When MOA shoppers talk in cyberspace, the mall's likely to talk back

Kristin Frane was on a bench in the Mall of America's amusement park last weekend when a mall employee named Erin Vande Steeg approached with a $25 gift card and a compliment — she liked Frane's Instagram photos.

During her family's mall getaway, Frane had uploaded pictures on the drive from Hayward, Wis., from the lobby of the mall's Radisson Blu hotel and in front of the carousel.

"That's generous — just for taking pictures," Frane said, clearly surprised. "How did you know I was here?"

Vande Steeg, the mall's social media senior strategist, explained that she and her colleagues had been monitoring Frane's posts, along with thousands of others.

In what may be the most sophisticated social media operation of any U.S. mall, the Mall of America now routinely talks back to shoppers through Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other social media applications. Its specialists also get out of their basement office to meet shoppers, who they've usually first contacted online. In Frane's case, Vande Steeg was walking through the mall when she recognized Frane's sweater from her pictures.

Did Frane find that creepy? "I don't," she said. "But other people might."

Many businesses closely watch social media channels like Twitter and customer feedback websites like Yelp to respond to customer questions and head off potential controversies.

The Mall of America goes a step further by reaching out to shoppers and initiating conversations when no response was expected. It's a sort of personal concierge service to ingratiate the mall with consumers and troubleshoot potential security problems. Their tone is always conversational, to make the surprise interaction feel less Big Brotherish.

When people bemoan on Twitter that they can't go to Mall of America on Black Friday, the mall responds, "Shucks!" When shoppers post that they just arrived at the mall, the social media team writes, "Awesome," and offers to answer any questions.

When a young girl from Wisconsin recently tweeted, "8 hours of shopping at Mall of America it feels nice to lay down," the mall sent her a message with a snippet from "The Big Bang Theory" TV show of a character collapsing onto a couch and wrote: "We know that feeling!;)"

"We began to realize, hey, we can control the message going out here," Vande Steeg said. "Not only can we control it but we can help mold the conversations that are happening online to work in our favor and build relationships with guests."

Vande Steeg used to monitor chatter on social media for the mall by herself. She became the driving force to expand the work into an operation that's staffed whenever the mall is open.

Called ESP, for Enhanced Service Portal, the unit is an extra sense perception outlet for the mall's executives, marketers and operating staff. Two people usually are on duty in the ESP room, which is next to the mall's phone operators and security department so all can quickly share information.

In the room itself, there's a big screen on the wall that magnifies several Web applications. One is called Spreadfast, which helps track every mention of the mall on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. In the past month, the mall received more than 16,000 mentions on Twitter.

But shoppers don't always use the mall's name when they post online. So it also subscribes to a program called Geofeedia, which allows them to see items people have shared on social media from within the mall's corridors and parking lots. The program displays on a map where people are when they are posting.

It's a capability that might make some shoppers uneasy. But mall officials note that a user's location-based services on his or her cellphone has to be on in order for the mall to see those posts. Shoppers can turn that off if they don't want the mall to see their posts.

Vande Steeg said the mall hasn't had any blowback from the service.

"I don't think we've ever had a situation where somebody has been like, why did you respond to me?" she said. "But we've had people say. 'Oh that's really creepy and cool that they saw my message. How did you see my message?' "

As the number of conversations with shoppers skyrocketed, the mall added more part-time employees to the ESP team. It will now have three people on duty at busier times during the crush of the holiday shopping season. On weekends, the team routinely sends out more than a hundred tweets, likes dozens of pictures on Instagram and juggles multiple conversations via live chat and text message.

Dave Hopkins, a marketing professor at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, said the mall's approach echoes what many businesses are doing in more personalized engagement with customers. "The cool part is the mall is turning this into an experience in itself," he said.

The location-based tracking tool has come in handy to spot celebrities. The mall often doesn't know about those visits until pictures by fans start surfacing on Twitter and Instagram. That was how the mall discovered that Charlie Watts, the drummer for the Rolling Stones, was on the premises this summer.

The team then gives security a heads-up so they can monitor crowds and reach out to see if the star needs an escort.

Occasionally, the center also spots posts from shoplifters bragging about their spoils or broadcasting the fact that they plan to steal. Those go to security, too.

Doug Reynolds, the mall's director of security, checks in with the ESP team once a day to see what shoppers are talking about. It has been helpful, for instance, in communicating to concerned shoppers when they see a K-9 unit at events that it's routine and not indicative of any special threat.

"It's now become a valuable asset," he said.

On the day of the Black Lives Matter protest before Christmas last year, the social media team responded to questions about store closings. And in February, when the mall was mentioned in an online video by terrorist group Al-Shabab, the team got out the word that there was no direct threat to the mall.

Often, the conversation is more mundane. Team members respond to requests for directions, reports of plugged toilets and other comments. The team also handles the live Web chat feature launched on the mall website last month in which they answer questions such as whether visitors can park their RV in the parking lot and what hotels are nearby.

And then there is the mall's "make somebody happy today" campaign that surprises shoppers such as Frane with gift cards. The staffers usually have a dozen movie passes, amusement park wristbands and gift cards on hand that they can give out at their discretion.

As shoppers have caught wind of the mall's generosity, some will tweet asking for freebies. But the team reserves those gifts for people who don't ask.

Kavita Kumar • 612-673-4113