destined for huge sales for both FAO Schwartz and the Muppets (who are doing GREAT things with social media these days). That little extra couple of buttons could mean thousands more in sales.

Worth the hassle, FAO Schwartz.

To help you start your weekend, I’ll leave you with a Muppet social media win: