High Streets beware the digital gap, now is the time to adapt

userby Polly Barnfield, OBE. Founder and CEO of Maybe*

This three-part series, originally posted to LinkedIn,  is designed to explore how High Streets and businesses within them can narrow the gap between them and their socially distanced customers.

Maybe* has been measuring the social media output from over 1300 UK towns and cities for three years. The data that Maybe* collects comes daily from Google, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and now tracks the digital output of over 1million businesses. We have scaled up our data collection over the past month from 150K businesses to 1M.

This data is tracked by location and sector and where possible is matched to business results. It is predominantly in the UK today but is being extended to other countries so we can better track and gain insight from other countries performance as they come out of lockdown. It reveals the volume and sentiment of conversation across every UK High Street.

Pre-COVID-19 our concern was that local businesses were not adopting social media channels fast enough; the data revealed that in some cases up to 78% of high street businesses were not active on social media on a daily basis.

Data for the last two months reveals an even more worrying trend. It appears that since COVID-19 there has been a dramatic reduction in the digital output of many businesses.

Indie businesses


Pre COVID-19 43% of organisations active on social media on a daily basis.

During COVID-19 this has dropped to just 5%.

National businesses

 

Pre COVID-19  68% of businesses active on social media on a daily basis.

During COVID-19 this has dropped to 26%.

Consumers

 

Pre COVID 19 Consumers spend 2hr 20 mins on social media.

During COVID 19  use of social media increased by 40%.

A dramatic drop in businesses that are communicating via social media

This graph shows the results across a sample of UK High Streets with the number of businesses and organisations communicating via social media since COVID-19 and shows the dramatic drop in businesses that are communicating via social media.

This data is gathered by Maybe* identifying businesses from the Google Maps API and collecting the associated Facebook, Twitter and Instagram data on a daily basis. This view of the weekly moving average is being added to the Maybe* insight dashboard along with the best posts from each place, a summary of both the sentiment and context of the collective conversation.

This data from 1300 towns is further broken down across a further 3,200 local areas and High Streets as defined by the Consumer Research Data Centre. The UK data is being shared with the UK Government's High Street Task Force.

The same pattern occurs everywhere in the UK

The number of High Street businesses communicating with their customers via social media has dropped significantly. What is significant is that during the same period consumers' use of social media has almost doubled.

Those organisations that have continued to communicate are seeing some great results. Our Case Studies highlight a range of examples that bring this to life:

Doncaster Council deserves a shout out for their rip-roaring engagement - it's well worth taking a moment to see how a lighthearted approach can lead to significant local engagement. See how they're nailing their engagement.

Read case study

We have also included an example of an independent retailer who has turned the challenges the COVID-19 presents into a significant sales opportunity that all started by engaging with other businesses in their local town.

Read case study

Primark gets a shout out because they are maintaining their customer engagement so well despite not having any sales channels. Read how Primark are keeping there engagement sky-high.

Read case study

High Streets need a digital infastructure

Regardless of where transactions occur, brands that communicate well through digital channels have a higher propensity to trade well and are showing extraordinary results. People will crave safe physical experiences as part of the new normal, and this will need to be communicated extremely well.

It underlines the need for each High Street to ensure they put in place the digital infrastructure, skills training and measurements to ensure they can adapt fast to consumers' increasingly high digital expectations.

Those organizations that build strong social media relationships are much more likely to be able to invite their customers back. If the digital experience does not grab their attention or measure up to that offered by others, then bringing them back to the High Street in question will be much harder.

As we enter the next phase of living with COVID-19, as well as the health and safety issues each High Street and the businesses/organisations within it have to deal with, it is increasingly critical that they collectively take a proactive approach to the overall digital impact of their High Street.

Key takeaway

High Streets beware of the digital gap. We know that the High Street offer will change but what will not alter is consumers “digital-first” approach. Now is the time to adapt and accept that digital communications are a key driver of future High Street success.

Maybe* is a collaborative social media management platform that provides engagement tools, actionable insights, reports and access to training that enables organisations to make social media work for them.

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