More than a quarter of shoppers now follow retailers on social media. Don’t miss out.
Social media is an incredibly effective marketing tool if it’s done well – you can increase your potential customer base, really engage with them, boost your business’s profile and increase sales.
But it’s essential to take time to think and plan – don’t just rush into this for the sake of it; make sure you use social media to your full advantage.
Partners for Growth’s free and impartial expert advice helps independent retailers improve their overall business performance. Besides information on best sellers, category management, merchandising and layout, it offers insight into best practice, including making the most of social media opportunities.
Working with members of Partners for Growth’s seven-strong Retailer Advisory Panel, who have been making use of social media for sometime, we’ve been able to compile a handy factsheet with hints and tips on how you can maximise your impact in social media so that it becomes a valuable asset for your business.
“Social media is a free tool that works wonders if done the right way,” says member Mandeep Singh, of Singh’s Premier, Sheffield.
Singh’s Super Heros Fundraising EventAs well as communicating price promotions and competitions, his store’s Facebook page carries posts about community activities, including charity fundraising and sponsorship of local sports teams. It also has its own fantasy football league – a great way of building community spirit and encouraging shoppers to make contact in store.
“We have been active on Facebook for a few years now,” adds Mandeep. “It’s been an invaluable tool to engage with our customer base, particularly during the Pandemic, as it has enabled us to promote new products, price deals and new services like our new Singh’s Drop delivery service. Over the last 6 months we’ve increased our members by a staggering 5,500 which takes us to in excess of 22,500 members. It helps us to engage with our customers, build loyalty and through word of mouth attract new customers. We also use twitter which is also doing really well.”
Fellow panel member Jonathan James, of The James Graven Group, agrees that social media has been great for his business overall, particularly Twitter.
“We’ve found it a great way to connect on a more personal level with our customers“, explains Jonathan. “We use it to help build our brand, drive traffic to the website and keep up with the latest trends in the industry.”
Follow our simple tips below and download our Social Media Fact Sheet to help you to take full advantage of these powerful free marketing tools.
Before starting
Do your research
- Search your name, and your store name on Google – your customers may already be doing this – and see what comes up! If you like it, then build on it, if not then start working to change it!
- Look at the other businesses’ social network profiles.
- See what works and what’s popular
Think about what you want to include
- Discounts, rewards, giveaways and competitions – 44% of shoppers want these
- Daily deals on high value categories such as Laundry and Personal Care tempt Top Up shoppers
- For categories where NPD is critical, such as Ice Cream and Personal Care, highlight new stock or limited editions
- Posting a ‘secret’ word for followers to get discount on certain items could bring in new customers. You could base these around ‘Food For Now’ items, such as hot drinks
- ‘Meal For Tonight’ seasonal recipes and promotional deals will draw in shoppers seeking easy meal solutions on their way home from work
- Questions that engage users – eg. favourite ice cream or soup flavour? Can give you useful feedback
- A forum for customers to interact – swapping recipes etc – creates a community feel and highlights some of your products
- Social media conversations can help cultivate relationships – those customers will come into the shop to spend
- Posting pictures and profiles of staff gives the store a friendly feel
- Highlighting involvement in local concerns or fundraising creates a positive community image
But do take care about what not to say!
Don’t get drawn into disputes or spats with other people on social media, as there is the possibility for recourse through the law. If you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face, then don’t say it on social media!
47 Responses
Hi there, You have done a great job. I will definitely digg it and
personally recommend to my friends. I’m confident they’ll be benefited from this site.
There is certainly a lot to find out about this
subject. I love all of the points you made.
Grownups at this moment must find out a whole lot more on the subject of some
of these matters, although there will by no means be ample precious time.
After precious time for friends and family, and certainly doing work, just what
spare time is left over to commit to studying each of these most essential
teachings? As an individual applying postnatal massage
therapy, together with constructing internet websites and
operating quite a few computers, time is definitely a commodity that I never now have a sufficient
quantity of. With a little luck, I’ll be able to find the time period necessary to
master this vital issue more in-depth. Thanks to you for offering this
unique practical source of information.
Today, I went to the beach front with my kids. I found a sea shell and gave it to my 4 year old daughter and said “You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear.” She placed the shell to her ear and screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and it pinched her ear. She never wants to go back! LoL I know this is entirely off topic but I had to tell someone!
Your method of describing the whole thing in this article is truly pleasant,
every one can simply understand it, Thanks a lot.
We can easily all take advantage of discover even more regarding our self and our health and health.
Certain actions and animation amounts can currently
have wonderful advantage to us, and we have to learn even more info about them.
Your blog page has offered beneficial facts which will
be useful to various populations and individuals, and I value your posting your experience in this manner.
Thank you for the sensible critique. Me & my neighbor were just preparing to do a little research on this. We got a grab a book from our local library but I think I learned more from this post. I am very glad to see such great information being shared freely out there.
Учётные данные сохраняются в безопасном месте и подсказываются браузером при повторном входе
Реально стоящее место — верификацию делаю на [url=https://7k-casino-official1.buzz]7k casino trusted — полностью и безоговорочно
В случае утери пароля можно воспользоваться функцией восстановления на страницe входа
Hi, Neat post. There is a problem with your
site in web explorer, may test this? IE still is the marketplace leader
and a big element of other folks will miss your magnificent writing because of this problem.
Terms of Service | JEETA Global Group – Official Regulatory Framework
[url=https://kolos74.ru/]севен кей казино[/url]
Операции с финансами на сайте проводятся через защищённые каналы и надёжные платёжные сервисы для безопасности пользователей.
Поддержка клиентов доступна круглосуточно через чат, электронную почту и раздел FAQ.
Пользователи отмечают и преимущества платформы, и дают рекомендации по развитию сервиса и увеличению прозрачности.
Пробуйте [url=https://casino7k-official.top/]7к официальный сайт[/url] и выиграй крупный джекпот уже сегодня.
7к казино продолжает привлекать внимание игроков своими выгодными предложениями и яркой платформой.
Thank you a lot for sharing this with all of us you really realize what you are speaking about!
Bookmarked. Please additionally seek advice from my web site
=). We can have a link change contract between us
Heya i am for the first time here. I came across this board and I in finding It truly useful & it helped me
out a lot. I am hoping to offer something back and help
others like you aided me.
Heya! I’m at work surfing around your blog from my new iphone 4!
Just wanted to say I love reading your blog and look forward to
all your posts! Carry on the superb work!
I all the time used to read piece of writing in news papers but
now as I am a user of net so from now I am using net for content,
thanks to web.
Hey! Quick question that’s completely off topic. Do you know how to make your site mobile friendly?
My weblog looks weird when browsing from my iphone 4. I’m trying to find a template
or plugin that might be able to fix this issue.
If you have any suggestions, please share. Many thanks!
пластический хирург из Москвы Юрий Диков
Wow! This blog looks just like my old one! It’s on a completely different topic but it has pretty much the same page
layout and design. Superb choice of colors!
What’s up it’s me, I am also visiting this web page regularly, this web page
is truly pleasant and the visitors are really sharing nice thoughts.
Good day! I could have sworn I’ve been to this
site before but after checking through some of the post I
realized it’s new to me. Nonetheless, I’m definitely
happy I found it and I’ll be book-marking and checking back frequently!
At this time it sounds like BlogEngine is the best blogging platform available right now.
(from what I’ve read) Is that what you are using on your blog?
That is a good tip especially to those new to the blogosphere.
Short but very accurate information… Many thanks for sharing this
one. A must read article!
Howdy! I know this is somewhat off topic but I was wondering if you knew where I could get a
captcha plugin for my comment form? I’m
using the same blog platform as yours and I’m having problems finding one?
Thanks a lot!
Howdy just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The words in your content
seem to be running off the screen in Chrome.
I’m not sure if this is a format issue or something to do with
browser compatibility but I figured I’d post to let you know.
The layout look great though! Hope you get the issue fixed soon. Kudos
Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though you relied on the video to make your point.
You clearly know what youre talking about, why waste your intelligence on just
posting videos to your blog when you could be giving us something informative to read?
Hello to every one, it’s genuinely a fastidious for me to pay a visit this web site, it consists of valuable Information.
Hi! I just wanted to ask if you ever have any issues with hackers? My last blog (wordpress) was hacked and I ended up losing a few months of hard work due to no backup. Do you have any methods to prevent hackers?
Hello to every one, the contents existing at this web site are truly remarkable for people knowledge, well, keep
up the nice work fellows.
I was able to find good information from your
articles.
A motivating discussion is definitely worth comment.
I do think that you ought to write more about this issue, it may not be
a taboo matter but generally people do not discuss such subjects.
To the next! Many thanks!!
JEETA হলো বাংলাদেশি প্লেয়ারদের জন্য বিশ্বস্ত ও লাইসেন্সপ্রাপ্ত অনলাইন ক্যাসিনো ও লাইভ বেটিং প্ল্যাটফর্ম। দ্রুত পেআউট, নিরাপদ লেনদেন, ২৪/৭ সহায়তা এবং এক্সক্লুসিভ বোনাস—আজই যোগ দিন।
Ahaa, its pleasant dialogue regarding this post here at this web site, I have read all that, so now me also commenting at this place.
It’s actually a nice and helpful piece of info.
I’m satisfied that you shared this useful information with us.
Please stay us informed like this. Thanks for sharing.
I was recommended this web site by my cousin. I’m not sure whether this post is written by him as nobody else know such detailed about my difficulty.
You are amazing! Thanks!
magnificent issues altogether, you simply gained a brand new reader. What could you suggest about your put up that you made a few days in the past? Any certain?
I like this site its a master peace ! Glad I found this on google .
You really make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find this matter to be
actually something that I think I would never understand.
It seems too complicated and extremely broad for me.
I am looking forward for your next post, I’ll try to get the hang
of it!
When I initially commented I clicked the “Notify me when new comments are added” checkbox and now each time a comment is added I get several e-mails with the same comment. Is there any way you can remove me from that service? Cheers!
Thanks for your personal marvelous posting! I certainly enjoyed reading it, you are a great author.
I will make sure to bookmark your blog and definitely will
come back sometime soon. I want to encourage
you to ultimately continue your great writing, have a nice day!
Hi all, here every one is sharing these familiarity, thus it’s fastidious
to read this webpage, and I used to go to see this web site every day.
If you desire to get much from this article then you have
to apply such strategies to your won webpage.
Have you ever thought about including a little bit more than just your articles? I mean, what you say is important and all. Nevertheless think of if you added some great pictures or video clips to give your posts more, “pop”! Your content is excellent but with images and video clips, this blog could certainly be one of the best in its niche. Fantastic blog!
As the admin of this site is working, no hesitation very soon it will be well-known, due to its quality contents.
Wow that was strange. I just wrote an incredibly long comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn’t appear. Grrrr… well I’m not writing all that over again. Anyhow, just wanted to say superb blog!
gtj2ko
Definitely consider that which you stated. Your favorite justification seemed to be on the net the simplest factor to take note of. I say to you, I definitely get annoyed even as folks consider issues that they plainly do not know about. You managed to hit the nail upon the top and outlined out the whole thing without having side effect , other folks could take a signal. Will likely be again to get more. Thanks