Social Media at QVC UK Who we are, what we do and how

you can get involved

• QVC’s Social Media platforms – page 3

• Meet the Team – page 4

• Common issues – page 5

• General tips for working with us – page 6

• I’m a new brand at QVC – page 7

• I have a Today's Special Value offer coming up – page 8

• I have a Pick of the Month – page 10

• My brand has a series coming up - page 12

• My brand has limited airtime - what can we do? – page 14

• We're launching a new product – page 15

• Competitions – page 16

Contents

QVC’s Social Media platforms

facebook.com/qvcuk

@qvcuk

@qvcuk and @qvcbeauty

pinterest.com/qvcuk

QCommunity: blogs.qvcuk.com

Meet the Team

Mark Clarke – Social Media Executive

Looks after planning, creating content for, and reporting on, all of QVC’s Social Media platforms.

• Likes: gadgets, squash and getting caught in the rain

• Dislikes: hashtags #IRL, acronyms. Also peas

Amirah Valu – Social Media Assistant

Manages day-to-day activities focusing on Beauty, Home & Kitchen, and Garden & Leisure departments.

• Likes: make-up, reading blogs and exploring London

• Dislikes: spiced pumpkin lattes and butterflies

Kylie Harries – Social Media Assistant

Manages day-to-day activities focusing on Fashion & Accessories, Jewellery, Gifting and Electronics departments.

• Likes: fashion, writing, head banging at rock concerts and French Bulldogs!

• Dislikes: creepy clowns, peanut butter and peanut butter on someone’s breath…eew!

Grace Brewster – Social Media Assistant for Tili

Looks after the social media accounts for QVC's beauty box, Tili, and helps to manage day-to-day activities.

• Likes: make-up, pretending to be cool and Ryan Reynold’s face

• Dislikes: clowns, mashed potato and the word "moist"

Common issues • When tagging our @qvcuk accounts on Twitter or Instagram, a common error is to

leave out the “UK” part of our account name, which leads to our American counterpart being mentioned by mistake

• If you’re being presented with the American QVC Facebook page rather than the British QVC UK page, you might need to change your preferred region. From the options at the top of the page, choose “Switch region”, select “United Kingdom” and click “Save Preference” – don’t worry, you can switch back and forth.

Mention us! Promoting an upcoming appearance on QVC or a QVC-exclusive product? Make sure to mention the relevant social channel in your messages Follow us! Ensure that you’re following our relevant accounts and we will make sure that we do the same Stay in touch! Give us details of your best social media contact, send us any particularly good imagery you have, and keep us up to date with any new launches or stories you have coming up Bear with us! We are a small team and our promotional space is shared across a range of different departments from Beauty to Home Innovations; each with a host of different brands. We will always do what we can to help but we might not be able to give you everything you want.

General tips for working with us

I am a new brand at QVC Please follow our accounts on all of the relevant platforms and get in touch to let us know the addresses of your social media accounts. Make sure to mention our accounts in your messages so that your tweets, Facebook posts, Instagram images and Pinterest boards are easier for us to find and share on our own accounts. If you have any key shows or key products you would like us to highlight, please let your Buyers know so that they can pass the request on to us, or email us directly.

I have a Today’s Special Value offer coming up

TSVs receive the following coverage as standard;

• The first airing of the item will be recorded and shared on our Facebook page and Twitter account along with tracked links to buy online

• Tweets about our TSV will be sent out at the start of the hours in which the offer features

We will always try to mention your Twitter and Facebook accounts in our coverage so that it’s easier for you to pass these messages on. If we are not following or mentioning the correct accounts for your brand, please let us know!

As our Today’s Special Value (TSV) offers are the highlight of any day, rest assured that promoting these offers is a priority.

• We can offer additional promotion such as video blogs from our social media-focused presenter, Will Gowing (check out Will’s QCAM blogs), competitions, and other supporting content and activities such Facebook Live video broadcasts on the Facebook page, or Periscope videos on Twitter, and more.

• If you’re interested in exploring these options, please let your Buyer know as early as possible. We try to plan in this kind of content about two months ahead of time and will often need time to sort out imagery, or dates for filming.

My product will be a Pick of the Month Our Pick of the Month items are products offered in Beauty and Gardening with free P&P

for a month. Each month our experts, Alison Young (@AlisonYoungQVC) for beauty and Richard Jackson (@RichardQVC) for garden, will write a blog post about the new pick. These posts will be promoted over the course of the month on the qvcuk.com website as well as via Facebook and Twitter (particularly at the start and end of the month).

If you’re having trouble finding the blog posts about your item, please let us know. We will make sure to mention your Social Media accounts in our promotions so please let us know if there are any accounts going unmentioned that we should be using.

Please mention @qvcuk in your own promotion of your Pick of the Month and if you have any imagery that you would like us to use (for example on our Instagram account) please let us know.

My brand has a series coming up on QVC

• We tend to promote series on the live channel via our Twitter and Facebook accounts. We will try to post ahead of the first and final shows of the series as well as tweets at the start of all the shows.

• Additional options include a Live Q&A video broadcast session on our Facebook page or Twitter account after your show. Usually recorded by our Associate Producers, these broadcasts will feature questions being relayed to the guest or experts on camera as they are posed by the live audience.

• We can also simultaneously broadcast an on-air show (on the Live channel) via Facebook. With questions coming in via Facebook comments on these, we would ask that an off-air expert be made available to help our Associate Producers field questions that come in during the show.

• We will support as much as you need and you should bear in mind that in these social broadcasts whether you are talking to camera or typing responses, you should adhere to the same ASA guidelines in your answers as you do in your statements on air.

• The Q&A element can be pulled into the

show itself, though this is at the discretion of your Category Producer and Broadcast Team!

• If you are interested in running a Q&A session during the course of your series please let us and/or your Buyer know, ideally at least two weeks in advance, if not earlier.

• Blog posts or competitions to promote a series are also a possibility – please let your Buyer know about two months in advance if you are interested in proposing this kind of activity.

My brand has limited air-time – what can we do?

• We have scope to highlight brands and key items that perhaps aren’t getting much time on air

• If you’re keen to highlight your brand or key lines, please get in touch with details, as well as any particularly compelling imagery you may have, and we will see what we can do to help

• Promotion of this kind will usually occur via our @qvcuk Twitter account

We’re launching a new product • Get in touch and let us know what your new product is and when it will be

launching. We will make sure to tweet about the item around the time of the launch. Any imagery you can supply would be great and, if necessary, let us know what Twitter/Facebook/Instagram accounts we should be mentioning.

• If you would like to promote your new launch with a blog post or video post, please let your Buyer know two months in advance so we can plan this in.

Facebook Live Facebook Live is a great way of reaching more people and giving our fans more of a behind-the-scenes experience. We can start broadcasting live from a phone or tablet direct to the QVC UK Facebook page – in the same way you might update your status. People can comment on the stream during our broadcast and, once it has finished, it will stay on our page to be viewed afterwards. We’re experimenting with different types of broadcasts such as Q&As with our TSV guests, previews for new shows or product launches, and simulcasts (streaming QVC TV live on our Facebook page with an additional guest to chat along with the customers via Facebook comments). Chats are filmed by either our Social Media Presenter, Will Gowing, or one of our Associate Producers, who will always introduce themselves at the beginning of the chat so customers know who they are.

Our Facebook Live schedule is agreed between our Associate Producers, our Social Media Team and our Co-ordinating Producers and planned a month ahead of time. If you want to get involved, please let your Buyer know along with your usual social media requests and this can be added to the proposals to be agreed between the APs and the Social Media Team.

Chats can last anything from ten minutes to 40 minutes depending on the story and how many questions come in from customers.

Please note: Our chats follow the same ASA guidelines as our live QVC broadcasts and will be monitored by our Customer Care Team.

Competitions

• Requests for competitions should ideally be made via your QVC Buying Team as much as two months ahead of the event or offer you want to promote

• As you might imagine, we receive a lot of competition requests and can only run so many at any given time. It would be great to hear exactly why you think a competition would be appropriate for your particular event. We are more likely to look at considered requests, rather than a competition for its own sake.

• Preferably competitions should be resolved via winners being randomly selected from all valid entrants, however judged competitions can be run if there is a good reason for them to be run that way

• If you are looking to request a competition to promote an upcoming TSV, ideally the prize shouldn’t feature the Today’s Special Value offer itself in it. Perhaps an upsell?

We value imagination in the competition idea (caption competitions, fun questions etc.) and simplicity in the prizes (product prizes rather than experiences)

When running a competition on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, we would not promote that competition on other social media platforms as customers can object to being directed to join other social networks.

Common competition formats

Retweet and Follow Twitter competition

Great for building a stronger following and spreading the word, entrants will generally follow all accounts mentioned in the competition tweet, as well.

Facebook competitions

According to Facebook rules, competitions run on Facebook pages cannot require the sharing of the post or tagging of friends by entrants in order to enter.

Competitions on Facebook generally require entrants to comment on the competition post.

Blog competitions

These can be a multiple choice question or you can ask entrants to tell us what their favourite products are from your brand range and why. All entrants are asked to leave a comment on the competition post and leave their email address in the provided field.

Instagram competitions

These are run on our @qvcuk, @QVCBeauty and @TiliBeauty accounts. We run two different types of Instagram competitions on our pages.

Hashtag Contests We ask our followers to share a photo using a specific hashtag, such as #qvcwellbeing, to enter. The use of a hashtag also brings a lifestyle feel to campaign and gives other people a chance to see entries from our followers.

Follow and tag competitions We ask people to follow the accounts mentioned in the competition post caption and to tag friends who would be interested in the prize. These tend to run over a few days.

Any questions? Get in touch!

Email us: UK-Social_Media_Team@qvc.com