Harley-Davidson Social Commerce

Brief

Harley-Davidson's ecommerce team wanted to answer: "How might we increase product purchase beyond motorcycles during the consumers' social sessions and grow the H-D community?"

The team worked on identifying messaging, growth channels and giving recommendations that can be tried and tested to drive social commerce for the iconic brand.

Process

Used social media listening tools to model behaviors of current followers across different H-D channels and platforms.
Understood the current consumer journey, distinguishing between organic social media reach and paid media conversions.

Consumer journey map showing organic and paid media conversion paths

Analyzed how competitors are leveraging social media to grow and redirect people to their purchase portals.
Adopted industry best practices and identified differences across social media platforms to design content accordingly.

Industry best practices analysis across social media platforms

Identified gaps and made recommendations for new ad designs, social platforms, engagement activity and more.
Recommended how the research can be expanded and what future steps can be taken by the H-D ecommerce team post handoff.

Insights

Social Listening Reveals Viral Moments

Using the analytics tool showed how specific events dramatically increase H-D mentions — a 3,100% increase in mentions due to Jungkook from BTS wearing a Harley-Davidson jacket.

Analytics showing spike in H-D mentions from BTS Jungkook wearing H-D jacket

Building the H-D Persona

It is important to build the H-D persona just how Dickies and Carhartt have nailed engagement with their followers.

Platform Presence Gaps

Harley-Davidson's lack of presence on platforms like Reddit and TikTok has been hurting it as competitors maintain their channels, pushing users from exploring to buying.

Platform presence comparison between H-D and competitors across social channels

Content Style Comparison

Comparing the content styles of Harley-Davidson with top competitors like Indian Motorcycle, BMW, and Triumph revealed the need to push more images across platforms.

Business Impact

TikTok Channel Launch

Post our recommendations, Harley-Davidson set up their TikTok channel with 67k+ followers based on our research and strategy.

Ad Design Recommendations

Shop the Look and Shop the Product ad design recommendations for existing media platforms were well-received and guided future ad designs.

Shop the Look

Recommendation for carousel-style ads that showcase full outfits and lifestyle looks, letting users shop complete ensembles directly from social media.

Shop the Look recommendation

Shop the Product

Recommendation for product-focused ads that drive direct purchases from social feeds with clear call-to-action and pricing visibility.

Shop the Product recommendation

We followed our project plan and were successful in giving an engaging presentation with plenty of questions and positive feedback on our rollout plan for growth channels.

Final presentation to Harley-Davidson ecommerce team

Reflections

1

Different channels have different customer and user profiles; it is important to identify the ideal platforms for products being sold.

2

As the team and number of stakeholders grow, project management becomes increasingly complex.

3

Competitive analysis can be tedious with multiple details but will build a strong foundation of research to push for action.