Lockdown is over and retail has re-opened for business. Celebration emoji! Throughout November businesses have done all they can to serve customers in alternative ways. But now as we’ve headed into December, retailers are getting back to serving customers face to face.
Every week we make a virtual stop off in a town across the UK to sniff out the best in social media. This week we’re off to Ripon to find out what the North Yorkshire town has been doing to stay connected to customers during lockdown, and into the first shopping weekend of December.
Maybe* Place Insights allows you to benchmark the social media activity, posts, engagement, sentiment and conversation topics of all businesses within your place. When you know what the local conversation sounds like in any town or place, you can replicate the successful tactics no matter where you are.
How businesses are upping the ante as retail re-opens
by Amy RountreeHow many businesses in Ripon have social media accounts?
Maybe* Place Insights shows us that 40% of businesses in Ripon have social media accounts. This is well over the national average of 28%.
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How many businesses in Ripon create social media content everyday?
Of those 40% of businesses, an average of 40% of them are active every day. But at weekends this drops as low as 30%. Nonetheless, Ripon is on the social media nice list. As throughout November the number of active businesses got as high as 50%, which is one of the highest we’ve seen across the UK, and especially impressive to see Ripon staying connected, while locked down.
How many posts do businesses make and how engaging are they?
Local High Street businesses in Ripon create an average of 290 pieces of social media content per day. Engagements average about 15,000 per day, which is approximately 52 per post.
What is Ripon’s best social media content?
We’ve used the Maybe* Best Post in a Place tool to find Ripon’s best post on Saturday 5th December.
'Twas the first Saturday since lockdown, and all through the house…
That’s not quite how the festive poem goes, but you get the gist. Christmas has come to Ripon and nowhere more so than at The Castle. The Castle is one of Ripon’s local homeware businesses and it has gone to town on the Christmas decorations and hashtags. The festive Instagram post has earned lots of engagement and even has one of the support small business tags in the post. It only needs a couple of locally themed tags, so Santa knows exactly where to stop.
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What conversations do Ripon’s businesses create?
The businesses in Ripon have mostly been creating content about Christmas. National campaigns to support pharmacies and the local co-op have also seen cut through. Conversation about place and about supporting local is a little on the quiet side. Now is an excellent time to remind customers why supporting local matters this Christmas.
What’s the tone of the conversation?
Ripon’s conversations do stray towards the neutral rather than the positive. Let’s not forget it is the season to be jolly after all, and everyone is in desperate need of a little cheer. Try and be as inspiring and uplifting as possible especially now lockdown is over and we’re headed towards Santa’s big day.
Key takeaway
Plenty of people have left Christmas shopping to December and are wanting to hit the shops. Get ready to serve them with festive cheer and seasons greetings now retail has re-opened and give them all the inspiration they need on social media to shop local this year.
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