Social Media

New York -- Teen apparel retailer PacSun is partnering with content creators from YouTube in a fun back-to-school marketing campaign. The campaign will feature YouTube stars from StyleHaul, an online community of YouTube subscribers dedicated to women’s fashion and beauty, AdWeek reported.

New York -- Instagram is making itself more advertising-friendly, adding a new suite of business tools for its advertisers that will help the brands better control their campaigns and will allow them to gauge the success of their efforts.

The roll-out of the new features, which include an “account insights” tool that will allow marketers to track the performance of their ads in real-time using typical brand metrics such as impressions, reach, and engagement, will occur over the coming weeks and months, the photo-sharing giant said.

New York -- A new Nielsen survey found that nearly 20% of consumers have already started their back-to-school shopping, and 75% plan to start within the next few weeks.

More parents are starting their shopping earlier than in the past, as 18% of survey respondents had already started their back to school shopping as compared to 7% at the same time last year. On the flip side, 15% are choosing to wait longer, while 50% do not plan to do any back to school shopping this year.

By Andrew Schneide, ZOG Digital

San Francisco -- Piperlime, a division of Gap Inc., has enhanced its website to include streams of images filtered directly from Instagram providing customers with fashion. Shoppers will be able to click the images and shop the items to make these looks their own. Product pages will also feature styling ideas from bloggers and influencers, showing unique ways to style the same must-have pieces for each season.

Head & Shoulders and brand ambassador Sofia Vergara are leveraging social media for the shampoo’s latest contest. And the winner gets to meet Vergara.

“I’m excited to give one of my fans the chance to become part of my family for a day,” said Vergara. “Everyone knows eight out of nine Vergaras use Head & Shoulders, now we’re looking for the 10th! We’re looking for someone who flaunts their beautiful, flake-free hair with a little Vergara attitude!”

Social media is slowly but surely moving from a promotional channel to a channel for direct transactions, as evidenced by the recent news that Facebook is testing a “buy” button of its own. Twitter has become a favored means of running time- and location-sensitive retail promotions, such as Twitter-based food truck promotions run by Ben & Jerry’s and Taco Bell, but so far has not presented itself as an effective means of exchanging goods for currency.

Office Depot is leveraging a new back-to-school shopping trend report to drive traffic to its stores this back-to-school season.

The survey, commissioned by Office Depot, reports the manner in which parents and students approach back-to-school shopping, including who in the family has the most influence over purchasing decisions and whether shoppers stick to a provided classroom list or add personalized items to their school supplies.