Beauty brands drive and influence the conversation about department stores

userby Amy Rountree

To date we’ve focused our insight pieces on how active brands are on social media and how effectively retailers are engaging customers with their content marketing. By using social listening tools brands can monitor what is being said about them online, how customers feel about them and who and what influences the conversation about them.

With the above points in mind, Maybe* listened to the online conversation created about John Lewis, Selfridges, Debenhams, Harvey Nichols, and Fenwicks through the first three weeks of September 2019.

Why all brands should be using social listening tools

  • Discern the passion and pain points of their customers
  • Identify potential partners
  • Provides an opportunity to improve their own content and engagement strategy.

The findings

  1. Beauty brands drive the conversation
  2. Community and local events increase positive sentiment
  3. Brands are department stores’ biggest influencers

How much is being said about the department stores?

Social media monitoring reveals the amount of conversation generated online about the brands. These conversations were authored by shoppers, bloggers and of course the brands and partners each department store stocks. There was also conversation from events and charity partners in each of the conversations.

The department store with the most volume of conversation about it through September was Debenhams. The ailing chain saw over 2000 conversations about it online while Fenwicks saw the least with 136. 

The lipstick effect

By far the most amount of conversation and indeed the most engaging content created about department stores has been authored by beauty brands.

September saw the anticipated new makeup line from Rihanna, Fenty Beauty, land with select UK stockists. The impact of this was most evident in the chat about Harvey Nichols. Though the store only received 1,251 conversations about it across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram; Fenty Beauty actively tagged all their stockists. 

The Maybe* 'What's being said' report showing what topics are talked about most when mentioning Harvey Nichols on social media. See what's being said about your brand on social media.

The Maybe* 'What's being said' report showing the engagement on content created about Harvey Nichols . See what's being said about your brand on social media.

The key takeway

Beauty concessions drive conversation about their stockists and make up brands have die hard followings. When a must-have item drops, shoppers will claw their way to be the first to get their hands on it, while Instagrammers can’t wait to create and share looks. Department stores can capitalise on this interest in their own content marketing strategy by announcing new arrivals, encouraging customers to share the looks they are creating, and ensuring partner brands who often have larger followings, are tagging them as stockists.

When you know what people are discussing in real-time you can join the right conversations and learn how to spark the ones that will matter tomorrow. Social listening tools support your business to find its voice in crowded markets, dig out a much-loved content niche and build a meaningful presence on social media. Get started for free.

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