TracyJennings-Beach_individualresearch (5)

PURE HOME
COUTURE
Individual essay assignment
ABSTRACT
A study of tone, voice and community management
strategy of Pure Home Couture’s online and social
digital presence
Tracy Jennings -Beach
Boyd Neil SSCI 4500 OLB March 19, 2015

Tracy Jennings-Beach SCCI – 4500 OLB Individual Essay March 19, 2015
1
Pure is a Parisian-style shop situated on trendy Locke Street South in Hamilton, Ontario. Offering
Canadian hand-crafted home and beauty products that are ethically sourced, it is promoted as
“le petit department store.” What’s a nice store like this doing in a place like Steeltown? Voted
by many publications as one of the best places to invest in Canada1
, people are heading to
Hamilton in droves to capitalize on value-for-money real estate. (Pigg, 2013, para.17), As a result,
trendy neighbourhoods and communities have emerged; ready to chat and share experiences,
and they are doing it via social digital media.
In his book Net Smart: How to Thrive Online, Howard Rheingold states, “knowing how to make use
of online tools without being overloaded with too much information is, like it or not, an essential
ingredient to personal success in the twenty-first century” (Rheingold, 2012, p.2). The following
paper will examine Pure Home Couture’s online and social digital presence. Attention will be given
to understanding the brand’s personality, tone, and voice as well as its community management
strategy. Recommendations will then be made to improve its social presence. Reference will be
made throughout this paper to Pure’s social digital platforms listed in the snapshot below:
 1056 likes
 63 visits
 37 Boards
 3108 Pins
 453 Likes
 506 Followers
 383 Following
 466 Tweets
 892 Following
 684 Followers
 32 Favourites
 779 Posts
 1115 Followers
 747 Following
1
Susan Pigg’s article Bidding Wars, Soaring House Prices Hit Hamilton Real Estate states that Hamilton
“has been voted one of the best places to invest in Canada by numerous publications, building permits have
averaged over $1 billion in each of the last four years and the Conference Board of Canada deemed it the fastest-
growing economy in Ontario this year, at 2.5 per cent”

2
Personality, tone and voice
Social voice is determined by three things: personality, dominant tone and approach. (Neil,
2015) The following examines Pure’s guiding principles, in-bound and out-bound conversations
and tactical sentence structure to better understand the company’s personality, tone and voice.
Pure Home Couture’s guiding principles are clearly defined on its website. “Pure is a place
where any modern day Aesthete or Marie Antoinette herself would feel entirely at home.”2
Promising a relaxing atmosphere and departure from big box stores, the shop offers affordable
luxury items that are “a joy to give and pure heaven to receive” (Pure,2015) Founded by 80’s
fashion designer, Abby Kanak3
, the essence of the brand is vintage Parisian. One might say that
the dominant tone offered by the content on its website is uppity, with a flair for the fancy and
extravagant. However, the webpage content also implies the experience should be shared.
Instagram and Pinterest are excellent platforms for Pure to showcase these guiding principles.
The store posts beautiful photographs that emulate the brand, not just products sold in the
store. The demographics table from Buffer shows that Instagram is most popular for 18 to 29
year olds and Pinterest appeals to the more educated, higher-income demographic (Buffer,
2015). Marie Antoinette, had she been born in 1995, would surely be active on these accounts.
2
Pure Home Couture’s website store description http://purehomecouture.com/story
3
Abby had a successful career as a fashion designer. However, her daughter, Pallas, suffered a brain injury shortly
after birth. After many difficult years, she and her husband decided to “turn all of (their) pain into something life-
affirming. (Clothing Canada Fashion, 2015,)
Picture: Pure Home Couture’s
Pinterest board, Versailles, is a
collection that takes the audience
on a historical and geographical
tour of the inspiration for the
brand.

3
In his lecture on content strategy, Boyd Neil’ 4
discusses how social voice is determined. He
states that an organization should “act like a person (as it) gives community reason to engage”
as well as consider how to complement the style and voice of the inbound conversation. (Neil,
2015) Pure’s posts on Facebook and Twitter are from a young woman whose personality is
slightly spoiled, easily bored and always looking for the next great place to dine and shop. The
tone is light and frivolous. The inbound and outbound conversations match very well. Pure’s
approach to content is to use grammatically correct sentence structure with the occasional age
– appropriate euphemism. The Facebook and Twitter dialogues pictured below illustrate this:
Top left and bottom left: Posts from Pure Home Couture Facebook page outbound and inbound conversation. Note the
use of exclamation points and term “LOL”.
Right: Inbound and outbound conversation concerning bathrooms found in restaurant clearly related to specific interest of
this demographic5
.
4
Boyd Neil is senior vice president of digital and social communications at Hill +Knowlton Strategies Canada. He is
a “strategist who specializes in leveraging social and digital platforms to manage and strengthen client’s
reputations and effectively navigate their communications challenges” (Hill +Knowlton, 2015).
5
The National Post article, Stall confessions: For women, the washroom is a sacred place – one for privacy
and reflection offers insight on the importance of washrooms to women.

4
Community management strategy
Meredith Rogers, a senior consultant at Hill+Knowlton Strategies Canada discusses community
management strategy in a lecture at Humber College Institute of Technology and Higher
learning. She explains that community management is more than just social media
management. “Your channels are tactics, but before you can hit send on anything a great deal
of work needs to be done” (Rogers, 2015). Creating a strategy that determines timing and
frequency of posting, interaction with audiences, language choice, and engagement with
influencers is part of this work.
Pure Home Couture’s community management strategy is on par with its intended target
audience. The store’s interaction with its audience is personal as is the language choice.
Gratitude for shout-outs is expressed in tweets and humour is shared. The timing of posts on
Facebook, and twitter coincide with events and special occasions but is not prolific. They seem
to post only if they have something to say.
This is in keeping with its image and target audience because the store touts itself as a respite
from the big box stores and loud hustle and bustle of malls. Comparatively, Pure’s competition,
Bath and Body Works uses its social digital community to advertise only, post daily, and do not
reply to posts even when there is a problem.
Left: Pure answers with a coquettish, “Thank you…It’s Come to Bed Red!”
Right: To their credit, Bath and Bodyworks did not remove this post and one can see why it was
“hidden from view” - the language is inappropriate. However, there is no sign at all to any reply
to this. Six people liked this negative review indicating that the sentiment is shared by others.
Not answering indicates the company doesn’t care.

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Pure Home Couture’s community management strategy includes engagement with influencers.
At first glance, a conversation with @cobblesandcaps, with only 199 followers mays seem like a
conversation going nowhere. However, @cobblesandcaps is a network node with an edge
linking Pure to designers such as @redrazberry who has 1350 followers, and travel bloggers
such as @Adverturousmiri who has almost 20 thousand followers. This aspect of their
community management strategy is key as it helps to “anchor program with partnerships that
deliver reach, drive trial, create content for social and will help to recruit new consumers” (Neil,
2015).
Recommendations
Dialogue theory contends that “for companies and brands to build strong relationships online,
communication must be a two-way street” (Neil, 2015). Kirk Hallahan6
adds to this theory
offering five principles “each of which can apply in certain instances to social media community-
building” (Lee, 2014). With these in mind, the following are recommendations for improvement
of Pure Home Couture’s social media presence:
1. Commitment
The company’s Pinterest account shows total commitment to the brand and its community.
Posting often, but not just of product, the usage of this platform should be imitated on
Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Targeted audiences will appreciate the time and resources
committed to showing inspirational pictures similar to Versailles board on Pinterest.
2. Control mutuality
Pure often retweets comments. This alone does not create authentic dialogue. Engaging in
conversation with the audience shows commitment to two-way conversation.
6
Kirk Hallahan is a professor at Colorado State University. His bio states, “Colorado State faculty member since
1996. Public relations executive at a major national agency, two banks and a statewide trade association in
California for 19 years” (Central, 2015).

6
Pure should experiment with carrying on a conversation instead of simply re-tweeting. For
example, @RougeJB tweeted, “@PureonLocke You have a pretty looking store. I'll need to
check you out when the weather is better.” Instead of just retweeting, the company could reply
with, “Looking forward to it @RougeJB. FYI, Vintage Garden Tea Room is close. Hot tea… just
sayin’ @LockeSTShops.”
3. Communality
Connecting with the local businesses, especially Hamilton-related promotional sites such
@LockSTShops and @HeyHamiltonOnt will show a concern for one another and serve as an
opportunity to share similar values, beliefs, and interests. For example, Antipodes, a brand that
Pure Home Couture markets, is organic, vegan and ethically sourced. A testimonial on their
Facebook page could support the beliefs of many of their followers and engage new audiences.
Researching new product launches and holiday or special events that the company can get
involved in could establish new communities.
4. Trust
Pure is excellent at consistency of tone and voice. The company does not have the appearance
of using automatic posting tools which shows that they are “listening.” The recommendation
for fostering trust is to maintain this consistency, no matter how large their community. Pure
Home Couture is a retail store, therefore a certain amount of product marketing is to be
expected. However, the company would do well to remember that the purpose behind social
web interaction is connection, relationship and influence (Neil, 2015).
5. Satisfaction
To meet the community’s needs and exceed expectations, it is recommended that the company
focuses on content creation. “Content is what the user came to read, learn, see, or experience.
Form a business perspective, the content is the critical information the website, application,
intranet, or any other delivery vehicle was created to contain or communicate.” The
photographs on Pinterest and Instagram are indeed pictures that speak 1000 words. However,
the creation of stories for the internet page such as community events, any corporate social

7
responsibility initiatives, and just fun stories could be recorded using the web page as a single
source of truth.
Conclusion
This research paper has examined the company’s online and social digital presence with
attention to tone and voice and community management strategy. This pretty store in the
heart of Hamilton’s trendy Locke St. area has potential to build its community in the physical
and social digital media world. The company does well with not being “overloaded with too
much information” while embracing the online tools available. As the Hamilton neighbourhood
expands with the growth of the real estate market, Pure Home Couture should remain current
with new and innovative social digital platforms. Maintaining the company’s use of these social
networking platforms will help guarantee its success in the modern era.

8
References
Abby Kanak. (n.d.). Retrieved March 17, 2015, from
http://www.clothingcanadafashion.com/abby-kanak/
Boesveld, S. (2013, March 8). Stall confessions: For women, the washroom is a sacred place –
one for privacy and reflection. National Post. Retrieved from
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/03/08/stall-confessions-for-women-the-washroom-is-a-
sacred-place-one-for-privacy-and-reflection/
Central• CLA News & Events •. (n.d.). Retrieved March 18, 2015, from
http://central.colostate.edu/people/hallahan/
Lee, K. (2014, November 19). The Science of Building a Lasting Social Media Community.
Retrieved March 18, 2015, from https://blog.bufferapp.com/science-of-building-social-
media-community
Rheingold, Howard; Weeks, Anthony (2012-03-16). Net Smart: How to Thrive Online (p. 2). The
Kindle Edition
Pigg, S. (2013, June 21). Bidding wars, soaring house prices hit Hamilton real estate.
Thestar.com. Retrieved from
http://www.thestar.com/business/real_estate/2013/06/21/bidding_wars_soaring_hous
e_prices_hit_hamilton_real_estate.
Neil, B. (Director) (2015, February-March). Building communities through new media. Class .
Lecture conducted from, Etobicoke, Ontario.
Rogers, Meredith (Consultant) (2015, March) Building communities through new media. Class.
Lecture conducted from, Etobicoke, Ontario
Digital Links
https://www.pinterest.com/purehomecouture/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pure-Home-Couture/215500015141827
https://instagram.com/purehomecouture/
https://twitter.com/Pure_on_Locke
http://purehomecouture.com/

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