Website of the month: www.lasenza.co.uk

August 2011 | By Kate Donovan

This month, rather than focusing on La Senza’s main website, my attention has been lured to the lingerie retailer’s Facebook store.

While you are undoubtedly fatigued with us harping on about social networking, this original idea from La Senza is worth a click.

Facebook and Twitter require a balancing act between putting products under the spotlight and hijacking a forum predominantly used for relationship-building to sell. Although the La Senza Facebook store is certainly a selling tool, it has adopted a playful tone and cushioned sales techniques in entertaining features that prevent a hard-sell environment.

The ‘Nudist beach’ lookbook video is a fun feature in which women appear from the sea wearing La Senza bikinis. When users click on individual ones, the video switches to a close-up of that bikini, highlights the cost and allows them to buy.

The Club La Senza section of the store includes competitions, trend information and other clever snippets to encourage engagement.

Across the Facebook store, visitors are given regular opportunities to click ‘like’, increasing the retailer’s fans and potential audience. With the site having racked up 23,382 ‘likes’ at our latest visit, the savvy techniques are having an impact.

Rather than detracting from the main site, the Facebook store sends users back to its parent site when it is time to pay. A fine example of quirky techniques to engage your audience beyond the confines of your website.