How TOMS Uses Live Video to Broadcast Its Mission

TOMS is not your average company. Founded in 2006, TOMS matches every pair of shoes purchased with a pair for a child in need. And since our inception, we have evolved our giving model to include sight restoration, safe water, safe birth, and bullying prevention services to people in need through eyewear, coffee, and bags.

Giving is in our DNA, and we’re driven by a mantra of creating a world where we live ‘for one, another.’ This world is made possible by our community of supporters, who are passionate and eager to make a positive impact.

To engage those supporters, attract new ones, and ultimately draw more attention to our mission, we use a wide range of social media tools. In the past year, especially, we’ve begun to harness live streaming across a number of different platforms.

Here’s how we use live streaming to elevate the voices of our customers and generate excitement for TOMS.

Facebook Live

Facebook Live provides a great platform for streaming directly from special events. During the recent Global Citizen Festival in New York, for example, we hosted a series of events at our coffee shop where we streamed on Facebook Live. The streams drew over 65,000 viewers and comments, and reflected the values we share with the Festival: equality and fair opportunities around the world.

We also use Facebook Live to give a sneak peek of our new and upcoming styles. We showcase employees wearing new styles around the office, and stream mini-fashion shows where they strut new styles across a stage at our headquarters in Los Angeles.

Instagram Stories

We’re fortunate to have a large Instagram following, so when the Stories feature was introduced, it quickly became an important priority.

Through Stories, we feature a behind-the-scenes look at the TOMS culture with fun videos such as introductions to the many dogs in our office, DIY ‘style your sole’ shoe decorating sessions, and events like our helping happy hours where we organize service projects for employees to support.

The sense of authenticity has translated well — our Instagram stories draw anywhere from 40,000 to 50,000 views. More importantly, they reflect the TOMS spirit and generate excitement and engage with our community.

Snapchat

Given the strong connection we have with our audience, we love the ability to create spontaneous, in-the-moment content on Snapchat. And while we take our overall mission very seriously, we recognize the importance of having fun and staying loose — that’s why we like to take raw photos and videos and give them the Snapchat treatment.

One of our first (and most memorable) stories took place when Shaq visited the office and we streamed him meeting employees and picking up his custom pair of size 22 TOMS.

Another engaging story took place during our annual One Day Without Shoes event, when we snapped stories from Australia, Dubai, Greece, Amsterdam, and various cities across the US. The stories featured barefoot activities — a reflection of our efforts to support children’s health and education around the globe.

Understanding What Works

With such a wide range of streaming platforms, it’s important for us to keep a close handle on what content is working well, and what content could use some improvement. With our social metrics, which include Sprinklr solutions, we’re able to measure the value of our live streaming efforts, along with everything else we do on social media.

Our live streaming strategy may be based on passion and creativity, but behind it is a strong set of measurements that allow us to deploy content that has the best chance of succeeding. After all, if our content succeeds, then our business has a better chance to succeed, and when that happens, we’re better equipped to achieve the mission that has driven TOMS all along.