social media benchmark wave 5 dec 2011

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Social Media Benchmark

Retail

Issue 5

December 2011

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Contents

Introduction

Methodology

Results Facebook

New Followers

Percentage Growth

Best Practice

The Growth of fCommerce

Twitter

New Followers

Best Practice

The Introduction of Twitter brand pages

Conclusion How to run a successful social media campaign

The introduction of Google+

About eDigitalResearch

Contacts

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Introduction

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Our influential benchmarking reports Sign up for the benchmarking area here

2011 has seen huge leaps in social media technology and the uptake by consumers. The introduction of fCommerce is fundamentally changing the ways that retailers are now using and investing in various platforms. Our fourth study in June 2011 continued to demonstrate how popular social media is with retail customers. Brands are now fully embracing various platforms, including new and emerging sites, in an attempt to engage, interact and influence online consumers. This, the fifth study of it’s kind, looks to document and demonstrate that rise in popularity.

Over the past decade, we have watched, monitored and benchmarked the fundamental rise of the ecommerce industry here in the UK with our invaluable eRetail Benchmark reports. In the past ten years, the industry has evolved from basic transactional retail sites, through to today’s innovative, engaging and user friendly retail websites.

eDigitalResearch have now taken our years of experience and expertise benchmarking sites and applied it to our fourth social media benchmark study, assessing how over 100 of the UK’s top retail organisations by revenue are using the platforms to benefit both the business and the consumer.

The following report contains the key findings from our fifith study, including highlighting those retail brands that are getting it right, the current social media trends and innovations, as well as our thoughts on how to run a successful social media campaign and what the future may hold.

http://www.edigitalresearch.com/benchmarking

http://www.edigitalresearch.com/benchmarking

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Methodology

Between the 28th November and the 5th December 2011, our specialist retail researchers and dedicated social media team studied over 100 top retail brands by revenue according to Retail Week’s Knowledge Bank. We looked at retailers’ presence (or lack of) on the most influential and popular social media sites, including Twitter and Facebook, and monitored the number of followers and fans.

Alongside this, our team also looked at the quality of output and productivity in an attempt to measure the levels of innovative customer engagement by brands, studying messages by subject and topic.

Using HUB, our powerful insight and analysis tool, we were then able to drill down our findings to highlight successful brands across each social platform, as well as drawing attention to those brands that integrate consumer conversation throughout all social media sites.

In order to establish which retail sectors are using social media to the best of their advantage, we also cross compared the top performing brands from fashion, department stores, grocery and specialist retailers, in an attempt to understand social media best practice.

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Key Findings

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Topshop remain at the top of the Facebook leagues tables. However it is rivals ASOS that have made the biggest progress in 2011 and are just 30,000 fans away from the number one spot having added nearly half a million new fans in the last six months alone.

ASOS are now number one in the Twitter league tables having overtaken Topshop who have dominated the top of the tables since the benchmark began in August 2010.

ASOS have a winning formula of producing interactive features to keep users interested whilst creating an engaging social media personality that encourages followers to get involved. By attempting to talk to users, not as a brand, but almost as a friend, ASOS will drastically strengthen customer relationships and increase the number of influential customers.

Six out of the Top 20 now have Facebook stores, and all but three are using the site to sell to users in one way or another.

Retailers with an estabished presence on both Twitter and Facebook continue to dominate the league tables, increasing their reach through existing and engaged followers.

Tesco continue their assent up the league tables, despite only launching their Facebook offering earlier this year. A comprehensive page filled with a variety of features, including a Facebook store has helped to achieve this.

Almost all of the Top 20 are using their Facebook pages and Twitter accounts to engage with customers. As social media behaviour continues to evolve, it is important for brands to understand that they need to be doing more to engage their customers. By creating bespoke social media features, retailers are able to encourage conversation around their brands, helping to spread their reach on any given network.

Eight out of the Top 20 now also have an active presence of Google+, although follower numbers and engagement levels are a lot lower than on other sites. Topman are currently winning this race though, with 750 fans, a considerable amount more than others in the league tables.

The introduction of Twitter brand pages will become an important feature for retailers in 2012. Going forward, content will be more easily shared across sites given the similar design and concept to Facebook pages and allows them to devise more interactive ways of communicating with customers online


RESULTS

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Facebook Followers Position Retailer ** No. of

Followers (Issue 5)*

1 Topshop 1,731,131 =

2 ASOS 1,395,211 +2

3 New Look 1,154,939 -1

4 River Island 1,068,468 -1

5 Claire’s Accessories 688,233 -1

6 Next 679,586 -1

7 Net-A-Porter 598,410 =

8 La Senza 474,280 =

9 Tesco 442,614 +2

10 Marks & Spencer 417,509 -1

11 Accessorize 358,374 N/A

12 Phones 4U 344,518 N/A

13 Greggs 297,942 N/A

14 JD Sports 291,264 -4

15 John Lewis 279,083 +11

16 Argos 278,918 +4

17 Sainsbury’s 264,955 =

18 Dorothy Perkins 228,814 =

19 French Connection 220,761 -7

20 Topman 199,435 -5

Top 20

*During the week commencing 28th November 2011

**Where possible, we measured the number of fans of UK branded pages

Topshop continue their reign at the top of the table, attracting almost 230,000 new Facebook fans.

John Lewis make the biggest jump up the table moving up 11 places since the last results back in June 2011.

ASOS are the biggest climbers in the Top 10 and are now just over 300,000 fans away from the top spot.

Accessorize, Phones 4U and Greggs also make it into the Top 20 for the first time.

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Position Retailer No. of new followers

1 ASOS 498,370

2 Topshop 229,764

3 Tesco 220,137

4 John Lewis 210,503

5 Argos 202,028

6 New Look 147,384

7 Sainsbury ‘s 143,264

8 Net-A-Porter 135,754

9 Claire’s

Accessories 128,829

10 Dorothy Perkins 124,773

11 House of Fraser 113,658

12 Marks & Spencer 97,719

13 Next 65,817

14 River Island 65,078

15 Amazon.co.uk 61,681

16 JD Sports 55,313

17 Topman 51,075

18 La Senza 40,546

19 All Saints 37,746

20 Game 33,865

ASOS have added nearly half a million new fans attracting over double the amount of users to closest rivals Topshop.

Unsurprisingly, ASOS have attracted more new followers than any other retailer as the pure-play brand continues to take over the social media scene.

Tesco continue their rise up the social media ranks after only launching their Facebook campaign early in 2011. The supermarket first entered the league tables in June 2011 after attracting the majority of their then 222,000 fans in just a few short months.

Facebook Followers: New Followers

ASOS have a winning Facebook formula.

Tesco’s variety of comprehensive tabs within their page have helped build a big following fast.

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Position Retailer % Growth*

1 John Lewis 307%

2 Early Learning

Centre 286%

3 Argos 263%

4 Burton 186%

5 Clarks shoes 161%

6 Cath Kidston 146%

7 Amazon.co.uk 126%

8 Gap 125%

9 Dorothy Perkins 120%

10 Sainsbury’s 118%

11 Tesco 99%

12 Iceland 80%

13 Waitrose 78%

14 Mothercare 76%

15 Screwfix 69%

16 B&Q 66%

17 Evans 62%

18 ASOS 56%

19 Debenhams 53%

20 Oasis 39%

John Lewis has seen the biggest growth to it’s Facebook account as the department store favourite continues to impress users with engaging campaigns, both on and off the site and helping them to move 11 places up the league table in six months.

11 retailers outside the Top 20 have managed to significantly grow their fan base over the past six months as Facebook becomes more and more of an integral part of marketing strategies.

ASOS is the only retailer in the Top 5 to considerably grow their existing fan base since June 2011, adding 56% of it’s current following the last six months alone.

Facebook Followers: Percentage Growth

Interactive page features created specifically for different audiences, as well as the introduction of

some Facebook stores, have helped retailers significantly grow their presence in recent months.

*With a significant reach of 15,000 followers or more

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Interactive features, such as the ‘Find the perfect gift’ feature will keep users on retailer’s pages for longer. By linking

the end product directly back to the website, John Lewis are able to encourage sales and increase

engagement levels.

John Lewis encourage users to participate in the business, asking them to vote each month on what charity the

company should support.

Facebook Best Practice: John Lewis

John Lewis have created bespoke interactive features for their Facebook page that integrates well with the retailer’s

Christmas marketing message. This is a clever way of increasing engagement levels on the site and involves much

more than just reposting content designed for other channels. Consumer studies from eDigitalResearch show that people expect a seamless shopping experience no

matter where they shop, including Facebook.

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Six out of the Top 20 retailers now have a Facebook store integrated within their page.

All but three of the Top 20 are using the platform to sell directly to Facebook users in one way or another.

ASOS is still the only retailer in the Top 5 to have a Facebook store.

If the budget does not exist to develop a Facebook store of their own, retailers need to be integrating direct product page links into their posts, forums and features in an attempt to make the route to purchase easier for followers and encourage more sales.

Recent online consumer behaviour results from eDigitalResearch show that there has been an 8.8% growth in fCommerce in just four short months.

fCommerce is beginning to show real return on investment for retailers. Tesco recently announced that it has seen £1.5million sales generated through its store.

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ASOS, French Connection, Topman, Dorothy Perkins, Tesco and JD Sports are all selling through Facebook stores.

Next has implemented a website search feature onto their Facebook page, giving users easier access to their products.

The Growth of fCommerce

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As Facebook behaviour continues to evolve, brands need to be doing more to engage with their followers.

Just offering exclusive promotions and content from other channels does not really count for engagement any more.

Brands should encourage three way interaction between themselves and their customers, as well as customer-to-customer conversations to really get people engaged in the brand.

Almost all of the Top 20 are using their Facebook pages to truly engage and interact with users, not just through promotions, but also with competitions, questions and answers and bespoke features, proving that a successful Facebook strategy involves more than just pushing marketing material and website content.

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Real engagement on social media

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2011

Since announcing at the beginning of the year the launch of the UK’s first Facebook store, ASOS have had the most successful social media campaign of all, attracting far more followers than any of it’s closest rivals, yet is still just one place away from the top spot in the Facebook league tables.

Facebook in 2011

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Twitter Followers

ASOS have now overtaken Topshop as the most popular retailer on Twitter, with over 10,000 more fans than anyone else.

The Top 3 continue to dominate the channel, with third place Net-A-Porter almost 150,000 fans away from fourth place Harrods.

High end brands Net-A-Porter, Harrods and Selfridges have all made it into the Top 5, suggesting that Twitter users like to use the channel to connect with more aspirational brands than other platforms.

Cath Kidston has made the biggest jump up the table, moving 7 places and into the Top 20 for the first time.

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Top 20

Position Company No. of Followers (Issue 4)*

1 ASOS 251,665 +1

2 Topshop 238,760 -1

3 Net-A-Porter 207,937 =

4 Harrods 70,430 N/A

5 Selfridges 62,499 -1

6 Marks & Spencer 47,745 +1

7 Amazon.co.uk 45,967 +3

8 River Island 43,620 -3

9 New Look 41,425 -3

10 Waterstone's 33,601 -2

11 Game 31,332 -2

12 Sainsbury’s 30,091 -1

13 All Saints 26,640 -1

14 Cath Kidston 26,446 +7

15 Asda 24,973 N/A

16 HMV 24,027 -2

17 Topman 23,835 -5

18 Argos 18,495 -3

19 Waitrose 17,558 -3

20 Next 15,574

*During the week commencing 28th November 2011

**Where possible, we measured the number of fans of UK branded pages

ASOS have successfully managed to create a brand personality, tweeting behind-the-scenes pictures and encouraging interaction with their followers, pushing

them to the top of the Twitter league tables.

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Twitter: New Followers

Position Company Number of new followers

1 ASOS 92,958

2 Topshop 61,923

3 Net-A-Porter 61,608

4 Amazon.co.uk 25,149

5 Selfridges 21,182

6 Marks & Spencer 19,287

7 River Island 12,433

8 New Look 11,607

9 Sainsbury’s 11,164

10 HMV 10,321

11 Game 10,164

12 Cath Kidston 8,794

13 John Lewis 8,274

14 All Saints 8,027

15 Topman 7,295

16 Tesco 7,197

17 Argos 6,926

18 Waitrose 6,409

19 Waterstone's 6,248

20 Miss Selfridge 5,935

ASOS are outperforming all other retailers on Twitter, successfully building on their established presence.

Brands with an established following on Twitter are generally doing better to grow their reach on the site and attact new followers. Having more followers obviously means that they have more opportunity to attract more friends of fans.

John Lewis and Tesco are the only two retailers to increase their following by a large number and not make it into the Top 20. John Lewis sit just outside the league tables at 23, whilst Tesco make their entrance slightly lower down at 31.

Theory* suggests that each and every person has an average of 150 online

connections. With that in mind, brands are technically just 1 away from 150 other followers each and every time

they add a new user to their following, stressing the importance of trying to

grow social media accounts. *Dunbar’s number principal

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/14/my-bright-idea-robin-dunbar

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Twitter Best Practice: Harrods and Selfridges

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Using multimedia within tweets encourages users to click through to the whole profile or story and is likely to

attract more new followers.

Despite being more aspirational brands, Harrods and Selfridges have managed to create a Twitter account that will appeal to both their target market and the core Twitter demographic by

tapping into trends relevant to Twitter users.

By linking to celebrity accounts and involving them in their profiles, Harrods and Selfridges are able to increase their reach to followers of associated celebrity accounts. More interesting tweets like this will also appeal to the celebrity

culture that exists on the site.

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The introduction of Twitter brand pages will help retailers to increase their presence on the platform and add to their reach.

Brand pages allow more customisation over the look of pages and the ability to show embedded multimedia, all which will go some way to help to increase engagement levels.

It also allows retailers to integrate their messages across social media platforms better, given the similar concept and the design of Facebook pages. It should help free up social media executives time and allow them to devise more interactive ways of communicating with online users.

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The introduction of Twitter brand pages


CONCLUSION

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Social media has continued to grow at a phenomenal rate in 2011. A staggering 2.6 million new followers have joined the Top 20 retailers alone on Facebook, whilst an additional 400,000 Twitter users are now actively following brand accounts.

Growing social media accounts is essential if brands want to broaden their audience and reach as many of their potential target market as possible. As high street spending figures continue to drop, social media is a fantastic way of re-creating a brand experience online and engaging with customers.

Following the introduction of their Facebook store in early 2011, ASOS have dominated the leagues this year, attracting more new followers than anyone else and now top the Twitter league tables. ASOS have a winning formula of creating a brand personality on Twitter that encourages followers to get involved in conversations, whilst their variety of bespoke features on their Facebook page keeps followers interested and intrigued.

As social networks become more commercially friendly, especially with the introduction of Twitter and Google+ brand pages, it is important for brands to take advantage of the opportunities sites like these are offering them. However, with these changes often come a shift in user behaviour. As social media trends continue to evolve, it is important that brands re-visit their strategies and make the necessary changes to ensure that users remain interested and engagement levels remain high.

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Conclusion

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Update content regularly Interact

with followers

Reward loyal users

Make sure you’re easy to

find

Integrate campaigns

across platforms Capture all

feedback and insight

Promote product

pages and develop them

Mirror brand

image and values

Ensure channel specifics remain

‘Offline’ integration

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How to run a successful social media campaign

By understanding what users have come to expect

on social media sites, retailers will be able to

communicate better and more effectively with their followers. Using a simple

survey deployed on a Facebook page, or utilising the Facebook poll feature is a great way of doing this.

Understand social media trends

Consumer behaviour on social media sites is constantly evolving.

eDigitalResearch consumer studies have already shown big leaps in the popularity of fCommerce in just a few short months. As a result,

retailers need to make sure that they constantly revisit their strategies and update

as necessary.

Constantly update social media

strategies

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Whilst brands still tread carefully on Google’s latest venture into social media, some retailers are attempting to establish a following from the offset.

Retailers were later in the uptake on Facebook than most consumers. By occupying space on emerging social media channels, retailers can combat the issue of having to catch up on trends and behavior to communicate with customers as they have in the past.

8 out of the Top 20 retailers are already on Google+ and posting content, although a lot less frequently than on other sites as user trends and behaviour continues to develop.

Topman are currently the most successful retailer on Google+ with 750 followers, a considerable amount more than most other retailers on the site.

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The introduction of Google+ and brand pages


About eDigitalResearch

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eDigitalResearch – Who are we and what do we do

• established in 1999 by current directors/owners

• self funded, financially secure, clear ethics

• own system with outstanding technical support

• team of research professionals

• company partners – MRS and ESOMAR

• The Sunday Times Top 100 Best Small Companies To Work For 2011

We are one of the leading providers of

digital market research

• reducing costs – fixed pricing model

• faster results – real time results

• improving accuracy – no response or panel limits

We are migrating traditional market research to digital

methodologies

• social networking (digital communities)

• maximising respondent engagement

• industry norms/benchmarking

• mCommerce/mResearch

We are developing and introducing innovative

research solutions

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HUB

• ‘Closed group’ research

• Usability &

‘end to end’ experience

• Benchmarking

eMysteryShopper

• ‘Open’ user research

• Visitor/user opinion • Key performance indicators

• Brand advocacy

eDigitalSurvey

• Omnibus research • Client panel management

• Media panels

ePanelManager

• Web 2.0

• 3 way dialogue from profiled users

• Product ratings

• Net chats

eDigitalCommunities

• Automated qual-to-quant text analysis

•Full reporting of verbatim comments across any digital

medium

eBuzzBox

Product Overview

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eDigitalResearch

Vanbrugh House

Grange Drive

Hedge End

Hampshire

SO30 2AF

Tel: 01489 772920

www.edigitalresearch.com

@eDRTweet

eDigitalResearch

Key Contacts:

Michelle Fuller - Director

Lisa Bonczyk – Associate Director – Sales and Marketing

Liana Vickery – Marketing Executive

http://www.edigitalresearch.com/

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