How social are the UK’s shopping centres?

by Amy Rountree

Recent data shows that from June to August 2019, footfall on the UK High Street dropped by 3.1%. (Springboard). This comes as more worrying news for high street retailers and shopping centres who are fighting against a tide of store closures, administrative proceedings, and uncertain futures.

With this in mind, Maybe* listened to the online conversation created by and about 20 UK shopping centres throughout August and early September 2019.

In our four-part blog series, we explore whose social media strategy is landing with shoppers and successfully engaging them with their offerings.

To begin, we profiled 15 of the UK’s shopping centres and took a look at the size of their social media following, the amount of posts they create, the total amount of engagement on those posts, the average engagement per post, and the average engagement per day.

Looking at the detail

Followers mean very little

Rushden Lakes achieve the most social media engagement per post. Creating 75 posts throughout the period August - September, the Northamptonshire shopping centre achieved 171 engagements on average per post and 4800 in total. By comparison to the likes of Westfield and Meadowhall, both with a social following in the hundredss of 1000’s, Rushden Lakes have a social audience of just over 45,000.

In terms of content, Chesterfield centre Vicar Lane created the most with over 200 posts that achieved 1,600 engagements across the period. As we recently reported, Vicar Lane has also reported strong like for like footfall performance that is up 29% and is ahead of their 2018 numbers. Vicar Lane has an audience of over 5000, but they see an average of 56 engagements per day on their content.

The See What Works report from Maybe*, highlighting engagement with Vicar Lane's social media content. See the engagement for your own content.

So what is it that some UK shopping centres are doing that engages their audiences at rates that rival others? In the second part we take a look at some of the specifics so that you can shape your own social media strategy.

The Maybe* UK Shopping Centre index empowers centre owners, managers and marketers to create a social media strategy that attracts retail talent and brings more consumers to their doors. Compare the social media presence of hundreds of UK Shopping Centres with our free benchmarking index.

How social are the UK’s shopping centres?

Looking at the detail

Followers mean very little

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