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Hi, I'm Leslie Carothers, Chief Energizing Officer of The Kaleidoscope Partnership- a global social media agency started nine years ago for furniture, design and lifestyle brands to provide high level social media strategies along with execution capabilities for our roster of clients on http://tkpartnership.com. Having been in the furniture and luxury design business for the past 29 years, and having worked with consumers, retail sales consultants, retailers, manufacturers, suppliers, designers and the media, I have a decent grasp of our industry and hope, through this column, to give you solid *Retail Ideas* around various facets of social media that will help YOUR business prosper!
Please feel free to start a conversation on my blog by leaving a question or a comment or contact me at any time at leslie@tkpartnership.com, on twitter at http://twitter.com/tkpleslie, on Facebook at http://facebook.com/TheKaleidoscopePartnership or through this group I run on Linked In: Social Media for Furniture Retailers, Manufacturers and Suppliers! If you're interested in having me speak to your organization or at your conference about a facet of social media, please email me at the above address.
The Seamless Experience: A Brick and Mortar Retail Road Map

As we approach this spring's #HPMkt — I want to go back in time 6 years ago.. when I first wrote about Twitter on this blog. At that time, social media was in its infancy. Fast forward.. and now a Twitter hashtag is the official logo of the High Point Marketing Authority and we are lucky, as an industry, to have someone as smart and social media savvy as Cheminne Taylor-Smith as the VP of Marketi... Read More
Comments (7)Furniture: #How2Help Sandy Victims Using Social Media: Top Tips

I write this with a heavy heart for many of my personal and professional friends in the furniture and design business who have been greatly impacted by Hurricane Sandy and the devastation it has caused -- especially as they enter their most important selling weeks of the year leading up to Thanksgiving and Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Since Hurricane Sandy wreaked its havoc one week ago today,... Read More
Comments (13)Furniture's global future: Social commerce on mobile

THE AGGREGATE NUMBERS:Comscore's just released 2012 Q1 report states e-commerce spending was at 44.3 billion for the quarter, up 17% versus a year ago. This represents the 10th consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth and the 6th consecutive quarter of double digit growth."The first quarter of this year was especially strong for retail e-commerce as we returned to year-over-yea... Read More
Comments (7)CONTENT MARKETING: FURNITURE and DESIGN

For the past three days, I've been in Los Angeles attending the Design Bloggers Conference. The brainchild of Design Sherpa, a division of NCI Communications, this conference brings together top design bloggers with sponsoring brand attendees to create collaborative opportunities through online content marketing partnerships.Why, as a retailer do you care? Because getting to know the design blogge... Read More
Comments (9)#HPmkt and the Thank You Economy

The world is converging starting Saturday, Oct. 16th, as more than 85,000 people from around the world converge on High Point, North Carolina for the start of the world's largest furniture wholesale furniture tradeshow-High Point Market.With over 2000 exhibitors represented in 188 buildings containing over 12 million sq. feet of showspace and hundreds of thousands of new product introductions, @HP... Read More
Comments (15)FACEBOOK: THE RECIPE FOR SUCCESS

Facebook is a crafty seductress. Those 500 million+ users are very tempting to anyone trying to reach today's consumer who, on average, are spending 55 minutes every day there chatting with their friends. Not only that, the fastest growing group on Facebook today is 55 and over with the 2nd fastest growing group being 35 and over- our industry's sweet spot.However, there are critically important f... Read More
Comments (22)IT'S TAKING TOO MUCH TIME

This is going to be another short post - I must be learning something from all that tweeting :)I think I've just about said it all in that first statement, though. The furniture shopping process is taking the consumer too much time. They're getting frustrated and, in some cases, giving up altogether or just buying the cheapest option available to them because they don't have the time to do the res... Read More
Comments (10)FREEDOM, FACEBOOK and the FOURTH OF JULY

Here's a simple idea for how you can reach out via Facebook,Twitter, your websites and/or your blogs to let our military families know how much you appreciate and honor their service and their sacrifices this Fourth of July weekend.It's easy in the hustle and bustle of sales, shopping, family fun and the the *stuff to get done* around all of those activities to lose sight of the men and women prot... Read More
Comments (3)Nebraska Furniture Mart, #NateDay and Twitter

Why did Nebraska Furniture Mart participate in the first #IDZinechat on Twitter? Why did 139 interior design bloggers write about @Nate_Berkus for free for #NateDay on Twitter? How are they all connected and how can you leverage these concepts to create sales and web traffic for your own retail businesses? #IDZinechat explained:#IDZinechat is a FREE and *no strings attached* event on Twitter whe... Read More
Comments (5)@ICFF2010 -BUSINESS TAKEAWAYS

@ICFF2010 -BUSINESS TAKEAWAYSThe International Contemporary Furniture Fair, now in its 22nd year, is held once a year in NYC. It is a global summit for showcasing the best of contemporary design with a special focus on emerging talent.My company, The Kaleidoscope Partnership, was fortunate to have been chosen to provide social media services for George Little Management - the producers of @ICFF201... Read More
Comments (7)NEGATIVE ONLINE REVIEWS - WHAT TO DO?

Consumer opinions. Good ones? You love them. Bad but balanced? Hate to see them, but try to listen and learn, right? But, when they’re both bad AND unfair? They make you boiling mad and defensive!Why? Because you know you did all you could to help solve their issue. Your people went above and beyond the call of duty and handled the customer with respect, care and kindness. You bent your normal... Read More
Comments (14)RESULT: 1/3rd STORE TRAFFIC INCREASE IN ONE DAY

The skeptics may ask: “Really? A NON-SALE event did that - and for under a $1,000.00 - on a Saturday?”The skeptics may think: “I don’t believe it. Is there proof- in writing?”Yep. I’m writing this post to share this: Even though you may not think or be convinced that YOUR customer, at the local level, is interested in eco-friendly furniture - I believe that the success of the event I am about to d... Read More
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