Engaging the skateboard and snowboard community online

Junkyard.com was founded in 2002 and is today the largest online store for skateboard, snowboard and street wear merchandise in Scandinavia. As Junkyards 360 communication agency we are happy to see such great result, a rapid growth, claiming the position as the number one store within the skate and snowboard culture. Junkyard has reached somewhat of an iconic position within the younger segment – active young people think of Junkyard not only as an online retailer but as a movement. Here is a quick glimpse of how we use social media to further boost the Junkyard movement online.

Knowing that the people within the skateboard and snowboard community are extremely devoted, they are also very selective with the brands and people they accept and like. Therefore we decided to launch a Facebook page where people themselves could express what they wanted from Junkyard through the use of social media. The answer was unanimous – dialogue with the brand. So we created a social strategy that included day and night conversations with our customers. Within one year of activation Junkyard has over 150,000 fans in Sweden and Norway alone.

Our strategy is simply to present ourselves as another friend skater or snowboarder sharing and caring amongst friends online. We post daily questions, answer questions, show videos, pictures and hold competitions. A clear signal of the huge devotion Junkyard fans show is that one specific post can generate 1,000+ comments.

Being an online store it´s natural to link the social activities that are conducted in social media to the site store. With strong relevance and the right tonality, Junkyard’s Facebook Page has become one of the major traffic sources generating substantial sales on a day to day basis.

In order to always be the brand that gives the audience something extra we continuously develop and launch entertaining activities to our fan base. These are effective tools that increase the word of mouth effect and provide an immediate response. A good example of this is the “Junk or Die” skateboard game, which generated 50,000 online games in just two weeks.