Retailers & Social Media

I would recommend signing up for the daily market research alerts from Emarketer.com which I find really useful. The research is predominantly US based, but there's occasionally good UK data too. Their daily email today talked about the number of US retailers who have a presence on social networks.

It's really insightful, so I thought I'd share it here too.

First off, they looked at which social networks retailers in the States were paying attention to. No prizes for guessing which one ranked 1st - Facebook.



Note that this is for retailers actually maintaining a page on Facebook or Myspace or channel on YouTube etc. It isn't merely having a presence on these sites (as otherwise it would be much higher) but these are the numbers of retailers who are actively going out there to engage on these sites.

Secondly, a recent study from Rosetta found that the number of online retailers in the US who had their own "fan page" on Facebook had dramatically increased in the last 4 months. In May 2008 there were 30 retailers in the top 100 who had a presence, by September 2008 there were 59. New additions included brands like Toys R Us (who have a UK presence) and Best Buy (who are soon to have one).

There's no doubt that Facebook has the widespread demographics which appeals to many brands but I'm always wary of brands who think that they need to be on Facebook (without having a reason to be on there) or brands who think that Facebook is a pure ecommerce channel.

The reality is that a fan page on Facebook falls into the 'nice to have' category, but it's not a 'must have' and it's only really a 'should have' if your brand are committed to spending time nurturing your fans on social networking sites. If you are a brand who have the consumers who want to wear your brand on their sleeve (read social networking profile) then it should be a case of rewarding them with special offers, competitions or talking to them via these channels.

You can win an enormous amount of goodwill by engaging in conversations on the likes of Facebook and if you show you're doing something about the feedback, whether it be changing something in store or amending the website, the fact you've listened and actioned can be a huge plus point for your brand. Cadbury's did it to great effect last year by bringing back Wispa, is your brand prepared to act in such a decisive way if enough people are calling for something?

Rather than just saying "we need to be on this social network" the question should be "how could this social network fit into our overall online strategy?". The biggest mistake retailers make is thinking that by being on these sites it's automatically going to be a new opportunity to drive sales. This could happen (granted) but you're much better off trying to use it as a customer feedback channel than a sales channel.